What's really bugging me here? The denial of astronomical truth, that's what, the debasement of the celestial wonder which is the fount of mathematics and religion, and of our hope that the universe may be a well-ordered place, where time runs with sufficient regularity to be meaningful. We are free to have backyard barbecues in the daylight whenever we choose; but rather than modify our behavior to fullfill our wishes, rather than simply declare that we will open the shop an hour earlier, we prefer to inflict upon ourselves a massive deceit about the nature of reality. We cheat the puzzle by cavilling about definitions rather than changing our own thinking. If a rational man's watch always says noon when the sun is well shy of the zenith, he should discard that watch as hopelessly flawed.
Update:Yes, Jack, many other countries partake in this insanity, even places like Greenland and Norway, for whom it can hardly make much difference, and who you'd think would rather conceive a scheme (like setting the clock twelve hours ahead) to give themselves a little time in the dark.
It's also amusing to note the situation in Arizona. The state does not observe Daylight Savings time; the Navajo reservation, which spans a huge amount of Arizona's territory, does; the Hopi reservation, which sits inside the Navajo, does not; and the Navajos even have a small inholding inside the Hopi territory. Thus, if one drives Hwys 89 and 264, from Page, AZ to Gallup, NM, in the summer, he would legally undergo six time changes in a 4-5 hour drive. Which is ludicrous, which is my entire point.
