DST Change: We'll Soon Pay

Does anyone remember 2 years ago when energy prices rocketed upwards? Especially gasoline prices in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina? Everybody was screaming bloody hell about what it was costing to fill up the family chariot on gasoline.

Our faithful servant politicians in Washington were moved to act. After all, they had to do SOMETHING! So they did, and passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This was of course a huge boondoggle. In many ways it mandated (or failed to mandate) in so many ways that it actually caused prices on gasoline to increase dramatically this past summer! (See MTBE liability provision absence). Plus all the tax provisions and deductions made the tax code that much harder to figure out (I do my own taxes and was major frustrated last year!) and more expensive to comply.

The biggest dunderheaded idea in the bill was the provision changing the dates when Daylight Saving Time would be observed. The time was increased by a couple of weeks on each end. The purported reasoning was that DST would save energy. My own retort at the time to that line of reasoning was: "If it is so great, then how about we just go to DST 100% of the year?"

So as a preview of what a lot of people are going to experience in a little over a month from now (March 11), I predict that:

• Computers not patched will be changed manually on March 11, but will change themselves again on the normal date. Repeat again in November. That is 4 manual changes!
• Everything that changes automatically will also have to go through 4 changes. That would include VCRs.
• Businesses are going to be especially struck by the expense for these changes.
  

Our politicians had to something, anything to solve the energy problems. Too bad they never think through on these decisions. The only question now is, how long before this change in dates is revoked (again!).

So come March, expect to hear lots of news stories on the impending time change.