I strongly agree that mandatory conversion in the only answer, but I also believe it will not happen in the US within the lifetimes of anyone reading this. The US metric conversion debacle of the last 40 years makes for an interesting case study in American government. In short, I think our government is nearly unique among western democracies in that it is incapable of acting in the public interest when private interests oppose action. The Senate is an undemocratic institution that empowers individual senators (i.e., the financial backers of individual senators) to block almost any action. Add to that public ignorance of the need to for metric conversion, and we can forget about a metric America. This is tragic, but so are the innumerable other legislative disasters we endure as a nation, our current $trillion+ budget deficits being one recent example.
From: Carleton MacDonald Sent: 05/29/2009 7:15 PM To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:45134] Re: NASA Going English I know this will inflame the libertarians here but the ONLY thing that is going to fix this, fix Arizona, fix the highway departments reverting, etc. is for nationwide legislation, passed by this Congress and signed by this President, to immediately begin a coordinated, concerted and mandatory effort to finish the metrication job in all aspects of American government, commerce, and society, and in a span of time no more than two years. Do not listen to the “freedom of choice” whiners, to those who want this to be “voluntary”, etc. That’s what has put us in the terrible situation we are now in, with reversions all over the place. I really do think they’d get a lot less resistance than they think they would, if only they would get the cojones to just get the job done and stop worrying about or listening to the complainers. Carleton From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of ezra.steinb...@comcast.net Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 19:20 To: U.S. Metric Association Cc: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:45125] Re: NASA Going English So, this is the "change we need"? Back to the 19th century???? ----- Original Message ----- From: "John M. Steele" <jmsteele9...@sbcglobal.net> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu> Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 4:11:49 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: [USMA:45124] NASA Going English Unbelievable. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=31353 Quoted from link: Subject: New Management Directive on Units All, You've all heard the news that we're going back to English as the primary unit of measure. Attached is the draft Management Directive. We're planning on bring this MD to the CxCB on 6/5/09. Please let me know if you have any issues.
