Daylight Savings, Dumps, and Oil Demand

Daylight Savings is an idea that has outlived its usefulness.

It certainly wasn’t invented by anyone who had young children. Because young children don’t adjust to daylight savings for weeks. You keep having to put them to bed long before they’re tired and then wake them up an hour before they’re ready. It’s even worse with little babies, who get up whenever they feel like it and whenever you don’t feel like it.

I suppose it’s better in the Fall than in the Spring, when you lose an hour, but the baby will still scream according to their internal clock, which stays constant year round.

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Is there anything more satisfying than taking a dump?

My Esteemed Colleague, who has joined me on many a crank call, has written a startlingly insightful essay about defecation. You can read the whole thing here, but I quote just a few excerpts to further discussion:

• "Naturally, defecation should be a primal pleasure, releasing endorphins and flushing the entire body with waves of tinglies and satisfaction. When one defecates upon the earth, in the open air, a special connection between the body and the earth is confirmed. It is truly a gift of self, a returning of what has been eaten from the earth to the earth. It is a mystical act."
  

And:

• "Defecation so practiced brings a euphoria similar to and often superior to that of orgasm. This is one of the gifts that nature gives to a body in balance, in the circle. This euphoria can last for up to an hour after defecation."
  

The key to having a primo defecation experience, according to this writer, is to do so outdoors, complete with “groans and howls of delight.”

It looks as if I’m quoting him to mock him, but I am not. I have to concede that his central premise has merit. I thoroughly enjoy the process he describes, much to the disgust of Mrs. Cornell. Yet I haven’t done it outdoors since my Boy Scout days, so I may lack the necessary experience to offer a considered opinion.

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You cannot repeal the law of supply and demand.

Demand for oil is way up, yet environmentalists insist that the United States not respond by creating the commensurate supply. Then they’re aghast that gasoline will soon be approaching $4 a gallon.

Conventional oil production in the United States peaked in the 1970s, which, coincidentally, was the last time we built an oil refinery. Even if we upped production significantly, we’d probably not see prices fall, because we’d have to ship the excess oil overseas to be refined.

There’s more oil in shale in the Four Corners area than in all of Saudi Arabia. It could make us entirely energy independent and fuel our nation for hundreds of years. It would cost about $40 a barrel to recover. So why don’t we recover it? Because environmentalists want this area left entirely pristine, despite the fact that it’s primarily scrub and juniper bushes and not much else. 

As soon as I can strap a windmill on top of my car and go 75 miles per hour, I’ll stop worrying about oil. Until then, it’s about time the enviros gave us a break.