On 2009/02/20, at 2:08 PM, Nat Hager III wrote:
>> SI would confuse the consumer
1.89, 1.65, 1.42 – how can anyone understand that??
>> compare half-gallon to 1.75 quarts to 3 pints -
Simplicity in itself!
<g>
Nat
Dear Nat,
This discussion has been going on for years. Here is a reference from
2006: http://www.mail-archive.com/usma@colostate.edu/msg26491.html
I suspect that the anti-metrication is the action of an individual, Ty
Kelley, Director, Federal Government Relations, Food Marketing
Institute (FMI) (Email: tkel...@fmi.org ). I doubt that there has ever
been a discussion or a vote on this issue that carried a majority of
the FMI members.
I am reminded of the actions of only two men who privately, and in
secret at the time, dismantled the Metric Conversion Board of the USA
during Ronald Reagan's presidency. Here are some references to this
shameful event.
Who Keeps the Metric System Down?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/28/AR2006032802142.html
http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2893/keeps-metric-system-down
In a Washington Post remembrance of the late Reagan Press Secretary
Lyn Nofziger, longtime friend and political rival Frank Mankiewicz
claims that they worked secretly to kill the metric system in the
United States:
... during that first year of Reagan's presidency, I sent Lyn another
copy of a column I had written a few years before, attacking and
satirizing the attempt by some organized do-gooders to inflict the
metric system on Americans, a view of mine Lyn had enthusiastically
endorsed. So, in 1981, when I reminded him that a commission actually
existed to further the adoption of the metric system and the damage we
both felt this could wreak on our country, Lyn went to work with
material provided by each of us. He was able, he told me, to prevail
on the president to dissolve the commission and make sure that, at
least in the Reagan presidency, there would be no further effort to
sell metric.
It was a signal victory, but one which we recognized would have to be
shared only between the two of us, lest public opinion once again
began to head toward metrification.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com
for more metrication information, contact Pat at pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com
or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter
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