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Saturday, March 08, 2008

Remember the clock

Tomorrow (Sunday the 9th) morning at 2 a.m. marks a bi-annual psychological warfare of the United States government against its people.

7 comments:

clinch64 said...

Robert, that is a very good way of putting it. That's exactly what the government has done.

So many people are under the impression that moving the clocks up will save energy. Where is the proof? It is also an assumption that we will now have more daylight. This is also a misconception. An example is this. There has been the same amount of darkness and daylight on July 4th since the beginning of time. The same is true for January 1st, March 8th, or whatever date you would like to use. This darkness and light is of course, according to nature by the Almighty. The only thing all of these time changes do is determine what time they will occur on your watch. The same is true for the amount of heat or cold. Tomorrow, the amount of heat will be the same as it would normally be, only now it will occur at a different time on your watch. So are we really conserving energy? An individual's air conditioning system will run the same regardless. I will always believe the whole process is tied to money. It has been proven that light increases spending. The majority of shopping in modern America is now done after 5:00 p.m. ?????

R. L. Vaughn said...

Funny, as I left an hour early this morning, evidently no one had told the little night critters that they needed to be hastening home to bed since the "time" has changed!

One reason I call this as a "pyschological warfare" is this--

Americans are still independent and rebellious enough that if the Federal Government made a law for everyone to get up an hour earlier, start their jobs at 6:00 a.m. instead or 7, open their businesses at 8 a.m. instead of 9, and start school at 6:45 a.m. instead of 7:45, some folks would be storming Congress. But as it is we follow right along like sheep. And I'm not just pointing the finger at others. We started meeting time an hour earlier Sunday, and I went to work an hour earlier today.

I wonder if their continually moving it earlier in the spring and later in the fall is getting us ready for year-round daylight savings time??

Anonymous said...

Year round daylight savings time wouldn't work. It would be light between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. at the height of summer, and all that good daylight would be "wasted." Obviously the idea is to get us to use less electricity by shifting the daylight hours to the evenings, and I admit I like having it light until 9:00 p.m. in the summertime. Gives people many hours to piddle around outside after work before dark.

In Christ's time I think the day had six division? (Bible scholars correct me on that point). But they were still man-made divisions. Clocks with minute hands were a long time coming.

Sorry to be contrary, but it seems to me we can divide the day up any way that is convenient, right? Maybe we should have a referendum on this one. ;)

Anonymous said...

... and that was Terre.

R. L. Vaughn said...

Terre,
I agree that round daylight savings time wouldn't work. That doesn't always stop our government from trying a thing! ;-) IMO, daylight savings time as early and as late as we've moved it doesn't work well either.

You are correct that divisions of time are man-made. I don't object to that. Ultimately, liking DST or not is a personal preference. I don't really like our government's piddling with it the way they have in the last few years. The old way (later in the spring and earlier in the fall) was not nearly as intrusive as it's now been made. And, whatever good the government might intend, DST is a backdoor way of getting its citizens to do things on the "government-approved" schedule.

R. L. Vaughn said...

That should be "I agree that YEAR round daylight savings time wouldn't work."

Anonymous said...

This subject always seems to open Pandora's box. I think one thing this changing time affects is ultimately an individual's most valued commodity, their health. I know of some I have talked to that really struggle with it, leading to lost sleep,change in eating habits, diminished work performance, and other problems. It is especially rough for those whose work requires them to arise at an early hour and retiring also at an earlier time. Makes it hard when the sun is still in full view. I guess Ben Franklin would have to revise his old adage somewhat now.

Neil