What the #$!@#%$! time is it anyway?!?

I interrupt my ongoing education of Gino to the dangers of Global Climate Change to bitch about one of the "solutions" to climate change.

Meet Ed Markey. Ed's the congressman from the 7th Massachusetts congressional district, and proud father of the provision of the 2005 Energy Bill which has screwed up to a far-thee-well every computer clock in this once proud nation. (Apparently, this picture shows Ed discarding the Parliamentarian of the House's advice not to run, and debate, with scissors.)

Anyway, where once America was an industrial giant and leader of the free world, the last two weeks have seen our great nation humbled and humiliated, as people across the continent have missed meetings, missed trains, and been generally lost, time-wise. Our Outlook calendars are a mess; meeting requests from non-updated computers are off by an hour, and we can never figure out which way their off, so we end up making them two hours off by trying to fix them. And commuting in the dark to work? That's sooo February. We were supposed to have commuting in the light by this time!

Now our good congressman thinks that he was doing something positive for energy efficiency by moving the time change. He points to the $4.4 billion in energy usage which will be saved by 2020. He points to the safety aspects, that late afternoon drivers will have more daylight, so perhaps fewer kids will get run over by dim-sighted old farts.

But I fear poor Ed was a dupe in all this. Ed was clearly a tool of the charco-golf industrial complex. As Deep Throat said, uggblaug-gaaaggg... Oops, not that Deep Throat... As the Watergate Deep throat said, follow the money...

Who stands to make out in all this? Why, the Golf industry. And the recreational grilling industry, that's who!

Read this, from Scott Deveau, in the Canadian Financial Post:

According to the congressional testimony in 1985, the golf industry estimated an extra month of daylight saving would amount to US$200-million in extra equipment sales and green fees. Even barbecue manufacturers came forward saying it could amount to an additional US$100-million in grill and charcoal briquette sales.

When it stays lighter for longer in the day, these folks figure they make more money. We'll all be golfing at 7pm in March, apparently.

Well that's it! I'm not going to be some tool of the dread leisure industry. That's right: Kal's World is now a DST-free zone. Please remember to adjust your watches when you leave.