End Daylight Savings Time

IÂ’ve never liked Daylight Savings Time. It is an annoyance to me as someone whose workday starts before 7:00 AM. I already have to drive to work in darkness much of the year, and the change in time forces me back into darkness. My students, finally arriving to school in daylight, are also required to travel to school in darkness, to the detriment of their safety. And as an additional hardship, the time change will cause me to once more lose the signal of my favorite talk radio station, with its lower signal strength between dusk and dawn.

John Miller writes about the problems presents a number of excellent reasons for doing away with DST in an article in National Review.

I recently wondered exactly why we observe Daylight Saving Time (DST). For some reason, I had harbored a vague notion that it had to do with farmers.
Well, it turns out that DST had nothing to do with farmers, who traditionally haven't cared much for it. They care a lot less nowadays, but when the first DST law was making its way through Congress, farmers actually lobbied against it. Dairy farmers were especially upset because their cows refused to accept humanity's tinkering with the hands of time. The obstinate cud-chewers wanted to be milked every twelve hours, and had absolutely no interest in resetting their biological clocks — even if the local creameries suddenly wanted their milk an hour earlier.
As Michael Downing points out in his new book, Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, urban businessmen were a major force behind the adoption of DST in the United States. They thought daylight would encourage workers to go shopping on their way home. They also tried to make a case for agriculture, though they didn't bother to consult any actual farmers. One pamphlet argued that DST would benefit the men and women who worked the land because "most farm products are better when gathered with dew on. They are firmer, crisper, than if the sun has dried the dew off." At least that was the claim of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, chaired by department-store magnate A. Lincoln Filene. This was utter nonsense. A lot of crops couldn't be harvested until the morning dew had evaporated. What's more, morning dew has no effect whatsoever on firmness or crispness.

Perhaps farmers should take one for the team — i.e., put up with DST even though they don't like it because it keeps city cash registers chinging into the twilight. Yet the contention that DST is good for business is doubtful. It may help some businesses, but it also stands to reason that other ones suffer. If people are more likely to browse the racks at Filene's Basement in the daylight, then they're probably also less likely to go to the movies or take-out restaurants. And in the morning, when it's darker during rush hour, commuters are perhaps disinclined to stop at the corner store for a newspaper or the coffee bar for a latte. Although it's impossible to know the precise economic effects of DST, any attempt to calculate them carries the malodorous whiff of industrial policy.

We're also informed that DST helps conserve energy, apparently because people arriving home when the sun is still up don't switch on their lights. Didn't it occur to anybody that maybe they compensate by switching them on earlier in the morning? Moreover, people who arrive home from work an hour earlier during the hot summer months are probably more prone to turning up their air conditioners. According to Downing, the petroleum industry once was "an ardent and generous supporter" of DST because it believed people would hop in their cars and drive for pleasure — and guzzle more gas.

But the very worst thing about DST is that it's bad for your health. According to Stanley Coren, a sleep expert at the University of British Columbia, the number of traffic accidents and fatal industrial mishaps increase on the Monday after we spring forward. (Check out one of his studies here.) The reason, presumably, is because losing even a single hour of sleep over the weekend makes a lot of people a bit drowsier on what we might usefully call Black Monday. Unfortunately, there's no compensating effect of a super-safe Monday as we go off DST and "fall back" in the autumn.

So DST is deadly. But maybe we should keep that troubling little fact to ourselves, before Congress decides to impose the National Bedtime Hour.

LetÂ’s just let time be time. There are some natural phenomenon that Government cannot and should not tamper with. And if it can muck around with time, should we be surprised if some year or other they attempt to amend or repeal the Law of Gravity?

Posted by: Greg at 11:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Insipid Silliness And Mean-Spiritedness

I just donÂ’t understand how A led to B.

Janeal Lee, 30, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a scooter, was disqualified after she was shown in a picture in a newspaper standing up with her high school math students.

She says she has been made to feel like she's "not disabled enough" to represent disabled people in Wisconsin.

Lee had planned to go to the national pageant with her younger sister, who also has muscular dystrophy and won the competition in Minnesota. Students at Kaukauna High School, where Lee teaches, raised $1,000 for her trip to the national pageant.

But pageant officials are standing by their ruling that in public, the winner must mostly be seen in a wheelchair or a scooter. Otherwise, says an official with Ms. Wheelchair America, you risk offending women who can't stand or walk.

So the crown goes to the runner-up, Michelle Kearney, of Milwaukee, Wis., who will compete in the national pageant in July.

One picture? Tell me how that one picture constitutes a violation of the policy?

Posted by: Greg at 11:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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More Democrat Election Fraud And Incompetence

Notice, this is Democrat Miami-Dade, not a GOP part of the state, where incompetence reigns and votes go uncounted. It isnÂ’t in an area where the process is controlled by Republicans.

The elections chief of a key South Florida county has resigned amid revelations of voting problems in six elections.

Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan resigned Thursday. Her chief deputy, Lester Sola, will take over temporarily.

The veteran Chicago election official came on board in Miami in June 2003 to fix problems from the 2000 presidential election. The county was heavily criticized after 28,000 mostly punchcard ballots went uncounted. President Bush won the state - and thus the presidency - by 537 votes.

County Manager George Burgess said he questioned Kaplan about a special election on slot machines in which there were a high number of ballots with no recorded votes - known as undervotes.

Kaplan blamed a software fluke, he said.

Officials later identified elections in West Miami, Bay Harbor Island, Surfside, Golden Beach and Cutler Ridge with high undervotes.

Kaplan said the uncounted votes would not have changed any results, but pari-mutuel industry officials - who lost a bid to install slot machines at tracks and jai alai frontons - have asked for a new election.

Burgess said Kaplan's explanations for the problems were inadequate.

But why should we be surprised by the inability of this woman to conduct a free and fair and accurate election – her qualifications include a stint working with elections in Chicago, the capital of Democrat vote fraud.

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