Sunrise...Sunset

Well, we've moved the clocks again. Where sunset was around 5:30 PM yesterday, tonight it was at 4:30 PM. The people who make up these rules (and change them) are not morning people. Well, yes, switching back to Standard Time in the fall is a good thing for morning people. But the whole concept of Daylight Saving Time does nothing for morning people. It was nice to see the Sun at 6:23 AM this morning instead of 7:22 AM as it was the day before. But that's just because we put it back where it should have been.

We didn't save any daylight during the summer and we didn't save any energy by changing the rules in 2007 (Congress passed the law in 2005 but didn't enact it until 2007). All switching our clocks twice a year does is disrupt our lives. I've heard people claim that the idea of Daylight Saving Time was to help the farmers but I don't believe that. The animals don't respond to our changing our clocks. My dog got me up at 4:30 AM this morning needing to go out and wanting to eat. Do you think the cows all shifted their schedules this morning when the farmers in Vermont wanted to sleep an hour later?

As a side note - isn't it funny that 500 years after Copernicus first proposed the idea that it was the Earth that orbited the Sun instead of the other way around, we still refer to our first view of the Sun in the morning as Sun Rise and our last view of the Sun in the evening as Sun Set? Even scientific journals and papers use these terms. If you need a good Sunrise and Sunset calculator, you might try the Time and Date site or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration site.