All in the Family featured the curmudgeonly Archie Bunker. Archie was television’s most famous grouch, blunt, blustering, straightforward and untouched by the PC crowd. He was the archetype of the conservative male. Michael desprately tried to reeducate him, but he persisted in his breviloquence.



Looking back at the last 40 years, we realize: ARCHIE WAS RIGHT!

3/09/2015

Sundial Sunday

Yesterday was what I'm calling Mess With the Sundial Sunday.  You might know it as daylight savings time.  As I get older the spring forward fall back mantra, becomes more tedious and disruptive for my sleep.  Why do we do this to ourselves?

I'm told that daylight savings time was the brain child of Benjamin Franklin.  I don't know if that is true or not, but he's dead, so it's safe to blame him.  Old Ben was one of America's founding fathers.  He is considered a renaissance man, a statesman and a scientific visionary.  He was instrumental in America's war of independence.  He is widely credited blamed for the biannual tinkering with the clocks.

As the story goes Benny thought it would be better to make the days longer in the summer and shorter in the winter.  Apparently this had been happening in the northern hemisphere since God started the world spinning, but no matter.  Ben thought it would be a good idea to switch the clocks.  Being that he was a contemporary of Washington, Jefferson, Adams and a lot of other respected American revolutionaries, people went along with it.

I'll admit that I haven't done extensive research into whether or not moving the clock forward saves energy.  I've heard folks say that in our modern industrial society that having it be lighter latter saves on electricity, makes the evening commute home from work safer and does other good stuff for our country as a whole.  This may be true.  I can't say its not.  If it is true, why not just leave the clock set forward all the time?

In the winter time it gets dark sooner.  It would seem like keeping it light latter would be more important than in the summer.  If the premise is true about saving energy etc then we should stay on day light savings time all the time.

Washington, Jefferson, Adams all were elected president, Benjamin Franklin was not.  I think this might have had something to do with his insistence we mess with the sundial.  The people of his day saw what he did and said, "there's no reason to let him tinker with anything else".  It's time to stop the madness, leave the clock set forward and forget about changing it back.

10 comments:

  1. http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/hate-daylight-saving-time-thank-two-presidents-texas

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  2. It looks like we have LBJ to blame. Figures he did his best to wreck America in every other way too.

    No matter whose to blame we should just leave it sprung forward all year.

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  3. Nobody complains in the fall when you get an extra hour of sleep. Except me, because I lose the opportunity to bowhunt after work.

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  4. I used to have a client near a good pheasant hunting area. I would leave my dog in the truck at work and head out every night before coming home. I hated falling back because it killed my hunting with 2 weeks left in the season.

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  5. WaterBoy10:59 AM

    I think it all came about because ol' Ben just wanted to sleep in later without the sun coming up and shining in his bedroom window too early.

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  6. When my kids were small and did not yet get the concept of time and the clock, I had hubby install good quality room darkening blinds in their rooms.
    So instead of arguing with them come bedtime, I just put the blinds down at least 1/2 to 1 hour before bedtime. Dark room and no arguing.

    OT: Speaking of hunting, Rush just said that the ATF has walked back their proposed ban of the AR-15 ammo. Too much anger and blowback in Congress and the public.

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  7. I don't see the AR being effectively banned in this country for some time. There are a lot of them and people like the gun. Banning green tip ammo is a bit of PR nonsense. The green tip is armor piercing. Do people own it, of course. What do most folks buy it for? Because its cheep mil surplus and they can get it at a low price. Then they load it up and shoot it for target practice. They do this because, again its cheap. Sportsman aren't buying it up so they can go shoot cops.

    If a criminal wanted to overcome protective body armor i.e. kill people wearing it, there are ways to do that without getting mil surplus ammo. Every so often the libs try one of these stunts just to see if the public will let them get away with it. It's more about testing the waters than enhancing safety.

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    1. Susan2:07 PM

      Not sure if this was the green tip stuff. Didn't this ammo also work for other guns/rifles too? I think that is what was getting people so steamed.
      I just wanted to pass this along, because I think they might try again down the road, but not so loudly next time.

      Sort of OT, but have you ever googled a list of Obama's executive orders? Some of what he has done will make you blow a gasket. I am talking stuff that most people aren't aware of what he has EO'd on.

      I don't want to spoil the surprise for you, but I got a bruise on my chin from my jaw dropping. Some really nasty ducks are being lined up Res.

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  8. When they do what's called a de-mill of ammo they basically take it apart. Then they sell the components as mil-spec surplus. They can't just sell it "as is". So what you are buying is bullets that have been pulled from the cases. In this example, you are getting a 55grn 22 cal bullet that can if it is shot at a fast enough velocity can go through some grades of 'bullet proof" vests.

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  9. Susan8:31 PM

    You guys all know so much about guns and ammo and it is just fascinating to read you and Vox and Nate when the subject is guns and ammo.

    I was just at Breitbart's website and you will never believe what Obama is proposing now. He wants to make it possible for students to erase their student loan debt via bankruptcy. Right now, you can't do that, but under his proposal he is going to make it so every graduate will figure out that doing bankruptcy is easier than paying 10 or 20 years of debt back depending on what you studied.

    What fool is going to want to loan money on student loans if the loan gets erased somehow?

    I know that is going to come back to bite the taxpayers somehow. Everything seems to now. Upside down and ass backwards is the condition of society now.

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