Absolutely! And adding to this is the AP (Associated Press)
insisting on dumbing down metric to ifp or even worse, the ubiquitous
"football fields".
Between what you speak of Victor and the AP....everything else is
just academic.
We must increase public use of metric. The way to do that is amend
the FPLA to allow metric only...companies will do it if they
can. To insist the AP change their journalistic rules to allow for
or even convert TO metric when acceptable. And for the government to
speak metric in all public facing documents and procedures allowing
for eventual or immediate back-end (behind the scenes) conversion.
The longer we wait, the more expensive and harder it becomes. Simple
as that. The bickering and arguments get us no where.
At 11:56 2009-03-14, Victor Jockin wrote:
As well-intentioned as Bush Sr.'s Executive Order was, I actually don't
think that strengthening it would have the desired effect. The ill-fated
example of the DOT's attempt to enforce metric construction specs is the
prime example (though that same department is principally responsible for
the failure of US metrication because it declined to change road signs when
it could have done so without further authorization).
What matters is public use of metric (road signs, temps, packaging). We
really should be focused on little else. Engineering specs, energy stats,
etc., are vanishingly important by comparison, because so few people see
them. Thus any new executive order that would have lasting impact must
address public use, most notably road signs, rather than repeat the mistake
of thinking that government use of metric could tip the scales for private
industry and the public. It can't.
--------------------------------------------------
From: <mech...@illinois.edu>
Sent: 03/14/2009 8:36 AM
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu>
Subject: [USMA:43819] New EO and FPLA
John,
More recently than the Act of 1866 legalizing metric units is PL
100-418 (designating SI as preferred for US trade and commerce...),
also an Act of Congress.
I believe that President Obama will eventually express support,
rather than efforts to repeal, these Acts.
Let's draft a new Executive Order (and submit it for consideration
by the White House); an order which reduces easy evasion by
Departments and Agencies of the Executive Branch.
I'm also thinking of a new draft of the FPLA rather than a mere
Amendment since NIST must resubmit its draft anyway.
Perhaps we can debate various drafts in this USMA forum?
Gene.
---- Original message ----
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 07:36:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John M. Steele" <jmsteele9...@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [USMA:43814] Re: Metric personal data was Re: 24 hour time
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu>
At best, it is ignoring an Executive Order, binding on Federal
agencies. Reality is that their boss (the Prez) doesn't enforce
it, nor have recent past Presidents and it has been widely ignored
by Federal agencies.
The few that tried to honor it (DoT) were handed setbacks by Congress.
The EO is still out there, but it might be wise to have all
political ducks in a row before arguing it. It could be struck
down at the stroke of a pen. I don't think we have any idea where
Obama stands on metrication.
Perhaps an argument could be made around the Metric Act of
1866. However, I am not aware of much case law surrounding
it. If it hasn't been used much in 140+ years, that argument
might be a very hard sell.