Maybe.  We really need to see a bottle, not an ad.  (The ad would be legal in 
the US).  If the bottle net contents are metric-only, no local supplemental 
unit, and that complies with Burmese law, then Burma is ahead of the US in 
metrication.  For items regulated by Federal law, metric-only labelling is 
generally illegal (dual is required) in spite of lip service by Congress that 
metric is preferred system of weight and measure for trade and commerce.
 
Preferred but insufficient, and preferred is not even required on random-weight 
packages.  Congress' position on metric is a complete joke.  I wonder if a 
metric-only bottle of Coke is legal in Liberia.  If so, we stand alone.  I am 
not aware personally of any other country that broadly requires local, 
supplemental units, although some allow it.  Anyone else?
(Yes, I am ignoring certain narrow requirements like pints of beer and miles of 
road.)
 
I wonder if Congress realizes this makes us the laughing-stock of the world.  
Of course, Congress does several other things with the same effect, but that 
would be getting into politics, not metrication.  We won't go there.
 
I know NIST has a permissive-metric-only (PMO) amendment to the FPLA ready to 
go (since 2002, in fact).  However, with opposition by FMI and a fractured, 
divided Congress that can't do anything right, I can not forsee a time when it 
is "ready" to bring to a vote.  Changing a word here and there in an attempt to 
appease FMI is "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic," and a decade has 
been lost.  PMO will only happen if one or more parties with more clout than 
FMI support it vocally (and with political contributions that exceed FMI's??).

--- On Tue, 9/11/12, Martin Vlietstra <[email protected]> wrote:


From: Martin Vlietstra <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:51894] Coca Cola in Burma
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 8:17 AM







The BBC reported that Coke is again selling its product in Burma. The 
associated picture at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19550067 shows a large 
advertisement for 200 ml bottles/cans (?) of Coke for Rs 5.
 
Is this an indication that Burma is moving further down the metrication path?

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