Congress May Extend Daylight-Saving Time

WASHINGTON (AP) -- If Congress passes an energy bill, Americans may see more daylight-saving time.

Lawmakers crafting energy legislation approved an amendment Wednesday to extend daylight-saving time by two months, having it start on the last Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday in November.

First of all, you morons, moving the start date back from the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in March is not an extension of "one month." It's an extension of one week.

Second, no! We are already on "non-standard" time seven months out of the year, which makes the name "standard time" pretty much a myth. And now eight months of this hack on the circadian rhythms? Leaving just four of the shortest months of the year as the only ones where it gets dark early, increasing depression and misery? For what?

"The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use," said Markey, who cited Transportation Department estimates that showed the two-month extension would save the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day.

The country uses about 20 million barrels of oil a day.

Again, it's not a two-month extension! Does it still save "10,000" barrels of oil a day if it's just five more weeks? This dumb-ass bill would save 0.05% of our daily oil consumption. The completely worthless SUV gas mileage bill that the Bush Administration passed in 2001 - the one Gregg Easterbrook called a "fig leaf that requires new SUVs to use five billion gallons less gasoline between 2004 and 2010" - would "mean an overall reduction of national gasoline usage of less than 1%."

And that's still more savings than we'd get than by fucking up our body clocks for eight months out of the year instead of seven. No, no, a thousand times, no!. DST is OK to save energy for five, or even six months of the year, during late spring and summer. Seven months is already wrong; eight months is an abomination.

NO.