Monday, March 28, 2011

take on the British unit counting system

A buddy sent me a link from Gizmodo yesterday which included a link to the only countries in the world who do NOT use the metric system and are still stuck on some antiquated system where 5280 feet equals one mile.     If you would have asked me before I saw the list I would have assumed that there were about 10 to 15 former British colonies still under the direction of the Queen so I was shocked when there were only three countries still stuck on the old British system: Myanmar, Liberia and the USA.   
Anytime you are on a list with a place like Myanmar, I think you have to assume you are on the wrong side of the argument.     It's like the list we came across a few months ago where the US headed a list of the most guns per person with Yemen coming in second place.   I want to be part of any list where I'd sharing an Olympic podium with Yemen and Myanmar about as much as I want to be on a porn set after John Holmes has gotten through with them.
Do you honestly tell me that places like Afghanistan and Bangladesh have gotten modernized more quickly than we have??   Give me one good reason why we have not moved to a simplified metric system where units of measurments are all divisible by 10.  we wonder why our kids are falling behind, the reason is that there is no rhyme or reason to the way we work.   Just look at the English language where there are more broken rules than fixed ones.  

Sadly the only other country other than the one with the largest military power and one run by some ridiculous military Junta not using the metric system is a colony made up of freed slaves.   Not only did we take these poor people on a boat into the bonds of slavery to pick cotton in the miserable south, we then sent them back using the most idiotic counting system this side of tennis.

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