I heartedly agree with what Jim Elwell wrote in USMA 15685:
>Wizard of OS writes:
>
>> Concerning the US, shame on you, no question I love
>> the US and it was my first time there but such a stupid
>> society I've never seen before. Americans left this
>> impression on me: there are humans and Americans!!!
>>
>> We are americans, we're special, we all on your own,
>> on own way to measure!!
>>
>> AMERICANS WAKE UP, IT NOT YOUR WAY, IT IS THE [F****]
>> BRITISH WAY! ...
>>
>> I guess this is the last appeel by civilized world to
>> encourage the US to measure like a civilized world.
>> even 3rd world is decades ahead!
>
>Some of you on this list, including "Wizard" cannot seem to get
>it through your heads that, while metric is a better system than
>what is used in the USA today, it is NOT a necessity in order to
>have a successful, vibrant economy.
>
>This same group of you are confusing your own emotional
>attachment to metric with the economic need for metric. Metric is
>better, metric is more efficient, but metric is a SMALL part of a
>total economy.
>
>This is easy to prove: like it or not, the USA has the largest
>and (arguably) strongest economy in the world, in SPITE of not
>being metric. Yes, we should (and will) change it, but your
>efforts to denigrate the country because we do not change to
>metric RIGHT NOW do nothing to help our cause. In fact, if some
>of these comments were more broadly distributed, they would
>certainly hurt the cause.
>
>The last comment ("3rd world is decades ahead") borders on
>ludicrous. Decades ahead in what? Poverty? Starvation? Lack of
>individual freedoms? etc., etc., etc. Which country would you
>prefer to live in: (a) food and housing are plentiful, but
>measured in inches, or (b) they are scarce, but are measured in
>meters? Get real, folks.
>
>The USA will continue to metricate as it is doing, but it will be
>another 10 or 20 years before we are substantially metric. Those
>of you going ballistic over the slow progress are going to
>achieve nothing but give yourself heart attacks.
>
>Jim Elwell
>
>P.S. My last trip to NY I picked up a 500 mL bottle of maple
>syrup. This is the second hard metric bottle of syrup I have
>found from some farm in remote Maine. And you guys think this
>country isn't metricating?
Joseph B.Reid
17 Glebe Road West
Toronto M5P 1C8 TEL. 416-486-6071
