Carleton wrote about metric time and calendar: With all respect, this is something to think about LONG after we have overcome the REAL hurdle, that is, getting the USA into the metric camp once and for all, and finishing the job in the baby-halfway-born countries like Canada. Tinker with time at the same time you overhaul the measurement system and the yelling will be heard on Mars.
Amen to this! I will be one of the ones yelling, because new calendar proposals and clocks would distract from the important job of metricating the U.S. I do *not* support suggestions to change the second or the meter, both of which have been suggested in this mailing list (unless I read something wrong). I like the proposals about things we can do as a group to encourage metrication. I think it is important to focus on some specific measures that would have symbolic significance (such as getting the current administration to endorse President Bush Sr.'s executive order) and some measures that would promote hard metric consumer products and labeling (amending the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act). I would like to know who our allies in Congress are (or could be) and to see a game plan for lobbying for a change. Well-prepared, face-to-face meetings with governmental officials would be good to get attention, show that we have good ideas, and develop friends in important places. Allowing metric-only labeling would be relatively safe politically, and consumers are already somewhat familiar with the units and quantities. It would be easier to convince Congress to allow that than to get them to mandate bigger steps (like changing road signs, which I don't think we are in the right political climate for). However, although changing the FPLA is a goal of USMA (according to the website), I don't know what we are specifically doing about it right now. (I will be officially joining USMA in the next few weeks, so maybe I will get more information about that kind of thing when I get the newsletter.) Let's coordinate our efforts. Let's also not just complain about everything we see or else we will be written-off as a fringe group. I agree that the mailing list is pretty high maintenance. A newsgroup would be better. We could have a mailing list dedicated for official USMA emails, too. Carleton mentioned Canada's half-way metrication. My roommate is from Canada and he said that the only reason they haven't finished is because of their neighbors (no surprise there). It is encouraging to me that they can be as strongly metricated as they are dispite being smaller than California, in terms of population, and as close to the U.S. as they are. Carl Sorenson
