I did not see anything from late 2000, it looked like the latest they have.
Yet I will go back. They are starting a new website however and I will also
give you the URL of that one soon,
Han
----- Original Message -----
From: "kilopascal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2001 12:34 AM
Subject: Re: [USMA:10264] News from the BWMA
> 2001-01-05
>
> This gibberish has to be over a year old. Don't they update anything?
>
> John
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Friday, 2001-01-05 12:38
> Subject: [USMA:10264] News from the BWMA
>
>
> >
> > To all,
> >
> > News from the BWMA. Do NOT enjoy!
> >
> > Han
> >
> > Defend your freedom to useBritish weights and measures
> >
> > Criminal to be British?
> >
> > >From the end of 1999 it is to be illegal to sell fruit, vegetables,
etc.,
> > priced by the pound. It will be a criminal offence to use our own-
weights
> and
> > measures for trade in our own country. An ancient freedom will be lost.
> >
> > Compulsory metrication is undemocratic
> > The edict already making metric units compulsory for pre-packaged goods,
> and
> > those sold by length, was rubber-stamped by Parliament without proper
> > consultation or debate, against the public's wishes.
> >
> > Our weights and measures are preferred
> > Most people, in all age groups, prefer customary weights and measures -
> overall
> > 74% of us prefer them. Only 7% want metric-only labelling.
> >
> > Feet and inches, gallons and pints, pounds and ounces are better
> >
> > They are more practical than metric units for easy division into useful
> > fractions. They are also more convenient in size for everyday needs.
> >
> > Part of our heritage
> >
> > Our weights and measures have been used for centuries in our literature,
> from
> > Shakespeare to Roald Dahl. Their loss would further weaken understanding
> and
> > appreciation of this inheritance.
> >
> > Our units are used internationally
> >
> > Aircraft heights are in feet; computer printers all work in inches.
German
> > plumbers use inches. Few, if any, countries are wholly metric. The
U.S.A.,
> with
> > the world's largest economy, uses our feet and inches, pounds and
ounces,
> and
> > intends to continue doing so. Why shouldn't we?
> >
> > Ending compulsory metrication
> >
> > Many trade associations and chambers of commerce back our call to end
> > compulsory metrication. So do over 90 MPs of all parties. But it needs
> more
> > active public support to get the Government to end compulsion.
> >
> > Helping to defend freedom
> >
> > You can help to restore freedom of choice and to save part of our
heritage
> by
> > joining the British Weights and Measures Association. Tell others about
> the
> > campaign by distributing this leaflet (copies sent on request). Write to
> your
> > MP and to your local newspaper. The time to speak up is now.
> >
> > SUPPORT BRITISH WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
> >
> > Peter Alliss: "Sincere good wishes."
> > Sir Tim Rice: "More power to your elbow!"
> > Fritz Spiegl: "I support your aims passionately."
> > Dick Francis: "May you whole-heartedly succeed."
> > Sir Ranulph Fiennes: "I approve of your excellent aims."
> > Bernard Levin: "I have every sympathy with its [the BWMA's] aims."
> > Sandy Gall: "I should be delighted to be a member of your Association."
> > Fred Dibnah: In my job as a steeplejack I will always measure everything
> in
> > yards, feet and inches."
> > Christopher Martin-Jenkins: "Feet and inches are miles better and I
shall
> waste
> > no chance to say and write so."
> > Edward Fox: "Would not the entire world be wise to adopt our British
> weights
> > and measures system! Sophisticated simplicity."
> > Jilly Cooper: "I'm so proud of being an honorary member of the British
> Weights
> > and Measures Association... and I'm very proud of all you're doing."
> > Lord Shore of Stepney: "I deplore and condemn, unreservedly, the
ludicrous
> > legislation that would make the sale of foodstuffs in the United Kingdom
> in
> > pounds and ounces a criminal offence from the end of this year."
> > Paddy Ashdown, MP: "Across Britain there are many shopkeepers who put
> pounds
> > and ounces on the food they sell. But ... Europe has decided they will
be
> > banned from doing this ... even if it helps their customers. This is
> farcical!"
> >
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> >
> > British Weights and Measures Association
> >
> > Patrons: Lord Monson, Lord Shore, Vice-Admiral Sir Louis le Bailly, Dr
> Patrick
> > Moore 45 Montgomery Street, Edinburgh EH7 5JX. Tel: 0131556 6080
> > Subscriptions Secretary: BWMA, 157 King Henry's Road, London NW3 3RD
> >
> > The subscription for one year is �10 (minimum).
> >
> > Visit the Association's Website at
> http://members.aol.com/footrule/INDEX.HTML
> >
> > Related Articles: -
> >
> > Stupidity beyond measure by Roger Scruton
> >
> > Metric switch forces village shop to close by Christopher Booker
> >
> >
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> >
> > Stupidity beyond measure
> >
> > ROGER SCRUTON
> >
> > While politicians debate whether to keep one kind of pound, they have
> silently
> > allowed the disappearance of another. After December 31 it will be a
> criminal
> > offence to sell products by the pound and the ounce. The reason for this
> is
> > that the DTI has not bothered to obtain the ten-year extension of our
old
> > imperial measures that was offered by the EC as a preliminary to
> forbidding
> > them. No more blatant example could be imagined of random law-making in
> > defiance of popular wishes. The law compelling us to use the metric
system
> was
> > never discussed or voted on by our elected represent- atives; and
although
> > opinion polls suggest that nine people out of ten are opposed to the
> change,
> > their desires count for nothing. The Eurocrats have decreed that the
> metric
> > system will be used, and another foundation-stone is to he removed from
> the
> > already tottering edifice of our national culture.
> > Do weights and measures matter? Those who introduced the metric
> system -
> > the French Revolutionaries - answered with an emphatic "yes". Weights
and
> > measures mediate our day-to-day transactions; hence they are imprinted
> with our
> > sense of membership. They are symbols of the social order and
> distillations of
> > our daily habits. The old measures were redolent, the Revolutionaries
> believed,
> > of an hierarchical, backward-looking society. They were muddled,
> improvised,
> > and full of compromises. What was needed was a system expressive of the
> new
> > social order, based on Reason, progress, discipline and the future.
Since
> the
> > decimal system is the basis of arithmetic, and since mathematics is the
> symbol
> > of Reason and its cold imperatives, the decimal system must be imposed
by
> > force, in order to shake people free of their old attachments.
> > The conflict of currencies therefore expressed a conflict both
> > political and philosophical. The distinction between the imperial and
the
> > metric systems corresponds to the distinction between the reasonable and
> the
> > rational, between solutions achieved through custom and compromise and
> those
> > imposed by a plan. Muddled though the imperial measures may appear to
> those
> > obsessed by mathematics, they are the produce of life. In ordinary
> > transactions, measurement proceeds by dividing and multiplying, ihit by,
> > adding. It makes sense to divide a gallon into half, a quart and a pint,
> or to
> > have 16 ounces to the pound.
> > The antiquity of these measures - like that of our old coinage,
> > arbitrarily jettisoned in a.previous fit of rationalism - is testimony
to
> their
> > common sense. But the most important fact about them is that they are
> ours.
> > They are commemorated in our national literature and in our proverbs;
they
> have
> > shaped our eating and drinking habits; they are the lingua franca of all
> our
> > books of recipes, all our manuals of gardening and husbandry and
> handicraft,
> > and the subject matter of a thousand schoolbooks.
> >
> > THE idea that we should be committing a crime by using them, and just
> because
> > some foreign bureaucrat has said so, is such an offence to the sense of
> law and
> > justice that we are surely under a moral obligation to go on using them
> > nevertheless. If ever there were a case for civil disobedience, this is
> it.
> > There is another and deeper reason to resist these mad
> imperatives. The
> > French Revolutionaries believed that by changing weights and measures,
> > calendars and festivals,
> > street-names and landmarks, they could undermine the old and local
> attachments
> > of the people, so as to conscript them behind their international
purpose.
> The
> > eventual result was Napoleon, who spread the metric system by force
across
> the
> > Continent. In a small way the same is being done to us. The effect of
> > destroying our weights and measures will be not only to undermine the
old
> local
> > loyalties between shopkeeper and customer. It will be to destroy the
small
> > businesses that cannot afford the change. And we should ask who would
> really
> > want such a result.
> > The answer, it seems to me, is clear. The supermarkets are
> > international players, who have a vested interest in the metric system,
> since
> > it is applied in most of the countries from which they import their
> products.
> > If the measures on which old and local businesses depend are
criminalized,
> the
> > supermarkets will score yet another advantage in their war on behalf of
> the
> > global government that will do most for their profits. Is that what we
> want?
> > Surely, it would have been nice of our dictators to ask us, before
> commanding
> > us to change.
> >
> > The Times, 9 December 1999
> >
> >
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> >
> > Metric switch at the pumps forces village shop to close
> >
> > VISITORS to the remote Somerset village of Withypool on Exmoor are
> delighted to
> > see its vintage petrol pumps still in use, complete with 1950s Shell
> globes.
> > But the petrol station's owner, Tony Howard, 31, who also runs the
village
> shop
> > across the road, has been faced with an impossible dilemma by the
European
> > Union's compulsory metrication policy, the final stage of which comes
into
> > force in Britain on January 1.
> > Earlier this year Somerset trading standards officials observed
> that
> > his pumps were still measuring petrol in gallons. They told Mr Howard
> that,
> > since this was now a criminal offence under the EU's metrication
directive
> > 80/181, he must take steps to comply with the law. He discovered that to
> instal
> > new metric pumps would cost him around �11,000.
> > "Since my average monthly profit from petrol sales is only
�23.93,
> this
> > is out of the question," he says. "I only keep the pumps going because
> they
> > provide a service for the local community and give such pleasure to
> visitors."
> > But Mr Howard was then horrified to discover that even to
> discontinue
> > use of the pumps would cost him nearly �9,000, because under safety
rules
> he
> > would have to pay to have the tanks filled in. Either way will cost him
> far
> > more than could be afforded by the small business into which he sunk his
> > savings when he moved from Buckinghamshire two years ago. Withypool will
> thus
> > lose not only the only petrol station for miles but also its shop.
> > In Septernber Mr Howard wrote to Howard Burnett, "head of
> metrology at
> > Somerset council, asking what he should do. He emphasized how vital his
> shop
> > and post office is to the rural community, by providing a whole range of
> > additional services, from taking in dry-cleaning to supplying
newspapers.
> In a
> > letter last month he was reminded that, with "the final metrication of
> trade
> > transactions taking place at the end of this year", he must comply with
> the law
> > by January 1.
> > More informally, the local officials say they have made
inquiries
> of
> > central government as to whether Mr Howard's existing pumps could not he
> > modified much more cheaply, to show litres rather than gallons on the
> dial. But
> > the response has not been hopeful. And in 12 days' time, if Mr Howard
> continues
> > to sell petrol in non-metric measures, he will be in breach of European
> law,
> > liable to fines of up to �5,000 or imprisonment for each offence,
> > Ironically, as the same deadline approaches, the European
> Commission
> > itself is still grappling with the problem of how, when use of
non-metric
> units
> > becomes illegal, European exporters can comply with United States law
> which
> > makes use of imperial units compulsory. Last week another directive was
> rushed
> > through the European Parliament, allowing continued "interim" use of
> non-metric
> > measures as "supplementary indications" on products sold between America
> and
> > the EU. But the Commission expressed angry impatience at the US's
failure
> to
> > join the worldwide metric system, suggesting that, until the Americans
see
> > sense, they "should amend their present legislation" to allow EU firms
to
> sell
> > them goods labelled in metric only.
> > To demonstrate the beautiful rationality of the metric system,
the
> same
> > directive enacted a new legal definition of Celsius temperature, where
"t
> is
> > defined as the difference t = T - Tn between the two thermodynamic
> temperatures
> > T and Tn where Tn = 273.15K. An interval or difference of temperature
may
> he
> > expressed either in kelvins or in degrees Celsius. The unit 'degree
> Celsius' is
> > equal to the unit 'kelvin' ".
> >
> > Christopher Booker, Sunday Telegraph, 19 December 1999
> >
> >
>
>
>
