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2002-12-26
I find it odd that all of a sudden we are being inundated
with books that have a measurement theme. It strikes me odd that
both books written and reviewed this year have an underlying anti-metric
theme. This books seems to come at us from a different angle.
Instead of concentrating on non-existent errors in the early calculation of the
metre, this book tends to glorify the measurement of the American continent in
links, chains, yards, acres and miles.
One should be asking why are these books appearing?
This one seems to be saying: "America, you can't go metric. FFU is
ingrained in our soil. You can't measure your personal land in metres, it
was already done so by the blood and sweat of American pioneers in chains and
miles. You would be destroying so much if you abandon our earth bound and
honoured units for those foreign, artificial and abstract units of the metric
system. And look folks, even in metric countries, the people resist and
still use our natural units"
The 2-nd last paragraph of the review attacks Europe
because it is the inventor of metric and Canada because they defied
the FFU-ists and went metric, only to stop half-way creating confusion.
And if the US ever thinks of going metric, this is where we will
be.
I feel these books are designed to give comfort to the US
for not metricating and sticking with FFU. It is like they are saying: "No
matter how much the world is against you, you are right in sticking with FFU,
and you will win in the end. But, you must continue to be on guard and
fight, because the Hitlers and Stalins and Husseins of the metric world want to
destroy you by forcing you to adopt their phoney measurements."
When will someone write a book praising SI? That is
what we need.
John
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Title: How the West Was Measured, One Chain at a Time
