"After losing an hour of sleep over the weekend, members of the United States Senate returned to the Capitol this week a bit groggy and in a mood to put an end to all this frustrating clock-changing. So on Tuesday, with almost no warning and no debate, the Senate unanimously passed legislation... making daylight saving time permanent.... Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, rose on the Senate floor on Tuesday to speak in favor of his bill, called the Sunshine Protection Act.... 'One has to ask themselves after a while: Why do we keep doing it?' Mr. Rubio said, adding, 'The majority of the American people’s preference is just to stop the back-and-forth changing.'"
There are times when I suspect that no politician is a true conservative. Rubio doesn't know why things are the way they are and he can see one advantage to a change, and therefore a long-established practice can be abolished. The full Senate, unanimously, votes on the spot to make the change. No debate. Look, we accomplished something seems to be the babyish idea.
At least this bill must get by the House, and we'll have a scrap of time to peruse articles like "The US Tried Permanent Daylight Saving Time in the ’70s. People Hated It" which The Washingtonian rushed into press today. Hint: It killed kids!!
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62 comments:
Farm to market with climate change.
Nothing else important going on in the US...
But Rubio really is an empty suit.
Florida also has less variance in length of day vs states further north, but let's not get science involved as that might yield nuance.
Repeating a comment from a different thread.
How about we split the difference? In November when we "fall back" just turn the clocks back a half hour, then leave it.
Chesterton's Fence is pretty well known, but daylight time is not a tradition lost in the mists of the past. It only started in the 20th century. (Benjamin Franklin's 1784 essay was satire, and if he'd thought Americans 200 years later would be implementing it with a straight face I'm sure he'd have become a Loyalist...)
Did you ever meet anyone who sets their watch ahead ten minutes so they won't be late for things? That's what adjusting the clock forward and back reminds me of.
You know China is all one giant time zone? And it's set for Beijing's convenience. Imagine if in Los Angeles the sun rose at 3 am so that it could rise at 6 am in Washington DC.
If you want to be up in the daytime maybe set your schedule so you are and not move the whole country's clocks around twice a year?
I hate our rulers.
A lot has changed since the 1970s. For example, very few six-year-olds walk to school these days; in fact, letting your six-year-old walk to school would probably get you a visit from child protective services.
It's also possible for schools to change their start time if they think it's a problem, you know.
Keep standard time all year long.
Okay…why don’t we just move the clocks back an hour again and make THAT permanent? I don’t need the sun going down at 9pm in the summer. 8pm is reasonable, yeah?
"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, 'I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.' To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: 'If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.'"
C.K. Chesterton
School starts too early. Change the time school starts and knock off the spring forward and fall back nonsense.
There was a Chicago Radio Host on WLS who has since passed named Jake Hartford. He had a wonderful bit he would do twice a year during daylight savings adjustments. He would reverse the time changes and remind people that they needed to "Spring Back" and "Fall forward". If people questioned him he would respond with something like, "We'll if you see a snake, wouldn't you spring back? And if you fall more often than not you fall forward."
I will note that perhaps 2 years of covid have caused many people to forget that children normally go to school.
Rubio has never met Chesterton's fence. So: no problem.
Hard for me to imagine what the expectation interests were of the people who might oppose Rubio's little frolic and detour, but in a way that's the point. Without giving those other interests a chance to argue their points --however shaky or bizarre they might seem-- we have less than a respectable legislature here.
Politicians, in the face of multiple apocalyptic crises, make a highly-popular decision that should have been made 50 years ago. This is, and will go down in history, as the crown jewel of the Biden administration.
I’m all for it! This back and forth with the time makes me very cranky. Just set it and forget it.
- Krumhorn
Hint: NO ONE cares about kids anymore! If we did, the last two years would have been VERY Different
This isn't a conservative or liberal topic. Changing clock settings twice a year is asinine. There is no nice way of saying it. Ridiculous. Irritating. Confusing. It shifts electricity consumption from morning to evening and vice versa, and creates jet lag for no reason at all.
The initial passage of the law was a ridiculous feel-good "green" measure by wishful-thinking politicians of a past era. It has caused nothing but wasted time per several 100,000,000 clock resetting efforts twice a year, many missed appointments, and groggy change-over weeks for millions of people every year.
In West Michigan, with DST in place during winter, the sun will rise at 9:10 am. In Marquette in the UP the sun won't rise until 9:30 am.
Nice one, senators!
And, yes, they move the clocks in Europe, too.
10:1 Biden blames Putin for this
Between this bill and this other bill ( The Biden administration announces its strong support of H.R. 2116 – Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act of 2022. https://whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/SAP-H.R.-2116.pdf and https://congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2116/text)The bill “would prohibit discrimination based on hair texture and protective hairstyles that are commonly associated with a particular race or national origin, including locs, cornrows, braids, twists, Bantu knots, and Afros.”
We are fucked. They have NOTHING better to do than this?? Our Priorities...clearly in order.../SNARK!!!
Lots of kids still walk to school. A lot still walk to the bus stop. And even driving in the morning when it is dark is more difficult. Before we fell back last fall, I had to give us an extra five minutes to get to school because many cars wouldn't take a left turn with incoming headlights. In the daylight, they take the turn much quicker even if there is incoming cars. I was waiting up to three cycles in October compared to one after fall back.
Big fan of Chesterton’s Fence, here.
However, I’ve thought about it. Daylight Savings is absurd, it’s government overreach and hubris, and it needs to go.
Go to whichever, I don’t care: Daylight or Standard. But if as a result your solar noon is now more than an hour off of clock noon, your state needs to change time zone. (In Atlanta, solar noon is now 1:45. We belong in EST or CDT year-round.)
If Rubio wanted to do something useful regarding DST, he'd put through a bill repealing the idiotic 2007 change to the dates when DST goes into effect and is removed in the US.
Another damm fool thing W agreed to.
The History Guy posted a YouTube on Wyoming's history of allowing women to vote on International Women's Day. There's circumstantial evidence that the original measure was passed by the territorial legislature as a joke, along with other humorous provisions not intended to be come law, but the governor signed it anyway.
This is, and will go down in history, as the crown jewel of the Biden administration.
You joke, but it just might. (It'll look a lot better to future historians than "The Second Great Depression", "COVID-24", and of course, "World War Three".)
The bill was introduced by a Republican; therefore, the NYT opposes it; therefore, it is motivated by ignorance and nonthinking persons will back it; therefore, support for the bill is stupid.
It follows the forms of reasoning; therefore, it must be reasoning.
Funny how so many people here buy into the Times’ framing. Chesterton’s fence isn’t an argument against change and this change did not come out of nowhere.
To those suggesting that schools start later I ask ... what happens to the kindergartener whose bus then comes well after both parents have left to work?
Most elementary schools here start before 8 AM because both parents work and most offices want people in 8-5. Should we then also change the time most businesses run, or just screw over families with young kids?
Now explain how abolishing this and thus permanently altering the time the working world and schools run is going to yield better societal outcomes.
Chesterton's gate!
Unanimous
Mark said...Most elementary schools here start before 8 AM because both parents work and most offices want people in 8-5
Do we now favor government programs continuing, not because they serve a useful purpose, but because of all the detritus that has accreted around it? Out of curiosity, what was your past position on kindergartens serving as government-funded daycare?
If I were to debate against this I would offer two words: Jimmy Carter.
I suspect that Carter had little or nothing to do with the 70's bill, but I do remember getting up in the pitch darkness and standing in the freezing dark waiting for the bus.
I associate that in my mind with Jimmy Carter. No sale.
Also, those of us who like to get 9 holes of golf in after work very much appreciate that "extra" hour.
Let's just compromise and meet in the middle. Instead of springing forward an hour in 2023, let'd just spring forward 30 minutes, i.e., at 2:30 am, spring to 3 am, and just leave it.
60 minute changes are arbitrary, so let's pick a different arbitrary number.
If that puts US 30 minutes out of step with the rest of the world (top of the hour for US isn't top of the hour anywhere else), eff 'em. Cause 'Merica.
This will be problematic for all the clocks/watches/computer programs that are hard-coded to change the time. Those changes will still occur
So a child got hit by a car and we blame the time change and not the school start time or a number of other safety factors? That sounds like the typical level of thoughtfulness for a national debate. I'm not *really* moved by the moral panic that "it's just too darn dark" in the morning.
If the federal government didn't stand in the way, the 18 states would have already done their thing based on what their legislature wanted. This legislation has been hung up at the federal level for almost 5 years. Fuck your anecdotal examples!
Change all the school times seems like a lot more work than just staying on standard time all year.
Buy some blackout curtains if it gets light too early. I know about that from living in Denver.
India has been doing a 30-minute offset to GMT and it applies to the whole country east to west so there is only one time zone. Nepal takes it a step further and adds an additional 1/4 hour offset. This just shows the arbitrariness of adjusting the clocks and that it can be done for the convenience of the population (or the government) of a country.
There are times when I suspect that no politician is a true conservative.
A true conservative would have made real time permanent, with the sun coming up and going down the way God intended, not this phony, stinking, Progs-playing-God, bullshit Daylight Savings Time.
I personally do not care if its Standard or Daylight time but this moving back and forth is useless in my book.
I remember on my trip to Japan, which stays on JST only. And it was sunrise about 5AM. You would just get used to it and once done it would be fine.
Then why not make Standard Time permanent?
More and more the Biden administration looks like the TV series Veep. Kamala is a pretty accurate version of Selina Meyer.
It is about time! Pun intended! Also, I am serious as I really dislike the needless time changes twice a year.
The western edge of any tine zone is a bad place to be in the winter. DST makes it much worse.
Northern tier, western edge of the Eastern Time Zone. Michigan. Our kids go to school in the dark most of the year. Just when it's daybreak when the buses roll--BOOM. Back to darkness.
I don't want to hear 'dangerous' it is for your kids to go to school in the dark. Your kids are not more important than ours. Pick a different argument.
Remember, it was George W. Bush that changed the switch to early, early spring. You know, so people could do stuff after work, like a quick round of golf.
Kids took buses and walked to school then, now their parents drive them.
This will double climate change. Why? Because I said so.
I rather liked DST when I lived up north. Here in AZ it doesn't make much difference, and since we don't change anyway, we just end up on Mountain Time for part of the year and Pacific the rest. I prefer Pacific during college football season as I can watch it from like 9 in the morning until 11 at night.
Clocks Unsure How To Feel About Lack of Human Contact.
When Rubio proposed this 3 years ago Trump tweeted in support. (I think; account suspended.) So I'm agin'it.
Amadeus 48 said...
In West Michigan, with DST in place during winter, the sun will rise at 9:10 am. In Marquette in the UP the sun won't rise until 9:30 am.
Nice one, senators!
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3/16/22, 4:16 AM
I'm wondering if any analysis was performed on when the sun will rise/set in different zones across the country? Checks notes...nope, too sciency.
How about each state just does it on their own? Arizona seems fine without it.
"It killed kids" because "early-morning darkness quickly proved dangerous for children" in the '70s, e.g. a 6-year-old was hit by a car while walking to school.
But are any 6-year-olds still allowed to walk to school alone anymore?
Anyway, if it would be a particular problem for schools to keep the same schedule without changing clocks, the solution isn't for everyone of all ages to be forced to change their clocks. The solution is for schools to change their schedules so that school never starts at dark — which is too early to make kids be at school and ready to learn anyway.
Of course, we could all go back to what existed before railroads created time zones. Each town and city sets the clock around local noon.
For shift workers- like me- the twice a year shift is a major PIA. And different organizations handle it differently. One place I worked- the midnight shift on the leap ahead just got paid for 8 hours, on the shift back, 1 hour overtime. Where I work now- the leap ahead requires the timekeeper enter 1 hour of vacation time from 0200-0300 for the worker to receive 40 hours pay.
Gabriel mentioned China is all one time zone... Underway, underwater, we kept Zulu time- known to most as GMT, Greenwich Mean Time. From 0000-2400, no AM/PM nonsense. Why not keep time worldwide that way? Adjust work/school hours as appropriate for the area. Want the kids to walk/ride to school in daylight? Adjust the start time. Do it following a weekend. (Not applicable to the far north or far south....)Each business could decide- what time do I open? What time do I shut? They could adjust with the local schools- or not adjust at all. So what if the sun rises at 0030- the sun has nothing to do with the time.
There are all kinds of things we could do- but adjusting the time twice a year is just plain stupid. But we do need a time standard. Before railroads, different times everywhere were, well, so what? No one moved fast enough for it to be a problem. Post railroad- a problem.
Time and understanding it has always been a problem. IIRC, Magellan's Navigator was court martialed on return because he had obviously missed a day. The calendar wasn't adjusted when the fleet crossed the International Date Line because no one had yet conceived of it.
In the weeks after the change, eight Florida kids were killed in traffic accidents.
And how many were killed in the weeks before the change?
Good God, that line is an example of just how worthless the US press is.
Dear writers: Numbers are worthless without a baseline. Did the death rate go up, or down? Did it go up by a meaningful amount, or not? ("Death rate doubles!" it went from 1 per month to 2.)
My general rule is I ignore any numbers that are provided without sufficient information to determine their value
The factual picture was a bit more complicated. The National Safety Council reported in February that pre-sunrise fatalities had risen to 20 from 18 the year before
Which is still kind of useless, since "pre-sunrise" is now an hour longer than it was the previous year. How many people died in the first hour after sunrise the previous year? You have to add those deaths to last year's total, in order to do an honest comparison.
I don't particularly like the idea making "high noon" be 1 PM rather than noon. But I really detest bad writing, and that's what I'm seeing here
Gabriel said...
If you want to be up in the daytime maybe set your schedule so you are and not move the whole country's clocks around twice a year?
Yeah, because schools, businesses, etc. dont' all have set hours that everyone else has to adapt to.
It's nice that YOU have flex time. Stop assuming everyone else does
When I moved to Arizona, I was pleased not to have to change clocks twice a year. Then it became confusing to remember our relationship to the rest of the country, which changes twice a year. Let's see, are we two hours or three hours behind New York...?
Pick a time and leave it. I don't want to change clocks, and I don't want you changing yours either, dammit.
I prefer DST simply because darkness at 4:15 in the winter sucks and daylight at 10 pm in the summer is great.
But pick one or the other and leave it alone.
The western edge of any tine zone is a bad place to be in the winter. DST makes it much worse.
Depends upon how you define 'worse.' I lived not five minutes from the start of the Mountain Time Zone and absolutely loved daylight until nearly 11 pm in the summer.
It's perfect for a night owl.
I lived in AZ 18 months and had no problem with its system. But then when I moved out and continued dealing with AZ folks for business and it was an annoyance.
Also lived in UK growing up when they experimented with not moving clock for 3 years. No biggie. (Must say I miss late summer sunsets in N. England.)
But I defer to those with kids on pros and cons.
This is probably the one thing congress could do that would meet with general approval.
Whatever happened to federalism...states can choose what time standard to use. Or how about my body, my time. Individuals can set their clocks however they choose.
Bunkypotatohead said...
This is probably the one thing congress could do that would meet with general approval.
Whatever happened to federalism...states can choose what time standard to use. Or how about my body, my time. Individuals can set their clocks however they choose.
Nope, that's one time when Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce really does apply.
The original time zones in the US happened because every town had its own clock, set to its own noon, and that meant that railroads could not post schedules that would actually make sense to the travelers.
Try to set up cross-State meetings where each State has its own clock. Talk about a recipe for disaster.
The nation is not near as homogeneous, as it once was. We are not a nine to five blob moving in unison. No longer does an extra hour of daylight move any metric.
I believe Chesterton's fence can come down.
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