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PJK
Alien Abductee
USA
4159 Posts |
 Posted - 07/23/2005 : 09:08:20 AM
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Apparently that is what congress is trying to do. Figures, it is all about money! LOL Updated: 04:39 PM EDT
Spring Forward Early, Fall Back Late?
Lawmakers Add Daylight Savings Extension to Energy Bill Before Congress
By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY
Getty ImagesRep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., co-authored the measure. Lawmakers said they hoped to complete the energy legislation next week.
Jump Below:
· Who It Could Help... And Hurt
More Coverage:
· Concerns Over Safety and Costs
Talk About It: Post Thoughts
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(July 22) -- Good news, golfers and after-school soccer players: Congress may give you four extra weeks a year of longer days in which to play.
The prospect of more daylight time was advanced Thursday when lawmakers agreed to add a four-week extension of the practice to an energy bill.
Daylight-saving would start three weeks earlier than usual, the second Sunday of March, and end a week later, the second Sunday of November.
"Daylight-saving time is a fantastically effective spending program," says Michael Downing, author of the book Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time.
"You give Americans an extra hour of daylight, and they go outdoors," he says. "And when they go outdoors, they spend money."
An extension costs the U.S. government little or nothing, but it creates huge economic ripple effects. In favor are retailers and recreation groups, including the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association and the National Golf Course Owners Association, which expect a boom in business.
The American Transport Association, which represents the nation's airlines, opposes it. The group says it would cost airlines millions in lost connections and uncompetitive schedules abroad. After it objected, Congress scaled back an initial two-month extension to one month and put off implementation until 2007.
The debate over daylight-saving time is about more than money.
Anne Weselak, president of the National Parent Teacher Association, says an extension means more kids would go to school in the dark. They would have trouble crossing the street, drivers might not see them, and abductions would be easier, she says.
David Prerau, author of Seize the Daylight, says the number of accidents involving kids going to school rose after daylight-saving time was last extended, in 1986. However, he says, that was more than offset by a drop in accidents after school.
Prerau says an extension would save energy, which is why it was added to the energy bill. He worked on a Department of Transportation study in the mid-1970s that estimated that daylight-saving time saves 1% of Americans' energy consumption.
Downing says claims of energy savings are outdated and unproved. He says that when daylight extends into the evening, Americans drive more and use more gas.
For decades, a mere one-hour shift in the nation's daylight has sparked vociferous debate, about winners and losers, costs and benefits.
Hollywood feared people would spend less time inside watching movies.
In the 1930s, movie mogul Harold Franklin, then-president of Fox-West Coast, said that daylight-saving time cut theater receipts 10%-30% and warned that it "has unlimited possibilities for evil to us."
Proponents, beginning with Benjamin Franklin, have included department store magnates, 7-Eleven, sporting groups and even candy makers, who once sent pumpkins filled with candy to senators so they would endorse daylight-saving on Halloween.
In 1986, when Congress last extended it, the barbecue industry estimated its sales in grills and charcoal would rise $150 million yearly. Drive-in movie theaters were opposed, arguing that it would cut ticket sales.
For many Americans, though, daylight-saving time is about lifestyle, not economics.
Downing, skeptical of energy savings, says he nevertheless loves his long summer evenings.
"With daylight-saving time, people really do spend less time in their homes," he says.
"Most people adapt fairly quickly" to a one-hour change, says Ann Romaker at the Sleep Disorders Center at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City.
But she says the minority of Americans who are "true morning people" do not - and will miss their sunshine.
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who proposed the extension, says daylight-saving time makes most people smile. "We all just feel sunnier after we set the clocks ahead," he says.
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"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!"Friedrich Nietzsche |
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Robin
Yak Addict
USA
598 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2005 : 12:04:26 PM
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| NOOOOO!!!Why can't we just leave things alone?! It's upsetting a natural balance to do this in my opinion. I think it's completely bogus that it's being touted as an energy saver. It will have cosequences for us, it already does when the TIMe is changed in Spring. Peace, Robin |
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Zachmozach
Fluffy-Esque
USA
1534 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2005 : 10:15:25 PM
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I don't like day light savings period. I personally hate living strictly by the clock in the first place though. The fact that for no apparent reason I have to get an hour out of my usual schedule just annoys me.
Then again I think we should keep time like the Mayans. Tzolken calenders and such. |
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Robin
Yak Addict
USA
598 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2005 : 12:09:33 PM
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| I know, most of the TIMe I don't wear a watch. Somehow having TIMe strapped to my arm feels so contrived. I'm able to wake with the sun and not just as it comes up, I can tell when it's 8:00 or so by where the sun hits my room. I don't have an alarm clock(too alarming), and when the TIMe changes to daylight savings it throws me off for days.I think it's really unnatuaral and I hope this doesn't happen. Peace, Robin |
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enthuTIMsiast
Alien Abductee
6990 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2005 : 11:17:21 PM
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| I don't see what the big deal is. If they want to change it, fine with me. |
Tim Reynolds Downloads
I am not the albatross of love, I am the human ellipsis. I am dot dot dot. - Leo Kottke
I hate beating people over the head with anything. We can all make up our own minds. What we don’t have is enough music. More music please. - Leo Kottke |
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Arthen
Alien Abductee
USA
4845 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2005 : 11:33:51 PM
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| Yeah, I really don't give a shit too. If you are lucky enough to not have to live on a set time schedule, more power to you. I know that's not my case, and where I'm at in my life, I live and die by the clock. |
Steve Hackett: "I'm my own opening act, you see."
Tim (before "Faceoff"): "Peace, love....and SEX!"
cbenc41@hotmail.com |
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dan p.
Alien Abductee
Uganda
3776 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2005 : 10:38:31 AM
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upsetting what natural balance? we invented it. it's upsetting your balance, and probably tons of other people's, but not whatever natural balance you're referring to. it's not as if we're moving the sun or slowing it down or doing anything to anything other than our clocks. it's not even worldwide. the earth operates as it always has when our clocks say something different. the fact that we even have it is absurd.
it looks like you have two choices: get a watch or a clock or something, or be thrown off for days. frankly i don't see how it can through you off. it's not that complicated. |
death to false metal. |
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Zachmozach
Fluffy-Esque
USA
1534 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2005 : 11:37:24 AM
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Why not just have our clocks set at the same damn time the whole year though? Why for no apparent reason do we set our clocks back and forward? It's still light the same amount of hours so what is the point? It just makes me get up an hour earlier and run off to my piano class which is so damn early in the morning already. Or on the other side I just find myself getting up an hour too early for everything etc.
The biggest thing though is that it's now become completely apparent that congress is completely fake. This is all they can come up with to do in their time? It's like some terrible reality TV show which has gone horribly bad. Between this and their wasted time with the flag burning ammendment and the other million stupid things they waste time on it's hard to believe this government can fool anyone. |
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Robin
Yak Addict
USA
598 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2005 : 3:06:49 PM
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| The natural balance I was reffering to was the one where your body knows inately, the TIMe it is according to the seasonal cycles and the sun. Don't you find yourself naturally sleeping later in Winter because the sun comes up later? I do. I don't think it's a huge deal but it's one more thing that the government is deciding for us and I don't like it. And yeah, don't they have like way more important things to do with all that high paid TIMe they seem to have?! LOL. Peace,Robin |
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Arthen
Alien Abductee
USA
4845 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2005 : 3:22:31 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Zachmozach
The biggest thing though is that it's now become completely apparent that congress is completely fake. This is all they can come up with to do in their time? It's like some terrible reality TV show which has gone horribly bad. Between this and their wasted time with the flag burning ammendment and the other million stupid things they waste time on it's hard to believe this government can fool anyone.
You're implying that you trust the people in congress to handle larger and more important tasks. I don't. I think this might be more than they can and should handle. |
Steve Hackett: "I'm my own opening act, you see."
Tim (before "Faceoff"): "Peace, love....and SEX!"
cbenc41@hotmail.com |
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Zachmozach
Fluffy-Esque
USA
1534 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2005 : 10:43:46 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Arthen
You're implying that you trust the people in congress to handle larger and more important tasks. I don't. I think this might be more than they can and should handle.
Ya good point. I wish it was a little different though. It's too bad it's such a sham. |
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SurferX
Chatterbox
USA
263 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2005 : 02:11:09 AM
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| Go figure that Markey would be involved in something stupid like this...If you live in his district in MA, please do not re-elect this man in the next election. Thank you. |
--Zak |
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dan p.
Alien Abductee
Uganda
3776 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2005 : 1:18:38 PM
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| not really. i tend to wake up when i have to for work, or wake up depending on when i went to bed the night before. i don't think the sun really enters that equation. maybe for some people it does. i don't know. |
death to false metal. |
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Daylight Savings Extended??????
