Well, Congress decided that a public that's too confused to handle voting machines and butterly ballots is more than prepared to handle adjusting their self-adjusting devices for Daylight Savings Time.

Folks, we're the country who brought you the person spilling coffee in their lap at McDonalds. And their ability to sue for doing that to themselves. And lawyers willing to represent them. And a jury who SIDES WITH THEM!

Of course, we're not the only ones who torture ourselves with this bizarre changing the date of the clock-changing ritual twice a year. Apparently, it's a malady common to our species:

Some European countries changed dates in response to a European Union directive to standardize daylight time beginning in 1996. That led to problems with Finnish dates in at least one version of Windows.

A few countries even change dates every year.

Israel, for instance, bases daylight time on the lunar Jewish calendar, and Palestinians change their clocks at different times as an assertion of independence. Windows doesn't even provide an auto-adjust option for the time zone covering Jerusalem.

That must be awfully confusing, not having machines do the work for you. I mean, it must take five hours with an arc-welder and a PhD to adjust some of these newfangled self-adjusting clocks. I hear there's a course at DeVry just for this kind of thing, and they keep the classrooms under armed guard to prevent students from smuggling out the expensive clock-adjusting equipment.

So, how do they handle this technological conundrum there in that crazy, technologycally-backward Jerusalem place?

Moti Tzur, a sales manager at Sakal Electronics Ltd. in Jerusalem, says the constant changes do little to confound manufacturers, sales representatives or consumers.

"We get up and change the time on the VCR ourselves," Tzur said. "These things come with directions."

They read the directions?

Wow, those Jews are smart with their fancy-schmancy book-learning. Where can we get us some of those? And can someone pick me up a cup of McCoffee because I really have to go to the bathroom.

Of course, we all know what this means. Yep. Me, the Token Jew on IMAO, is going to be the one stuck with reading the directions on IMAO's server and setting it forward an hour.

Um... I mean back.

Heh.

I'd love to see the news networks follow around the Congresspeople who voted this change into law on the old Fall Back day to see how many of them manage to adjust their clocks back from the auto-adjust schemes, and then adjust their clocks manually on the new Fall Back day.

Or just say "Congressman, we have an interview at 07:00." and see if they show up an hour... late? Early?

Maybe I shouldn't be changing the clock on IMAO's server after all.

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