Cows against daylight savings?
House, Senate OK Daylight-Saving Extension — They decided to extend daylight savings time and supposedly “according to some senators” any change would adversely affect livestock. Huh? Wha? Do cows tell time? This is our legislature at work. Brain-dead.
An agreement was reached Thursday to extend daylight-saving time in an effort to conserve energy, but not to the extent the House approved in April.
House and Senate negotiators on an energy bill agreed to begin daylight-saving time three weeks earlier, on the second Sunday in March, and extend it by one week to the first Sunday in November. The House bill would have added a month in the spring and another in the fall.
According to some senators, farmers complained that a two-month extension could adversely affect livestock, and airline officials said it would have complicated scheduling of international flights.
Cows can tell the time – just try milking them two hours earlier or later – you’ll regret it.
That sort of thing is what the farmers are refering too.
John, you if you think that’s bad, you should try living in Indiana. I have been in this state for about 6 years, and they just adopted DST after trying every year for the past 30 and failing. You got the same reasoning up here, too. Oh, the cows will get confused and stupid stuff such as that.
I work with all engineers and you would be amazed how many of them were against DST for no reason other than “we’ve never needed it” and “I’m agin’ it”
I have never seen such a backwards and anti-progress state such as this one. They must have sent their lobbyists to DC
It’s impossible to track us all down – there’s simply to many of us…
*We*all are the idiots. We let *them* do it and get away with it…
I think all the members of the house and senate have watch too much tv growing up. Dooopid! Doy!
Sorry, but I do not see DST as “progress”. If DST is all that great, then why not universally apply it across the entire year? DST is the worst idea since new Coke. The sheer cost in software development alone would offset the benefits to farmers.
How can a government law create more daylight?
The point behind this new DST thing is the notion that we would save energy because we would use less energy if we woke up an hour later and went to bed an hour sooner. We would use more sunlight and less electricity right? I don’t buy into this and I think it’s a ridiculous attempt by our administration to form an “energy policy”. Today’s world is increasingly not an only-daytime operation. Businesses are continuing to expand hours and employees these days are more willing to work extended hours. Many places are 7 days a week, and very few companies other than government companies give holidays off- and paid. If they wanted to save energy, I think we would have failed to expand business operations to every waking hour of the day and night in the first place. Even if this DST thing passes, people will still be getting up just as early, people will still be going to bed just as late. And really, a three week time difference is worth rerouting airline flight paths and upsetting cattle everywhere?? The reason we started DST is to benefit farmers, are we going to now use DST to make our administration look good, and damn the farmers?
And who wants to trick or treat in the daytime anyway, jeez. That was lame.
Daylight Savings Time, the government always seems to become fascinated by this concept whenever there is major military budget. Weird.
I’m agreeing with laineypie. Cows expect to be milked on sun time, not clock time.
There’s really no energy savins from DST, as when sunset and dark comes later in the evening, sunrise also comes later in the morning. People still have to geet to work at the same time in the morning, so the home and workplace have to be illuminated earlier. No energy savings there. If the govt. really wants to save energy, EPA should decertify new autos, pickup trucks, SUVs and other passenger vehicles (motor homes) that don’t get at least (for instance) 20 mpg, and stop the construction of new peaking power plants that burn oil and gas.
Unintended (I hope) side effect of DST: drive in movie theaters have been going out of business for years, because showtime in the summer has moved (for instance) from 8 PM to 9 PM.
laineypie and Floyd, you guys both talk like there is no effect for most of your posts and then you tack on at the end a statement about how there is an effect from DST – Holloween and drive ins.
The energy savings from DST are huge. Sure there are some businesses that run 24hrs a day, so what, 100 million households will use an hour less electricity(ok, so the calculations aren’t that simple, but the savings are huge!). You say people will still get up as early and go to bed as late anyway? what does that mean? In defiance of DST most people will refuse to spring forward? On some sort of weird prinicple people will go to work an hour before they have to be there? As for cows if farmers care about it they should be on “sun time” anyway and adjust when they get up throughout the year. DST doesn’t say that its mandatory for people to get up later, just that it saves energy.
Oh and DST didn’t ruin Holloween, it was parents paranoid that their kids would get hit by cars in the dark. Holloween ends at like 8:45 now, its rediculous.
Floyd,
I too live in Indiana. I couldn’t give a rat’s tooty for DST. I see absolutely no reason for it. If you want to milk the cows an hour earlier, then get up an hour earlier. If you don’t want to have the kids go to school in the dark, then start school an hour later. If you want an extra hour of sun in the afternoon after work, start work an hour earlier.
The Governor of Indiana wanted to put the State on Eastern Time. That would mean that we would have the July 4th fireworks going off at 10:30 instead of 9:30. Drive-in movies would be starting an hour later too. And the kids would be leaving for school in the dark almost year round. This change would have put us on the same schedule as New York. Why? So businesses could phone the eastern seaboard and know what time it is there. It sure wasn’t for the people in Indiana. The only reason we got it was because we now have a Republican Governor and legislature. In a plebiscite, I think the majority would vote against DST.
Well, the Federal Department of Transportation is responsible for time zones. They put a monkey wrench into the Governor’s plans by saying that each county must decide which time zone they wish to be in, Eastern or Central. Only they must be contiguous to another county in that time zone. So, Indiana could end up a patchwork of time zones. Then the DoT said that each county must make a study and prove why they should be in that time zone. Well, that isn’t cheap anymore. A county like I live in, 16,000 of rural farm country, that is a big expense we cannot afford. And the corn won’t care what time it is as long as the sun shines and the rains come. And the ultimate decision will be made in Washington.
I don’t understand what the benefits to DST are. I wish someone could quote a legitimate study that says there are benefits.
You seem to be conflating time zones and DST.
Daylight savings time works just fine. You end up rising for the day, and going to sleep at night at the appropriate time…it occurs technically at 2:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, but people just adjust their clocks on Saturday evening before going to bed. You don’t even really notice the difference, it’s only an hour….for the record, I live in Taxachusetts…..I mean, Massachusetts.
Just Have everyone switch to GMT and be friggin done with it already!!!!