Springing Ahead? or Falling Back?

A few days ago, US President George W. Bush signed into law changes to the Daylight Savings Time protocol, allowing Daylight Savings Time to be extended by one month. The premise behind this change was allegedly to conserve resources -- it was estimated that the United States would save 1% of their energy expenditures due to the time change.

When 2007 rolls around and the policy comes into effect, this is going to wreak havoc on many of us, especially us Canadians.

The reasons for my griping all center around technology. This article, published to Low End Mac, describes the hardships ahead for those who rely on technology (which, is nearly 100% of the developed world). When US Congress passed the DST law, they essentially instigated another Y2K crisis.

Think about all the household appliances that have clocks: Computers, stereos, microwaves, VCR's, televisions, digital watches, PDA's, cellular phones, and even vehicles (as a truncated list). Some of these appliances, such as computers, can be repaired by installing a firmware update, but many of the older appliances would have to either be replaced, or we will have to endure a major pain in the rear to ensure the clocks run accurately. In some cases, the clock would have to be changed four times per year instead of twice.

Since Canada has yet to decide if they will follow suit in implementing the changes to Daylight Savings Time, we may be in a quagmire that poses no easy solution. Parliament may have no choice but to implement the changes as well -- as many of the appliances we use are designed with US citizens in mind. It would drive me crazy if my appliances changed time zones based on US policy, and I had to manually change them back to Canadian time zones.

Some readers might consider this a bit extreme, but after I read the aforementioned article, I began to consider the motives for implementing the extension of Daylight Savings Time. At the surface, it appears like a simple change in policy and behavior. But it is much more than that. I feel that saving 1% of energy costs is small and irrelevant when you consider all the headaches it will cause for technology -- including the replacement of countless televisions, computers, and cellular phones, which is in the very least, a huge watse of landfill space (unless a government-sponsored recycling program were implemented, which I highly doubt it would).

At the time I was considering this, this recent post flashed through my mind. What if there was an ulterior motive to this bill? If a government wanted to have more control over the media; if a government wanted to censor the media (and change history as we know it), how could they force all citizens to migrate to a technology that would allow them to exploit their powers, without allowing the citizens to be suspect of such atrocities? The answer is to render all current technology obsolete, and force consumers to purchase new technology that is built to a new standard.

And that's what the change in Daylight Savings Time allows them to do. By 2007, everyone in the developed world will have Trusted Computing technology built into their computers, which does have its' benefits (such as anti-piracy technology), but will also allow selected corporations and government departments to enter your computer, change, manipulate, and delete files at their choosing. Trusted Computing chips are back doors wired into the hardware of your computer, which is deliberately left open for exploitation -- and these security holes will never be closed.

To say that we are not manipulated by the media is a complete farce. Propaganda has been around for ages -- likely since the time of the Roman Empire, and it is still abused today. We don't have to look further than the Nazis to see how a major propaganda machine nearly spelled the end for the Jews. Many leftist bloggers argue that the stories we read on the War on Terror and the Iraq War is skewed by the US media conglomerate.

The Internet is the last shred of free, unbiased, objective media we have left. Sure, there is a lot of garbage out here in cyberspace, but the true hallmark is that it is currently unmoderated. Those who best benefit from the web are the intelligent souls who are skeptical in nature, and do not believe everything they see or read. Having the ability to question the material on the internet, on the radio, on the television and in the newspaper is what makes us ultimately free souls.

The integration of Trusted Computing technology is the attempt at manifesting control on a medium that governments have yet been unable to harness. This should strike fear in all bloggers. I really don't think you would like it if your thoughts were suddenly changed or erased by a Federally-funded commission who decided that the content on your site was objectionable, against the current views of the Government in power, or a "threat to security". This apparently already happens in China.

What scares me the most, is that this technology already exists in the computers we use, and that it could be used at any time.

How could anyone instigate a rebellion against such powers, especially if they were corrupt or tyrannical in nature?