Listers, you have brought up a sensitive subject with me, so please allow me
to get up on my soapbox for a minute. You'll have plenty of time to flame
me later, and I'm sure a few of you will.
Why do we Americans run away from the Metric system? Do we think we know
more than all the rest of the world combined? Isn't standardization worth
the effort in this day of international manufacturing and trade? EVERY
other industrial nation uses the Metric system.
NASA's confusion of Metric and English units recently resulted in the loss
of a $125 million Mars space probe!
This puzzling anti-metric craziness has a long and frustrating history. In
1866 (that's 18, not 19) the US Congress made the Metric system legal in
contracts. In 1870 the US signed the "International Treaty of the Meter",
establishing the meter and kilogram. Many years later, Congress defined the
Metric system as "preferred for all commerce and federal agencies", as part
of the Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988. You can't say that the
government didn't try.
While the world standardized on the Metric system, we Americans repeatedly
rejected it, in spite of the global economy we find ourselves in today. As
of 1992, all of 3 countries in the world had not gone metric -- the US,
Liberia, and Myanmar!
I fully anticipate that a few people will say, "We're the biggest and the
richest, let the other countries change to our system!" Some have already
said that to me when I got up on my Metric soapbox, so I know what to
expect. They are the same people who swore, a few hundred years ago, that
the Earth was flat and you could sail off the edge.
To make it personal for LBC owners, wouldn't it be great if we only had to
have one set of tools?
Sumner Weisman
62 TR3B
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