Some mornings, I’ve got nothing. This is one of them. It’s cold and dark this morning, so just pretend I wrote an inspired rant about how inappropriate Eastern Daylight Time is for our part of the country during this part of the year.
Also, folks don’t trust the government to tell us the truth or to act ably on our behalf; which is a huge reason this whole bailout business is so difficult. Making the rounds is what purports to be an analysis of a closed-door conference call with Treasury suggesting that the bailout will tend to fleece the taxpayers for the benefit of the big investors.
The Vice-Presidential debate is tonight. Whatever happens, I don’t expect it will amount to much in the big scheme of things. The ones I can remember have all been side shows:
1988 – Dan Quayle is no Jack Kennedy.
1992 – Adm. Stockdale “PING PONG MATCH”
1996 – No idea
2000 – Lieberman lets Cheney lie about not profiting from government jobs.
2004 – Edwards notes Cheney’s daughter is gay.
2008 – ???
Governor polls are all over the map. Daniels is up by 15. No, he’s only up by 1! On cold, dark mornings like this one, I want DST-Daniels to lose, but it’s hard to put a lot of faith in those polls. But, who knows. Daniels has done some unpopular stuff and has generally behaved in a Napoleonic fashion when advancing his agenda. Maybe folks have memories that stretch back more than a year. I’m not going to count on it, but it’s possible.
O.k., so I had more to say this morning than I though. But, by all means, please consider this an open thread.
I grew up in Evansville where all along we had Central Standard and Central Daylight times. The Central time zone seemed just right for Indiana.
Interestingly, the TV shows would actually change times from winter to summer so the show that was on at 8:00 in the winter was on at 9:00 in the summer. (Of course the show time actually stayed the same, it was the clock that changed.) Now the local stations adjust the show schedule to maintain the same times year round. The change of time was better as a kid because in the summer, when the daylight lasted longer, you could play outside later and still come in and see your favorite shows which, because of the time change, were on later.
Times have changed…..
OTOH, we could be in Central Time, where it is cold and dark at 5:30pm.
Yeah, mine goes back to the O’Bannon/Kernan administration. That’s why I’m voting for Mitch Daniels.
When it comes down to JLT or Mitch, it’s really no choice. I mean, JLT is just now advancing some idea of what she wants to do. She was hoping to win on a “I’m not Mitch Daniels” platform, which is about the worst idea I’ve ever seen.
It’s not a compelling platform, I’ll grant you. But, races against the incumbent –probably more so in Indiana, given our conservative approach to change — are mostly about the incumbent. If he’s doing a “good enough” job, we’ll probably keep him, even if the other candidate might be better.
I think that the time zone result is absurd, but I don’t blame Daniels for it. I agree that he’s been a tad Napoleonic, but that’s not really grounds to discard him. Nor is it fair that he just makes my skin crawl.
Perhaps he has lousy handwriting?
How is she better? She can’t seem to articulate that, or much else for that matter. Tell me what you want to do.
Here’s my perspective – Daniels did the change thing in 2004. I perceive JLT as “against change” – put things back they way they were pre-Mitch seems to be her tone.
So, to me, voting for JLT is like voting for McCain. So given that, well, JLT isn’t getting my vote, and neither is John McCain and his running mate who I’m pretty sure was in a Van Halen video back in the 80’s.
I don’t think I’m alone. What, 27% of Hoosiers were going to vote for Obama & Daniels?
Mike– cold and dark at 5:30? I wish. In winter, it’s dark at about 4:45 here in Central land.
Nothing more to add except on the time issue as we review the past. When you are my age you remember we were on true Central Standard Time then we had Daylight Savings Time then we were put in the Eastern Standard Time zone then now we have this long period of Daylight Savings Time—-now I may be slow on math but that puts us about 2 hours ahead of the sun and where we used to be when I was a kid. Kind of strange to see shadows on the west side of things past 1:30pm.
Riffing on your remembrance about Edwards noting Cheney’s daughter is gay… please Biden don’t note that Palin’s daughter is pregnant. Not even if she brings it up. If unwed teenage fertility needs to be celebrated, let her do it with her time.
This is the time of year that I really like Eastern Daylight Time. In the middle of the summer, it can be a bit much, but that extra hour of evening daylight is the only thing that allows me to do anything outside in the evening in September, October, and April. And I say that as a morning person–I rode my bike to work in the dark at 7 am today. While it would be nice to wake up in the daylight, it’s even nicer to have some time at home in the evening in the daylight.
Incidentally, I googled auto loans in Indianapolis and only came up with 1,390,000 sites. That credit is really tightening up.
Bailout this!
If anyone thinks that Governor Daniels had little to do with the passage of daylight savings time, think again. He was so fixated on it, and it was in 2005 (not 2004, when he was elected), that he let the property tax situation slide. He was forewarned ahead of time about switching the property tax system to a market based system. But he plowed ahead, twisted alot of arms (go to hoosiersforcentraltime.com for a refresher course), and went against the wishes of the people on daylight savings time.
CNN made a interesting observation a couple a weeks ago that a CEO doesn’t make a good politician. Why? Because he doesn’t listen to the people he or she represents, but simply does what ever he/she wants to do. No wonder why he was called little Napoleon in the Indiana House.
Here is the biggest reason why we need to be concern about Eastern daylight savings time: one million barrels of oil a summer. We’ve already seen the effects oil and gas prices has on our economy this summer. The University of California-Santa Barbara study that was published this February found we use up to 4% more electricity now then we did before observing eastern daylight savings time.
That equates to one million barrels of oil a summer.The primary objective of daylight savings time is energy conservation. Therefore, all other arguments about eastern daylight savings time are irrelevant. Plus Indiana is the only state that entirely geographically lies in one time zone(central) but is politically manipulated into another.
And to further complicate the situation, putting the state into two separate time zones is irresponsible. Earlier this summer I had an opportunity to talk to Governor Daniels at one of his town hall get togethers, and a couple of issues revealed some very empty answers on Governor Daniels part. Asks about the time zone situation, and he passed that off as a federal issue, but wasn’t Governor Daniels concerned about the time zone issue until he met his buddy George Bush in Indianapolis in July 2005, and then all his concern seemed to go away. So don’t tell me that Governor Daniels had nothing to do with the current time zone configuration. Also ask the people in southwestern Indiana about that. But the most telling thing that came out of the conversation with Governor Daniels was when the question was asked about 40,000 customers of mine come from the central time zone , and end up showing up an hour late week after week for a movie, his response was and I quote ” Why not give them a sheet of paper.” end qoute. Wow, that was a well thought thru and intelligent response. Couldn’t we have applied that same answer to all those companies with incompetent employees that couldn’t keep their time straight for 35 years ? Bottom line is energy conservation and why we need to repeal eastern daylight savings time or move the entire state to the central time zone.
Another reason why Governor Daniels should not be re-elected is property taxes. He capped prperty taxes at 1%,2% & 3% of assessed value. But heres the gotcha. The assessed value is going to keep rising in a couple of years to the point where that cap is right back where we started.
Jill Long-Thompson may not be the best candidate who could run, but she is far and away more sensitive to the peoples wishes. And if you think Governor Daniels (if re-elected) is going to work with Barack Obama, think again. He’ll treat him just like any other Democrat he didn’t work with his first two years in office.
This past week I was at an annual conference at Turkey Run State Park; my fourteenth year going. In the past, I used to have some time on Monday and Tuesday mornings to get in an hour hike before breakfast and the conference started. Now on EDT, that part of my conference has been forever ruined. It is just not a good idea to hike around ravines when it is still dark out. Thanks Napoleon Mitchomite.
This DST thing is bad. I am a morning person and the sun is rising after 7:30!! Ridiculous. Invoke home rule and let Mitch know that the sun is setting on him.
“Plus Indiana is the only state that entirely geographically lies in one time zone(central) but is politically manipulated into another.”
“Asks about the time zone situation, and he passed that off as a federal issue,”
I wonder how My Man *itch would react to a federal mandate that would disallow a state that lies entirely in one time zone(geographically) from observing another one.
Betcha he and his fat cat lobbyists buddies would want to “unfederalize” that one real quick.
As I have said before Indiana has set a precedent where geography is totally ignored. Now some chamber of commerce stooges and a governor on the take could put California in the Eastern time zone.
Speaking of lobbyists, isn’t it interesting how the newspapers(media) are tripping over themselves to show that this is now a supposedly non-issue.Arrogantly telling its readers to move on. If the people won’t kill this we will.
Does anyone truly think that JLT would change the time situation at all, either by moving Indiana to CDT or back to EST?
Fun to bash Mitch over it, sure …. but last time I checked we were cranking out kids for a manufacturing state as those jobs leave.
Jill will cancel this stupid DST practice. Jobs are leaving this state with DST in effect. So long Mitch, your time is up and good riddance.
Jill has made no such promise. If you think otherwise, well, explain this:
I suspect JLT doesn’t know this, but we did that in 1956, and here’s how it went:
If you want to vote against Mitch because he made you change your clocks twice a year, fine. If you want to vote for JLT because she’s gonna fix DST, well, I think you’re wrong as wrong can be.