Slacktivism

One of the reasons why I’ve discontinued frequenting a few forums I used to enjoy was the onslaught of petition posters and bandwagon jumpers.
What a waste of time.
Seriously, I will never understand how people can put so much time and energy into creating and circulating a piece of cyber paper or an e-document when they could invest that time into actually trying to help fix whatever problem they think exists. The same goes for all the signers. Do they really think they are doing something worthy or tangible for any "cause" by E-signing?
All it really does is give them an emotional outlet for their anger or loathing of whatever they are protesting. I’m sure for that fleeting second of typing their name and aggressively hitting “enter”, they feel empowered. Justified. Necessary.

Now it’s starting on my FaceBook page. Ugh.

Look, Greg K… I realize in the fifth grade I was madly in love with you and even wore the flower ring until the plastic petals all fell off and the band turned my finger green…but I’m not signing your stupid anti-bailout petition. Instead of circulating a document asking for signatures that can never be verified (and many are fake anyhow) and will never reach the intended party anyway, why don’t you put your effort into contacting your representatives and express your displeasure with your vote? I know we actually held hands skating to Beth from the Destroyer album…but dude, I can’t… no, I *won’t* sign your e-petition. Nothing personal, but it’s not worth the pixels it took to create it.

You know what really gets mad props from your congressmen? Real letters from real voters who took the time to sit down with actual pen to actual paper are afforded much more respect than cyber whining. Sure it takes longer. But likewise is the potential for making a real difference.
So who is your representative?
Where do you find the contact information to write to them?
Who.
Where.
Anyhow, the E-petition is in the E-trash. Sorry.
Do you want the flower ring back?
Just sayin'.
~

Tick Tock, Tick Tock....

Well, well, well… no comment is even needed for this gem.

For decades, conventional wisdom has held that daylight-saving time, which begins March 9, reduces energy use. But a unique situation in Indiana provides evidence challenging that view: Springing forward may actually waste energy.
Up until two years ago, only 15 of Indiana's 92 counties set their clocks an hour ahead in the spring and an hour back in the fall. The rest stayed on standard time all year, in part because farmers resisted the prospect of having to work an extra hour in the morning dark. But many residents came to hate falling in and out of sync with businesses and residents in neighboring states and prevailed upon the Indiana Legislature to put the entire state on daylight-saving time beginning in the spring of 2006.
Indiana's change of heart gave University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor Matthew Kotchen and Ph.D. student Laura Grant a unique way to see how the time shift affects energy use. Using more than seven million monthly meter readings from Duke Energy Corp., covering nearly all the households in southern Indiana for three years, they were able to compare energy consumption before and after counties began observing daylight-saving time. Readings from counties that had already adopted daylight-saving time provided a control group that helped them to adjust for changes in weather from one year to the next.
Their finding: Having the entire state switch to daylight-saving time each year, rather than stay on standard time, costs Indiana households an additional $8.6 million in electricity bills. They conclude that the reduced cost of lighting in afternoons during daylight-saving time is more than offset by the higher air-conditioning costs on hot afternoons and increased heating costs on cool mornings.
"I've never had a paper with such a clear and unambiguous finding as this," says Mr. Kotchen, who presented the paper at a National Bureau of Economic Research conference this month.

Link for the rest.