I think it would be hard to find a kid who doesn’t dream of the day when they’re old enough to set their own bed time. Little do they know that power isn’t likely to come in their lifetime. The government took it in 1915. Daylight saving time is so normal to us that we don’t think of it as unusual. I have yet to find anyone else among the many conservative columnists I read who has remarked on this particular piece of intrusive government control. Long before anyone started howling about government in our bedrooms, they were already setting our alarm clocks for us.

Possibly because it is not a hot-button issue, Wikipedia seems to have produced a balanced article on the subject, showing that the benefits of DST are questionable. I guess that’s why Congress decided we needed to change it. According to the article, this last bit of meddling may have cost us as much as $1 billion. That doesn’t sound like as much as it should; given the $1 trillion we just blew on a stimulus that will do the opposite of its stated purpose. It’s not all that important by itself. It’s just one more among countless examples of a government out of control.