[thechat] Fighter plane's laser may blind civilians

[Erika Meyer]

aardvark wrote:

>i tend to think that if you move to another country, it's your
>responsibility to learn its language, not the other way around...
>sure, keep your own language and your culture intact, but don't
>force that language on your new host nation...

...unless you're a British colonist?

People have forced language and religion on others for a very long time.

Language and Religion are integral parts of culture and world view,
and if you can destroy them, you can destroy a lot of solidarity
within a cultural group.

The Christians are the worst about forcing their religion on
others... the Americans the worst about forcing language.

As for the metric system...

>i like the metric system... i'd like to see the US switch over, just as
>long as we can still use terms like 'quarter-pounder' when referring
>to meat measurements...

perhaps you don't remember the Carter years...

When I was in sixth grade Prez Jimmy Carter et al decided we should
adopt the metric system.  We had special teachers coming in to teach
us all its various complexities...

that was so funny.  The metric system is about as simple as it gets.
But to synapse-hardened American adults it must have been scary and
threatening.

6th graders really had no problem with the concept (though
conversions were annoying).

But we had this curmudgeonly teacher who hated Carter, and hated the
idea of metrics, hated change (hated snail darters and the endangered
species act, too), and she'd be dissing the whole concept in front of
us... complaining why do we need this metric crap... we have a
perfectly good measuring system yadda ya...

In September of that year, Ronald Reagan was elected.   The metric
system educational program vanished.  And that was the last we heard
of that awful metric system.

That metric system.  So simple, so practical... yet somehow politically loaded.

E


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