Letters to the Editor reveal much ...

[ysengrin]

From the April 16th Arkansas Democrat-Gazette comes this letter:

You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two.

This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they ?

Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.

The author of the letter is supposedly a lawyer in Little Rock, Arkansas. A lot of folks are noticing it, but online it seems to have started here (on LJ, oddly enough).

EDIT: Once it hit BoingBoing, it was pointed out that the author of the letter has a long history of such tongue-in-cheek letters. So, it would appear to indeed be a joke.

EDIT the second: The Snopes link - confirming that the letter was published and giving some responses to it that were published in the next few issues.

EDIT the third: from the Snopes site (added since the second edit):

Evidently Mr. Meskimen has been receiving a number of direct inquiries about his bit of satire, as the voicemail at his office phone presents callers with the following message: "If you are calling about the Daylight Savings Time letter and wish to explain global warming or daylight savings time to me, I would urge you to get a sense of humor and/or a life, in that order. Unless, of course, you want to pay me for an interview; if so, please leave your telephone number and I will expediently return your call."

Comments

[sabotlours.livejournal.com]

O!
M!
G!!!!

[arbeywolf.livejournal.com]

oh...wow!

[badjahsensei.livejournal.com]

So this person is saying that when we set our watches and clocks, we alter the environment?

Jeez... These righties get scarier and scarier.....

[crocuta.livejournal.com]

I laughed XD

All I can think of tho is.. I wonder if I drove this person to work. (I worked at the Jag/Rover dealer and drove a lot of Lawyers to work while their Jag was laid up in the shop)

Altho while I was there we had some folks with senses of humor about like that. One was a man who had a Defender 90. My friend was cleaning the electrical connections on it, spraying them with cleaner, plugging them in and out. He asked what he was doing and he said exercising them, getting the corrosion demons out, then jokingly motioned at the stations of the cross towards the connection he was working on and said part of some chant in latin. The man with a perfectly straight face said "Don't worry I'm Jewish".

[teddypaw.livejournal.com]

I kinda understood where he was coming from....But have you all noticed that Congress set Daylight Savings Time in March, but the computers didn't react till mid April?
I don't particularly like DST because it doesn't do anything except mess up your sleeping pattern.....And most farm animals don't care. They feed at the same time and lay eggs at the same time....

What is DST for anyway?


So big business can make more money....I'm figuring.