Sick of Day Light Savings Time???

I am typically very cynical of pretty much any program the government tries to initiate. So when President Bush and Congress passed a law that moved the dates for Day Light Savings in the name of "saving energy costs," I was slightly skeptical. If you are like me, it's already difficult enough to get up early in the morning and get to work on time as it is. If I am now required to remember to change my clock on top of that, I am gong to be in a world of trouble. Here is a reprinting of an article I found interesting on www.standardtime.com

Why did daylight saving time (DST) start, and why does it still continue? When asking a random sample of people we heard two answers again and again: "To help the farmers" or "Because of World War I ... or was it World War II?"In fact, farmers generally oppose daylight saving time. In Indiana, where part of the state observes DST and part does not, farmers have opposed a move to DST. Farmers, who must wake with the sun no matter what time their clock says, are greatly inconvenienced by having to change their schedule in order to sell their crops to people who observe daylight saving time.

Daylight saving time did indeed begin in the United States during World War I, primarily to save fuel by reducing the need to use artificial lighting. Although some states and communities observed daylight saving time between the wars, it was not observed nationally again until World War II.
Of course, World War II is long over. So why do we still observe daylight saving time?
The Uniform Time Act of 1966 provided the basic framework for alternating between daylight saving time and standard time, which we now observe in the United States. But Congress can't seem to resist tinkering with it. For example, in 1973 daylight saving time was observed all year, instead of just the spring and summer. The current system of beginning DST at 2 AM on the first Sunday in April and ending it at 2 AM on the last Sunday in October was not standardized until 1986.
The earliest known reference to the idea of daylight saving time comes from a purely whimsical 1784 essay by Benjamin Franklin, called "Turkey versus Eagle, McCauley is my Beagle." It was first seriously advocated by William Willit, a British Builder, in his pamphlet "Waste of Daylight" in 1907.
Over the years, supporters have advanced new reasons in support of DST, even though they were not the original reasons behind enacting DST.
One is safety. Some people believe that if we have more daylight at the end of the day, we will have fewer accidents.
In fact, this "benefit" comes only at the cost of less daylight in the morning. When year-round daylight time was tried in 1973, one reason it was repealed was because of an increased number of school bus accidents in the morning. Further, a study of traffic accidents throughout Canada in 1991 and 1992 by Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia before, during, and immediately after the so-called "spring forward" when DST begins in April. Alarmingly, he found an eight percent jump in traffic accidents on the Monday after clocks are moved ahead. He attributes the jump to the lost hour of sleep. In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, Coren explained, "These data show that small changes in the amount of sleep that people get can have major consequences in everyday activities." He undertook the study as a follow up to research showing that even an hour's change can disrupt sleep patterns and "persist for up to five days after each time shift." Other observers attribute the huge spike in accidents on the first Monday of DST to the sudden change in the amount of light during driving times. Regardless of the reason, there is no denying that changing our clocks has a significant cost in human lives.
While some people claim that they would miss the late evening light, a presumably similar number of people love the morning light. And projects, postponed during the sun filled summer, will be tackled with new vigor when the sun sets an hour earlier each day.
Congress appears to have felt we were not having enough of a difficult time so in 2007 they passed a law starting Daylight Savings time 3 weeks earlier and ending it one week later. This cost US companies billions to reset automated equipment, put us further out of sync with Asia and Africa time-wise, inconvenienced most of the country, all in the name of unproven studies that claim we save energy.
STANDARDTIME.COM SAYS: If we are saving energy let's go year round with Daylight Saving Time. If we are not saving energy let's drop Daylight Saving Time!

Congressman Ron Kind Shoves LaCrosseWatchDog Blogger For Asking About ObamaCare

Today at the GOTV Rally for Ron Kind at the UW-La Crosse Campus, the LaCrosseWatchDog tried to ask our congressman why he wouldn't meet with us when we were in Wash DC last Oct, 2009 to protest the ObamaCare law. Ron Kind immediately becomes agitated and tries to grab and push the camera away from the LaCrosseWatchDog blogger.  Ron Kind had the option of walking away.  Instead, he crossed the line by creating a physical altercation. Watch Ron Kind Becoming UnKind below.

 



Message From Blogger Who Asked Ron Kind The Question:
As described in the video, I went to Washington D.C. last October to protest passage of the health care bill during the second of two rallies in opposition to this monstrosity. This event was the one spearheaded by MN Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. I spent two days in the Capitol, with thousands of others, visiting various offices including my own Congressional Representative, Ron Kind. On both visits to the office, I was told that the Congressman was unavailable. Apparently, some of the elite in Congress are not too inclined to meet with those they purport to represent - even when this constituent travels half-way across the country to be heard on a major bill of great importance. Of course, the Legislature entirely ignored and dismissed the overwhelming popular opposition to this grotesque bill, along with other horrendous legislation. Let's be sure they NO LONGER HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO IGNORE US AGAIN !

You can clearly see from the video, I was NOT in Ron Kind's face at any point. I respected his personal space, and was even quite discreet, holding the camera close to my body below my left chest. He had to REACH OUT an arm's length to make contact with me and my camera. He did this only after being told that the health care bill was bad legislation - a policy disagreement. He attempted to enforce his request for "courtesy" with a very UNcourteous physical aggression.

This was NOT a matter of "gotcha journalism" or a fishing for 15 min of fame on you-tube. I had sincere and serious questions for my representative about his conspicuous unavailability and he refused to give any explanation for his elusiveness. We posted this video NOT to draw attention not to ourselves or lacrossewatchdogs, but to expose the elite attitude and hostility displayed from a PUBLIC SERVANT toward a constituent. Lacrossewatchdogs does not exist to seek fortune and fame, but to fill the void left by the main stream media in covering news and holding public officials accountable - the PRIMARY purpose and responsibility of the press. .

This is the latest example in a series of incidencts where Ron Kind and his supporters (UW-La Crosse Administration, League of Women Voters, and WXOW 19) have done everything they could to stop the LaCrosseWatchDog from filming him. They even went as far as to have one of us arrested for simply showing a video camera at a recent debate before it had started. Ron Kind had the option of walking away. Instead, he crossed the line by creating a physical altercation.