2016 No-Hopers Fight Over Metric System

[brooklynite]

The Daily Beast:

Adorably optimistic presidential contenders Bobby Jindal and Lincoln Chafee are currently duking it out over whether or not the United States should move to the metric system.

Chafee, the former Democratic governor of Rhode Island, brought up this key issue when he announced his quixotic presidential bid to a half-empty room in the soulless suburb of Arlington, Virginia. He indicated that moving to the metric system could help right some of the wrongs committed during the Iraq War, as it would be “a symbolic integration of ourselves into the international community after mistakes of past 12 to 14 years.”

...snip...

“Typical Democrat—wants to make America more European,” Jindal spokesman Michael Reed told Politico. “Governor Jindal would rather make the world more American.”

...snip...

Polls currently show that Jindal has the support of 1.6 percent of Republican primary voters. Chafee, meanwhile, averages at 1.6 percent among Democrats.

All the good issues were taken?

[Ron Green]

1. A bushel and a peck...

I love 'em all to heck.

[Proud Public Servant]

2. Get the behind me, Satan!

[Capt. Obvious]

3. Here Comes The Metric System

[Johonny]

4. more European? The part of world that doesn't use Metric system is the US, Burma and Liberia

so unless the whole world is now in Europe...

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. and the UK (at least partly!)

Road distances in the UK are in miles; bridge clearances are in feet and inches, road works signs give distances in yards, beer and milk are sold by the pint, and most people if asked will tell you their height in feet and inches and weight in stone (one stone = 14 pounds)...and fuel efficiency ratings for cars are still generally miles per gallon (imperial gallon, not US gallon; one imperial gallon = 1.2 US gallons; the US customary gallon is based on the wine gallon of Queen Anne).

[Warpy]

5. It has already come to a supermarket near you

Eventually everybody will get so used to seeing it that dropping the outmoded English system won't be a big deal.

Health and science already uses the system. Converting on the fly had to be done because a lot of the oldest docs never adapted to it, but it's all metric now.

We'll get used to weighing less and having a much bigger shoe size, I promise.

Dixie, of course, will be the last to change.

[brooklynite]

6. Have they moved beyond cubits?

[Warpy]

13. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find a doc or two down there

who still uses the apothecary scale of grains/minims/drams, something I had to learn but never had to use in big teaching hospitals in Boston.

Maybe some of the Jesus jumpers use cubits, everybody else happily uses the English system, based on grains of barley and the length of a king's forearm.

[Gregorian]

11. Metric is lightyears easier than the dingbat system we're using now.

I'm sick of fractions and dividing by twelve. TWELVE. At least it's an even number

Having said that, my machine tools are all in inch.

I see this in a similar light as the other things we are not doing that would be healthier for us as a nation. Like Medicare for all.

[NightWatcher]

7. These people should be institutionalized for their safety as well as our own

They should not be allowed to roam free in society.

[KamaAina]

8. "the soulless suburb of Arlington, Virginia"?

Do they mean the one where Arlington National Cemetery is?!

[KamaAina]

9. One wonders how long Booby's, um, measurement would be

in millimeters.

[FrodosPet]

12. The metric system makes total sense, EXCEPT...

I still prefer my weather reports to be in Fahrenheit.

32 Degrees should be freezing, not hot.

[Glassunion]

14. There are two types of people in this world... Those who use the Metric System,

and those who have been to the Moon.

*drops mic... walks out of the room*

[seveneyes]

15. When clocks go metric

And the Earth orbit and rotation is divisible by ten.

[Capt. Obvious]

16. Or Calendars

Lousy Smarch weather.

[sofa king]

17. Chafee ain't no damned Democrat.

He was the guy you could count on to come down on your side, when it didn't fucking count.

Look at his voting record and you will see that Chafee's votes against the herd only came down when that bill was sure to pass (thanks in large part to fake Democrats on the other side of the Senate aisle, but that's another story). Use of force in Iraq; same-sex marriage; partial-birth abortion; Medicare Part D; blah blah blah. Bullshit.

Look at where it counted like in packing the courts with insane judges or not investigating W for his myriad crimes or approving criminal budgets which didn't account for war expenses, and he was all for it, every time, the good little soldat making sure that the criminals in charge got rich and safely away.

Fuck that guy. He deserves only our scorn, and we would be fools to imagine someone this morally corrupted could serve honorably as a Democrat. Mark my words on that, he will dishonor our party as surely as he did theirs.

[Initech]

18. What does that mean "make everything more American"?

Everyone is armed to the teeth, there's fucked up police everywhere, for profit prisons and education, and the Bible replaces rational thought?