> But as for the rest of the metric system... kilograms, liters, the Celcius scale, and measurements of force in Newtons and Pascals... they make SO much more sense than the old Imperial measures that it's nothing sort of idiotic to retain them. And "forcing SI down people's throats" -- i.e., teaching our children to know metric and love it -- is basically the only way we'll get metric permanently into the North American lifestyle diet.

Why? I personally despise the Imperial units of force, energy, and power, but these are not used outside of technical fields. When I'm doing physics calculations, I use meters, newtons, joules, and so forth. Outside of physical sciences, I use Imperial units, because they're better all around. There's no sense throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I *absolutely* support educating children in both systems. Education is always a good thing. People should know both systems, because like it or not, they're going to encounter both and should know how to deal with both. Whether that's feet and meters or pounds and newtons. But any step to FORCE people to use one or the other is just ridiculous. And currently, the only evangelical measurers out there seem to be the metricists, except for those Imperialists that are purely reactive to the contrary social tides.

> BTW, where'd Bill Symes' very recent, and more-or-less thoughtful post on "Metric Units vs. Imperial Units" go? I think I know that guy, and his comments were legit for the most post.

I found it to be insulting and antagonistic ("Imperial units are fine for idiots" is what I got out of it), and so I canned it. Possibly I was just in a sour mood at the time.