New Year is Here: So is new daylight saving timing

Here's a good trivia question to ask your friends? When does Daylight Saving Time begin in 2007?

The answer: March 11. Whaaauh? March? Yes, thanks to a law passed in August of 2005 as part of President Bush's mammoth energy bill, DST comes three weeks early in all states (except Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Nation, which observes DST even in Arizona, due to its large size across three states) [deep breath]).

With just about everything we use today running on some kind of software, a lot of which is date-sensitive, the probability of a miniature Y2K event in 2007 is definitely not zero. And guess what? Congress has the right to change DST back to the way it was if they don't like these new dates.

Personally, just personally, I have never liked DST and think it is more trouble than it is worth. This would seem to prove my point. About the only change worth making to the dates that have existed unchanged for the last 20 years in America would have been to bring us in line with the Europeans (see the table here). But noooo, Bush had to be different-er.

BTW, check my technology blog for word on updating Windows XP and other software to handle this change.
.