I was watching Jimmy Kimmel Live a week or so ago and he had a guest, Australian actress Cate Blanchett, on his show. During part of Kimmel’s interview, Cate pointed out that it’s confusing when people from other countries visit America because most other countries around the globe use the metric system, while the U.S. is still on the imperial system for weights and measures. It’s the same issue with Celsius versus Fahrenheit.
Cate asked Jimmy why the U.S. stubbornly clings to the imperial system when just about every other country uses the metric system.
Jimmy’s response pretty well summed things up nicely. “We elected Donald Trump,” he said. “Do you actually think we’re going to switch to the metric system, like the rest of the world?”
This, That, and the Other 
In the UK we still use the imperial system as well as some Metric. There is a great deal of overlap, I know my height in feet and inches and my weight in stones and pounds but the temperature in Celcius, not Fahrenheit. I know long distance in Miles but not too sure how far somewhere would be in Kilometers (all our road signs are in Miles) but in short distances I can work in both Inches and Centimeters. It makes for a funny mixture.
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My partner works everything out in imperial and then transposes to metric so I’ll understand. I guess it is just what you grew up with and lets be honest, there would be an app to do it for you
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I remember being in elementary school and people were talking about switching to the metric system. I recall being somewhat dismayed because, as a child, I was still learning things like bushels and hectares and all that confusing stuff. It would seem that Kimmel’s statement laying metric vs. imperial solidly at Trump’s feet is uninformed and even naïve.
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Or he was just making a topical, timely joke that I found humorous enough to build a post around. But then again, I think Donald Trump is the epitome of uninformed.
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Kimmel’s statement wasn’t blaming Trump, but the lack of learning on the part of people who elected him [and I could add a parallel in our country that too many of our presidents of recent decades do not reflected the popular vote — because we are still at the mercy of not changing the electoral college or getting rid of it].
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… have not reflected …
There are also shenanigans that go on with delegates in parties.
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Low hanging fruit.
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That is what Trump is. Unfortunately, he’s also POTUS.
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This is just a little bit funky. I just so happen to have seen a video on YouTube this morning about going metric and why the U.S. doesn’t. Lobbyist, supposedly.
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…istS…
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It would “cost too much money” for manufacturers to change the labeling of products. That was what i heard in 1963 anyway.
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Yeah, I’ve been hearing that same thing for decades, too.
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Finally! A reason why I like DT, however even Obama wasn’t buying into the metric system! As an engineer/doctor everything we do is in metric but when I’m driving home, I’m calculating in miles NOT kilometers!
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I’ve worked in both metric and imperial and it really doesn’t make a lot of differents. I like inches and feet better than the metric versions, but it’s not a big deal to make the changeover. But NOT making it has had plenty of pre-Trump time. Almost every American can, if they want, transpose into metric — at least for speed because our speedometers show both. Square meters vs. feet is a little more complicated, but once you get it, you can switch back and forth, no problem. What we really need is for Americans to WANT it.
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Basically, aside from using the same system as the rest of the world, there really IS no advantage to metric. It’s just another system, another way to get to the same place. And we’d she have to make a lot of changes to wrench sizes.
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The only advantage is to be in sync with the rest of the world.
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It’s time America moves on…
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Ha ha, very apt reply from Jimmy Kimmel! I also wondered that.
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