Metagrobolize Monday

metagrobolize ~ to mystify; to puzzle out

Everybody get their clocks adjusted on the weekend?

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one out there that hates the time change. And I don't care if the clocks are going forward or back, I hate them both. I don't know who came up with this stupid idea, but they're just ... stupid!

*lightbulb goes off over head*

I should do some research on this!

To start with, here are some facts I came up with to support my dislike of the time change:
- heart attacks increase by 10 per cent after a time change
- it not only disrupts the sleep pattern it reduces the quality of sleep
- suicide rates increase right after a time change
- there is an increase in traffic accidents just after a time change

The concept of Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise has been around since 1486, however Benjamin Franklin made the phrase popular in his "Poor Richard's Almanack" in 1739. And he is also supposedly behind the satirical suggestion in 1784 that Parisians economize on candles by getting up earlier to make better use of the daylight, the root of the daylight saving time idea.

In 1895, George Hudson, a scientist in New Zealand, proposed shifting forward two hours in October followed by two hours back in March. There was no follow-through with this idea, nor with British builder William Willett's idea of turning the clocks forward 20 minutes for each of the four Sundays in April and back again on the four Sundays in September.

I kind of like the sound of that last one, it would be so much easier to spread the time changes over several weekends.

It appears Germany was the first county to embrace daylight saving time, in 1916, to support the war effort by saving fuel. Several other European countries followed suit, but went back to standard time after the war.

Canada and the U.S. had a year-round daylight saving time during WWII, called "War Time". This went from February 9, 1942 until September 30, 1945. After that things kind of fell apart for the U.S. There were no consistent rules for DST and caused chaos with transit and the broadcasting industry. This lasted until 1966 when the Uniform Time Act was established, setting DST to begin the last Sunday of April and end on the last Sunday of October.

In an effort to conserve energy during the energy crisis, U.S. Congress extended DST to ten months in 1974 and eight months in 1975. In 1986 this was amended to have it begin on the first Sunday in April, ending on the last Sunday in October. And finally, in 2005, U.S. Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, changing the dates again. Daylight Saving Time now begins on the second Sunday in March, and ends the first Sunday in November.

So now you know. Don't you feel better?

:-D