Talk Elections

Yes. It's a worthless, outdated relic. The idea behind it it was to conserve candle wax. Let's move on.

Agreed, it's a farce.

     The only thing it does for me is worry me in the Springtime. I might forget to set my clock forward, & end up being late to wherever.

Yes

Wouldn't that whack your daylight up in Meeenasoooda?

Or you could be like Hugo Chavez, moving the country 30 minutes forward just for the sake of spiting the Yankee Imperialists.

let's just use an Earth-time and get rid of all time zones and adjustments.

If you're in Mongolia or Toronoto or whatever, you wake up at 3 am or 9 pm, or whatever it is.

I'd rather abolish standard time than DST.

Doesn't DST save us a bunch of money in regards to energy consumption?

Same thing really - just abolish the stupid clockmoving.

No. That was a sales angle back in the 70s, but it's a load of hogwash.

Actually, it was invented to force people to witness the undeniably prettiest periods in earth's existence - early summer mornings, which most of you still sleep through despite DST.
And it was introduced in countries to make wartime nightly blackouts more bearable.
And then it was reintroduced god knows why.

All that abolishing DST here would do is make it start to get light out at 3am in June.

^^^

Exactly, I love being able to be outside longer.  All eliminating DST would do is make kids fatter

We need to keep DST, but it should only be in force from the first Sunday in April to the first Sunday in September.  (Maybe a little longer if the southern States all opted out of it.)

No--I like having sunlight after work.

Starts in Victoria in two minutes...

I was raised in Queensland, where we don't have it. There was a referendum. 60% of people in south-east Qld were in favour (this is where the main cities are), but 60% in the remainder of the state (rural) were opposed, and just had the numbers to abolish it. Since then, population growth in the S-E corner has resulted in the numbers changing, although it hasn't yet been re-introduced. Typically, farmers are opposed to it. Most arguments against are ludicrous - the cows won't know when to be milked, the curtains will fade, etc. Indeed, I read a letter to the editor the other day in a rural newspaper, in which the letter writer attributed daylight saving as the cause of the drought and global warming because the sun is up for an extra hour, drying out the atmosphere... the scariest thought, though, is that this person votes...

This is a generally held sentiment, regardless of the original reason for implementing DST.


This would serve the first statement, and it would effectively redefine each of the time zones by one hour. However, in northern states, the darkness in the winter mornings is seen as a problem for school kids waiting for their bus.

One could avoid shifting the clock and recognize that different regions have different seasonal needs. That would require the individual businesses, stores, and schools to shift their hours of operation to accommodate the seasons. Some stores do make seasonal changes to their hours of operation now. Overall, I'm not sure that the public would favor that sort of case-by-case time shift for all institutions.

If we get rid of standard time, the sun wouldn't rise until 9am here in December... and would then only be up until about 5:30... hardly worth it.

That might make you notice that while light in the evening after work is pleasant, only in the morning before work does it seriously affect your quality of life.

Re Smid's Cows - the cows will still know when they're milked, as farmers tend to basically ignore DST as far as their own working hours are concerned.

I agree, except in the summer.  We have a cabin on the WSW side of a lake... and man, those sunrises can be absolutely beautiful.  The only problem is... it starts getting light out at 4am and by 5am it's so bright inside the cabin and the birds are chirping like you wouldn't believe that sleep is impossible.  It's beautiful... but I'm more of a sunset person.

I do have a great memory of my grandma waking up extra early to make us chocolate chip pancakes and I went in to get more milk to drink and a chipmunk made off with a good chunk of one of my pancakes. 

I'm three degrees to your north, in case you're not aware. :)

Plus it does save electricity and lives. Not a lot, but still.

Oh, I know that and you know that... I was just rehashing a couple of arguments that come up every time we talk about re-introducing it in Queensland.

No, we can keep it.

DST is ridiculous farce; we should abolish it posthaste.  This has nothing to do with the fact that I was a Hoosier for the first four years of my life, back when they were sensible >:(


I love that particular peculiarity :D

I worked today until 3 am (luckily I figured out I could clock out at the second 2 am), but that extra hour freaked me out.  It was like the twilight zone.

Like, people coming in the building at 1:50 came in later than the people who came in 20 minutes later at 1:10.

Daylights saving time only serves to confuse people.  Pick one, and keep it year long.

How about a happy medium.  We adjust all the time zones by one half hour, halfway between the two, and just use that.

I really don't understand why we have daylight savings time. I agree with Lunar. Lets just use "earth time". We should also make it a 24 hour clock. This 12 and 12 stuff is nonsense.

Kill it

It should be returned to whatever my sleeping schedule is.

No, it exists for functional purposes.

Urr.......whatever he just said.

Eliminate Standard Time. The daylight is more useful in the afternoon than in the morning.

Can you elaborate so us laymen can grasp what you just said?  :P

I didn't understand sh*t of what you just said, but damn it sounds good!

While I think DST lasts too long now, I'm not opposed to the idea.  However, one idiotic idea of chronology that needs to be done away with is the leap second.

I also think the time zone boundaries in the US need adjusting westward and to be consolidated into three time zones.
()

Blue = Eastern Time Zone (UTC-5)
Red = Central Time Zone (UTC-6)
Green = Western Time Zone (UTC-7) renamed from Mountain Time Zone since it includes all the former Pacific Time Zone states, and calling it Pacific Time would cause confusion

Puerto Rico and the USVI would remain in the Atlantic Time Zone. (UTC-4).

Alaska is far enough north, that whatever time zone they find convenient should be used. Keeping on Alaska Time (UTC-9) probably would be best.

Hawaii and the Aleutians should join American Samoa in using UTC-11 and the time zone renamed the Central Pacific Time Zone. (To be simplified to Pacific Time Zone after a decade or so.)  All the minor uninhabited U.S. Pacific islands should also use UTC-11, with the exception of Wake, which is currently UTC+12.

Guam and the Northern Marianas should stay at UTC+10, placing Wake at UTC+10 as well would keep it from having a time zone of its own. since Wake is uninhabited, I see no need to change the name from Chamorro Time Zone.

Give us a real-life example. 

Don't we have this so kids don't have to walk to school in the dark? Seems like good enough reason for me.

Instead of causing confusion twice a year, maybe the government should simply require offices, schools, and shops to shift their hours to one hour earlier, year round. That way the clock continues to bear reasonably close relations with the sun's position, and we continue to benefit from an extra hour of sunshine during the evening.

Preferential ballot

1) Abolish the sick joke
(gap)
2) Restrict it to what it used to be for, ie summer
3) At least remove the confusion by abolishing the last wintery remains of real time
(boundless chasm)
4) Status Quo. Seriously. I spent much of the first half of april contemplating suing the government for emotional damages. And, of course, it's purely dst's fault that I need to start working before sunup during the second half of october, then go back to something healthier for part of november before the vile time starts in earnest. (We change the clock tomorrow night. IIRC you do it even later.)

No, that is one reason Daylight Savings isn't year round.

Absolutely not. Instead, we should use it during the whole year.

If find it dreadfully depressive when it's 6 PM and the sky is already dark.

every employee should get two hours extra pay per year

Well, I think it makes sense that opening/working/schooling hours adjust to the season. This could theoretically be achieved without government intervention, but coordination problems make this difficult.

I don't think I like the idea of Universal Time. I think each time zone having its own "noon" or whatever time is useful. I might be overestimating the value of this, though.

Universal Time would create big issues in laws that are tied to time (most I don't agree with as they are things like youth curfews and mandatory bar closing times, but they won't just disappear with that.) Plus no one should live somewhere where the date changes in the middle of the day.

I'm not sure in which direction it should lean, but I really resent that hour change whenever it happens.

It seems like an unnecessary relic, though I believe it does collectively save the U.S. a non-trivial amount on electricity.

It should be made permanent.

It certainly lasts far too long; by the end I have to walk to school in the dark, which is ridiculous at this latitude.