Daylight savings time: a scheme designed to rip you off

This whole Daylight Savings Time (also known as summer time) bullshit has gone on long enough. It started with good intentions: to save candles. But in this day of the light bulb and LED, it merely wastes your hard-earned money. Here's how.

Ben Franklin (the statesman who had an overactive sex drive, remember?) first came up with the idea of DST way back in the 1700's. Back then, people burned whale oil or candles. Today, we generally burn coal for our power. But it's not lighting that's the concern.

During DST, there's more daylight (obviously). The government wants you to think it's saving money by making sure you don't have to use your lights. In reality, it's costing more. More daylight hours means more time you're awake. More time you're awake means the more you're using other electronic devices. See, light bulbs only take up a small fraction of your electric costs. It's mostly your TV, computer, A/C, etc. The more you're awake, the more you use all of these.

"So why bother with this DST nonsense at all?" you ask? Well, the electric companies have been lobbying congresses and parliaments around the world for many, many years now. Worldwide, the sale of electricity is a multi-trillion (US) dollar business. The electric companies have the money to pay off represenatives to do their bidding. And what they want above all else is you to consume more electricity.

What can you do? Well, there's not a lot you can do. You can lobby your local represenative, but I doubt you'll get very far. Money is the universal language, and speaks much much louder than any other language. I suggest you try to help start a local anti-DST chapter or such. Until then, do what I do: refuse to observe DST, and convince others to do the same.