Absurdity
Congress Ends Clock-Changing Chaos By Making Every Morning Permanently Worse
By Jeff Garstein, . BSN Network. Satire.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The United States, after roughly forty years of national complaining about changing the clocks, has arrived at a solution: stop changing them, but freeze them at the setting that makes mornings harder.
President Trump announced his support for permanent daylight saving time this week, describing it as a commonsense fix for a system that twice a year produces roughly seventy-two hours of Americans telling each other they feel weird.
The logic, stated plainly, is that instead of moving sunrise around twice a year, the country will move it an hour later and leave it there. Permanently. In January, in Minnesota, sunrise will arrive at approximately 9 A.M., which is not a time when the sun rises in any natural sense of the phrase. It is a time when the sun rises if Congress says it does.
Canadian researchers, who have had the misfortune of studying this carefully, published findings confirming that darker mornings come with measurable costs to sleep quality, children's academic performance, and worker productivity. The research did not appear to be part of the public debate.
"This is really about giving Americans more sunshine in the evening, when they can enjoy it," said a Senate aide who asked not to be named, apparently on the theory that being associated with this argument carries professional risk. The aide did not address what time the sun would rise in Buffalo in February under the new system, which is 8:47 A.M. under the current one and would become 9:47 A.M. under permanent DST, a figure that is less a sunrise and more a rumor.
School districts, which already operate on the apparent assumption that children function fine at 7:15 A.M. in complete darkness, have not issued formal guidance. Parents of children in northern states reached for comment did not immediately respond, possibly because it was morning.
Elon Musk posted on X that permanent DST was "obviously correct" and that the biannual clock change was "a relic of agricultural America that serves no one." He did not mention the Canadian research. He did post three times within the hour about a separate topic involving Mars.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has, for the record, spent years advocating for permanent standard time, which is the other option, the one where sunrise happens at a time a human body might recognize. Their position is that the evidence on circadian biology is unambiguous and has been unambiguous for some time. Congress responded by scheduling hearings.
The hearings produced the current proposal.
What is perhaps most clarifying about the whole arrangement is that the original complaint, repeated by every American every November and every March for as long as anyone can remember, was that changing the clocks disrupts sleep. The solution being implemented disrupts sleep permanently, distributes the disruption evenly across every morning of the calendar year, and comes with a peer-reviewed confirmation that this is what it does.
This is, in fairness, a kind of consistency.
The bill is expected to pass. Sunrise is expected to comply.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/10/06/permanent-daylight-saving-time-could-be-a-public-health-time-bomb/5301464