Free Republic

Americans don’t get more daylight. Plants don’t enjoy an extra hour of sunshine. The only difference it makes is to harm our health. When you woke up this morning, were you groggier than usual? When the alarm sounded, were you a bear awakened in the middle of January? When you left home for work, did you grumble about the extension of darkness where just yesterday the glow of a preborn sun had been? If you answered “Yes,” congratulations! Your body was screaming that you had once again been scammed by daylight savings time (DST). DST is a fraud guarded by...

While Germany and Austria were the first countries to use DST in 1916, it is a little-known fact that a few hundred Canadians beat the German Empire by eight years. On July 1, 1908, the residents of Port Arthur, Ontario—today's Thunder Bay—turned their clocks forward by one hour to start the world's first DST period......Germany introduced DST in 1916. Clocks in the German Empire, and its ally Austria, were turned ahead by one hour on April 30, 1916—two years into World War I. The rationale was to minimize the use of artificial lighting to save fuel for the war effort.Within...

CHICAGO (AP) — Brunch dates and flag football games might be a little easier to get to this Sunday, when phones grace early-risers with an extra hour of rest before alarm clocks go off. The downside: Next week across most of the U.S., the sun will set well before many folks step foot out of the office, leaving them to run errands or take walks in utter darkness. Come Nov. 5, daylight saving time is out and standard time is in, and will last until March 10

I rolled over in bed this morning and glanced at the clock. I never set an alarm (wouldn’t know how to do it if I wanted to) so you can imagine my relief when the clock said it was only 5:30 a.m.I almost allowed myself to doze off but then I remembered; the bi-annual fiddling with time meant it was actually 6:30 a.m. and I was already behind schedule. Cursing Ben Franklin (who really didn’t invent Daylight Saving Time), I stumbled out of bed and prepared for a few days of trying to adjust my body rhythms to the unnatural...

Early this Sunday morning, Americans will engage in the annual autumnal ritual of “falling back” — setting their clocks back one hour to conform with standard time.If some lawmakers had their way, it would mark the end of a tradition that has stretched for more than a century. But a familiar story unspooled of congressional gridlock and a relentless lobbying campaign, this one from advocates that some jokingly call “Big Sleep.” “I know that the permanent standard time people and the permanent daylight saving time people will be disappointed because they didn’t get what they wanted, and we will be...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president submitted a bill Tuesday to end daylight saving time, putting an end to the practice of changing clocks twice a year. Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer said Mexico should return to “God’s clock,” or standard time, arguing that setting clocks back or forward damages people’s health. That would mean darkness falling an hour earlier on summer afternoons. “The recommendable thing is to return to standard time, which is when the solar clock coincides with the people’s clock, the clock of God,” Alcocer argued. Mexicans set their clocks ahead this year on April 3, and are...

Not only is daylight saving time (DST) a burden to many Americans, but scientists are now saying it could have negative long-term consequences on the human brain.

The U.S. Senate apparently likes daylight saving time so much that it wants to make it permanent. Legislators unanimously voted to approve the Sunshine Protection Act on March 15, 2022, which would establish daylight saving time as the default all year round for the states that observe it — meaning darker mornings and brighter evenings in winter. The bill must be passed by the House of Representatives and then signed by the President before it can come into effect. But if it does, Americans will no longer have to change their clocks twice every year starting from 2023. "The public...

WASHINGTON — The Senate’s unanimous passage of a bill to make daylight saving time permanent stunned many Americans, not least of which the senators themselves. In a twist the Founding Fathers likely did not anticipate, quirky Senate conventions and a decision by staff in Sen. Tom Cotton’s office may result in an overhaul in the nation’s time zones. Reporters and politicos were caught off guard Tuesday afternoon when the Sunshine Protection Act sailed through the Senate without issue, with no senators speaking up to object to it passing by unanimous consent. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, serving as Senate chair overseeing the...

The sun rose at 8:27 AM on January 7, 1974. Children in the Washington area had left for school in the dark that morning, thanks to a new national experiment during a wrenching energy crisis: most of the US went to year-round daylight saving time beginning on January 6. “It was jet black” outside when her daughter was supposed to leave for school, Florence Bauer of Springfield told the Washington Post. “Some of the children took flashlights with them.”The change would benefit Americans in the long run, predicted Steve Grossman of the Department of Transportation. Yes, accidents in the morning...

There was a time before light became easier to produce in early American agrarian when Daylight Saving Time made sense. The utility of changing clocks twice a year has been long gone, but we’ve maintained it because changing it was a process. That process has begun. According to Reuters: The U.S. Senate voted unanimously on Tuesday to make Daylight Savings Time permanent, a move supporters say would make winter afternoons brighter and end the twice changing of clocks. The measure still needs approval from the U.S. House of Representatives and the backing of President Joe Biden. On Sunday, most of...

New research from RCSI has demonstrated the significant role that an irregular body clock plays in driving inflammation in the body's immune cells, with implications for the most serious and prevalent diseases in humans. The circadian body clock generates 24-hour rhythms that keep humans healthy and in time with the day/night cycle. This includes regulating the rhythm of the body's own (innate) immune cells called macrophages. When these cell rhythms are disrupted (due to things like erratic eating/sleeping patterns or shift work), the cells produce molecules which drive inflammation. This can lead to chronic inflammatory diseases such as heart disease,...

In a 2015 study published in Sleep Medicine, researchers compared the rate of strokes during the week after daylight saving to the rate 2 weeks before or 2 weeks after. They found the rate was 8% higher the first 2 days after the shift, and people with cancer were 25% more likely to have a stroke than during other times of year. People over 65 were 20% more likely. A 2019 report found a higher risk of heart attack after both time changes, but particularly during daylight saving. Interruptions to circadian rhythm can also impair focus and judgment. A 2020...

This Sunday, Nov. 2, will mark the end of daylight saving time for 2020. I am pleased to share that, finally, serious legislative considerations — in several states — are underway in the quest to end the biannual rituals of changing from standard time to daylight saving time (DST). During the last 3 years, 13 states enacted legislation to provide for year-round daylight saving time if Congress were to allow such a change and, in some cases, if surrounding states would enact the same legislation, according to the website of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Full-time DST is not...

So one of my favorite times of the year is getting an extra hour of sleep due to giving back the extra hour of daylight that we got back in April. I'm a big proponent of Daylight Savings Time. Having that extra hour of daylight during warmer months is so important, especially for working people, who really benefit from the longer day. I don't think I can convey in words how much I love Daylight Savings time and changing the clocks twice a year. It would be a much sadder world if we did not have a way to bring...

RUSH: Do you know how Daylight Savings Time is killing us? How do you think? If you just had to wild guess, it’s obviously a Drive-By Media concern. Daylight Savings Time is killing us. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Well, yes, but it’s effective sleep pattern. The one hour of sleep that we are losing every spring when we turn the clocks forward is causing people months of distress, months of sleeplessness, and it’s causing some people to die prematurely, and the story is what should we do to fix it? Should we eliminate it? Should we go...

Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is O.K. with me! 10:17 AM · Mar 11, 2019

Today is first day of Daylight Savings time and I am full of energy! It's almost 7PM and lots of daylight still out there and coming through the floor to ceiling windows and skylights of my southern Connecticut home. There may be a lot of snow outside and plenty cold but this is definitely a sign of Spring. When I head home from work tomorrow, there will be daylight! Daylight on my evening commute at last! After months of frigid darkness (with a short break in Florida during February). From this point until mid-June, the evening commute will be brighter...

On this day in 1883, railroad companies create the first time zones. Yes, you heard that right. Private individuals saw a problem and solved it without involving the federal government. What a wonderfully American “do it yourself” mindset! Such determination and perseverance is what made our country great. Before time zones, Americans generally relied upon the local time in their communities. That local time was based upon the movement of the sun in the sky, so the time could vary from city to city. Cities would usually designate one clock in the area—perhaps at a certain church or business—as the...

Your one “free” hour of the year arrived this morning at 2:00 AM, compliments of the powers that be. So for the time being everyone will spend the next week waking up an hour earlier than normal because small children, cats and dogs can’t tell time. As I’ve pointed out in the past, the only intelligent comment on DST I’ve ever heard was an observation generally attributed to a wise old Indian Native American:  “Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer...