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Blog Entry: Mountain Time Zone
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Blog Entry: Mountain Time Zone
2005 September 17, 10:49 PM
I've often argued that the continental United States has too many time
zones, and should get rid of the Mountain Time Zone (the one I live
in), by migrating areas in the Mountain Time Zone to either the
Pacific or Central Time Zone. My stronger arguments include:
- The continental US currently observes 4 separate lunch hours,
making it harder to contact people in different states (eg, you spend
an hour for lunch and then the person you want to contact spends an
hour for lunch, so there are 2 hours per day you can't contact each
other-- if you were in the same time zone [and ate lunch at the same
time, obviously], there would only be 1 hour per day you can't contact
each other [unless you eat lunch at your desk, carry a cell phone,
etc, of course]). Three time zones would be more efficient.
- The population of the Mountain Time Zone is much smaller
than the population of the other three time zones, so not that many
people would be affected.
- Many people in the Mountain Time Zone are farmers and ranchers,
who live by "nature's clock" (sunrise and sunset), and therefore
wouldn't be affected at all by a time zone change.
- Many other people in the Mountain Time Zone live in
Arizona. Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Saving Time [the Native
American reservations in Arizona are federal lands and do observe
DST], and is therefore effectively in the Pacific Time Zone half the
year anyway.
- Some businesses in the Mountain Time Zone intentionally stagger
their hours to match those of the Pacific and Central Time Zones, so
there are even more people whose work schedules are effectively in
another timezone.
My weaker arugments:
- Many victims of Hurricane Katrina have moved to the Mountain Time
Zone (and, because the Mountain Time Zone had a fairly small
population to begin with, Katrina victims now make up a signifigant
percentage of Mountain Time Zone residents). Let's make them feel at home by adopting their time zone (the Central Time Zone).
- The abbreviation for Mountain Standard Time "MST" is French for VD
(venereal disease).