At 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, car headlights slashed through the dark streets. It felt like 1 a.m. Daylight Savings Time is over. Standard Time, shit time, no time at all, is back.

President Bush’s smartest act came in 2005, when he signed the energy policy that beginning this year gave us four more weeks of Daylight Savings Time, or Summer Time as they call it in the European Union. A good man for that.

I have never understood the logic behind Standard Time. In the season when daylight is at a premium, we hack off another hour of after-work sun and pass it over to the morning. A bad trade. I can get to work in the dark.

Standard time. Compare the dour phrase to Daylight Savings Time. It’s darkness before Miller Time, the end of after-work tennis matches, blinking lights on your bicycle handlebars.

Bush extended Daylight Savings Time to save energy.There are better reasons. Sunlight makes us happy. A nation of fat bastards needs time to play. Let’s get rid of Standard Time, maybe even kick the clocks forward an hour in November. We’ll call it winter Daylight Savings Time. Screw the kids waiting in the dark for their school bus. Clip blinking lights to their coats. Give me light.