If the European Commission would allow the use of two different mesurements, we would never learn to use the metric system. Sometimes it's better to put a bit of pressure on us. Within 30 years, everbody will be grateful to the European Commission. It will be so much easier to become aware of the differences in price abroad, when we'll use the same system (metric) and the same currency.

They sell magic mushrooms in Holland, don't they?

Perfect reply!

EURobert,
You totally miss the point. The reason why most people do not use metric for all purposes is because they do not wish to. The government/EC has yet to convince people of why a change to metric will be beneficial. To force the use of metric by means of legal compulsion is an indication of a failed policy.

A cheerful British europoid boards a steamer
bound for Holland, happy in the knowledge that
the mushrooms will be priced in grams and a uniform
currency. The crew, observing that the europoid
cannot spell and claims the ability to see 30 years
into the future, place him in a burlap sack together
with several pounds of stones and drop him overboard.

To what pressure is the bag containing the europoid
subjected, in pounds per square inch, after it has
sunk to a depth of 4000 inches.

Answer: Ten atmospheres or roughly 150 PSI, since
the pressure under water increases by about one
atmosphere every 400 inches of depth.

Quite wrong! Since the ship is steaming through waters subject to the EU's Common Fisheries Policy it is surrounded by dead fish, thrown back into the sea for the hideous crime of being the wrong species. To calculate the pressure correctly as a function of depth it is first necessary to obtain the density of dead fish, which I presume to be dependent on the degree of decomposition but generally less than that of sea water.

Paul you are absolutely right!!!
BTW I am concerned about app's failure
to reply to your clear (and substantive)
question on the nearby TBennet thread.
I have to run to a chorus rehearsal
(we are doing Beethoven op. 86 the mass
in C major!) otherwise would talk longer.

That was a beautiful quote from As You Like It
did you not think so too?
an inch of delay (for app now) is a whole South Sea of discovery.

Sorry about forgetting to include the density
of rotten fish in my calculation. Will try to
do it right next time.

Read previous posts - if you can

Hello Appy or David
You say to read past posts if I can. I can read but
I couldn't find a simple yes/no answer to the yes/no
question

.....beginning of some quotes from message board...

Paul Birch

Evasion May 28 2002, 10:14 AM

APP: Stop evading the issue. Do you or do you not support the liberty of individuals to choose for themselves what units of measurement they will use, free of state coercion and the threat of fines or imprisonment?

.....

Paul Birch

More evasion May 29 2002, 12:57 PM

APP: You are still evading the issue. I repeat: do you or do you not support the liberty of individuals to choose for themselves what units of measurement they will use, free of state coercion and the threat of fines or imprisonment?

.....

Paul Birch

Yet more evasion May 29 2002, 1:42 PM

APP: I repeat: do you or do you not support the liberty of individuals to choose for themselves what units of measurement they will use, free of state coercion and the threat of fines or imprisonment?

It's an easy question. It can be answered with "yes", "no", "sometimes" or even "I don't believe it's possible for individuals to choose". If you simply refuse to answer, then say so. If you think you've already answered the question, tell me in which part of which post on which thread (I can't find any such answer - but your writing style is so appalling I might easily have failed to recognise it).

.....

Paul Birch

Still more evasion May 29 2002, 2:26 PM

APP: I repeat: do you or do you not support the liberty of individuals to choose for themselves what units of measurement they will use, free of state coercion and the threat of fines or imprisonment?

It is not a leading or rhetorical question: I want a truthful answer. Different people would answer it differently. BWMA would, I suspect, say "yes", whereas the European Commission, if it were honest, would say "no". If you are afraid to answer it, say so. If you believe you have answered it, say where. If you believe you cannot answer it, say why.

.....[THE NEXT SEEMS TO BE A BIG BRAVE APPY REPLY BUT WAS UNSIGNED]....

Anonymous

Act your age, not your shoe sixe! Well, er, that British or American Shoe sizes, of course May 29 2002, 4:07 PM

Exactly how old are you all. No offence, but this is all just a little absurd, don't you agree?

......

T Bennett

Message from Shakespeare for APP May 29 2002, 11:06 PM

"One inch of delay more is a South Sea of discovery" - As You Like It, [Act III, scene 2]

T Bennett

.....

APP

Reply May 30 2002, 8:54 AM

As those who have followed this board & it's sister will know, my position is quite clear.

However, for those who are too lazy too look, I will put something together later - clients call for the next few of days.

.....end of quotes from the message board........

I regret to say I cannot trust your lengthy explanations of something you said some other time somewhere else even if you went and fetched it. Please therefore have the consideration to give a simple yes or no answer. The question is too central and important to obfuscate.

The question was phrased in a closed way - yes / no - and was presumably designed to elicit a simple response to cover a complicated issue. A simple ye /no answer would misrepresent the position and, I suspect, that is why it was put in that way. The answers I gave represented my position.

My feelings on weights and measures legislation, metrication and the judicial system are, like those of most people, fairly complex when taken together.

I would point out that, when something is illegal (irrespective of rights and wrongs) then acting in a contrary way can often result in punishment. People who break the law, for whatever reason, cannot then say that someone else was responsible for that punishement - they choose themselves to break the law and should be responsible for their own actions. Of course, they may choose to do so to highlight some deficiency in the law, at least to them, but the question here is of their exercising their free will. That is the honest and admirable approach. To bleat that it's all someone else's fault and that they were forced to act in that way diminishes their credibility.

I think here of various heroes of the past who have broken the law to highlight it but accept their punishement as due to them fo breaking it.

Not everything is susceptible to black / white asnwers. One could event say that this question was designed to force people to extremes thus setting up a them & us postion which may have made Mr B feel good, on the side of right etc but would have been a distortion of the facts.

So, I feel I have answered the question in full - yes complex, but people aand situations are complex.

At least when away from the Mail & other tabloids.

Why run away to another thread? But at least there are a few substantive points in the second of these two posts, to which I shall respond.

First, my question was NOT posed in a way intended to force a simple yes/no answer, only in a way intended to elicit an informative reply. As I said myself in my post of May 29 1.42 pm, which you quoted directly above: 'It's an easy question. It can be answered with "yes", "no", "sometimes" or even "I don't believe it's possible for individuals to choose".' You could have answered the question as fully as you liked, added as many qualifications, caveats and riders as you thought necessary, or explained any complications you thought needed to be addressed first. Instead you pretended to have answered it, when clearly you had done no such thing.

Second, although some of your statements (supporting weights and measures legislation) have gone some way to explaining your position, there are crucial omissions. You still have not yet explained (so far as I can see) which or what kinds of legislation you support. Do you support legislation simply because it IS legislation? Or is its content important to you? Would you support legislation that banned the use of metric, if that were the will of Parliament? Would you support legislation if the sanctions for breaking it took the form of fines, but cease to support it if they took the form of imprisonment? Again, these questions are NOT intended to limit the scope of your reply, but to indicate the aspects of your position that require further elucidation.

Third, of course I accept that personal responsibility for one's own acts is important, but I don't see how that makes it illegitimate to ask whether or not individuals ought to be at liberty to choose their own use of units. If anything, the person who chooses for himself is taking personal responsibility for his acts in a way that the person who merely follows an official decree is not. However, someone who disobeys a weights and measures regulation is also responsible for his acts - which is not to say that it is unreasonable for him to claim that the legislation in question violates his rights and that any punishment for breach of it is an immoral imposition.

Fourth, you may think that some of my previous remarks have been insulting. I did not mean them that way - it is simply a fact that I find your style of writing barely comprehensible. If it makes you feel better you may consider that evidence, if you like, of my own inadequate intelligence. However, reading through your earlier posts I found myself quite unable to fathom your beliefs, beyond the suspicion, based mainly on the tone of your posts, that you are somewhat pro-compulsory-metrification and contemptuous of anyone who prefers to use imperial measures. I posed - and continue to pose - my questions not in order to "feel good", but to try to understand just where you're coming from.

<Godwin's Law>

"one union, one system"

...one Fuhrer?

</Godwin's Law>