Is Metric Really Useful?

Is Metric Really Useful?

When I would go overseas, my friends were all quick to tell me the joke:

Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual

Q: What do you call someone who speaks many languages?
A: Polylingual (or Multilingual – both are acceptable)

Q: What do you call someone who speaks one language?
A: An American

Apparently it’s good to speak several languages and I don’t argue with that.  Even here in the US in some places knowledge of Spanish is helpful and in a few others French is handy but nowhere are they absolutely required.

So what do we Americans have over our counterparts in other parts of the world?  We speak many units of measure.  We can speak cups, miles, inches, quarts, acres, and so many more.  Others speak only metric.  What a pity to be so limited to only one measurement system.  I would hope they feel deprived.

But is metric really needed?  I mean, I drank a 12-ounce can of soda.  I filled up my car with 15.3 gallons of gasoline.  I bought a quart of milk.  I drove 9.7 miles to work. I cooked a dozen eggs. I bought a pound of butter and a 3.5-ounce candy bar.  I even flushed the toilet with one gallon of water per flush.

I did not have any even metric quantity of any of those distances, weights or volumes.  I didn’t need it.  If you’re going to buy a fractional quantity of something, what difference does it make which units we use?

I suppose for the mathematically challenged it’s good that we have a measurement system that allow you simply to move a decimal point but what does that really get us?

So what is metric good for?  Yes, you can buy a 2-liter bottle of soda but that’s about all we buy metric (legally).  The only other commodity that I know of that is sold in metric quantities is drugs.  That’s probably because international drug lords wouldn’t know a pound if it bit them in the butt.  Even gold is sold by the (troy) ounce, diamonds by the carat and oil by the barrel.

As an example of how useless metric is to the average US citizen, my one-gallon flush used 3.8 liters of water.  Why not 4?

True, we measure distances to other planets in kilometers, but that’s about it.  In reality, though, does it matter if we’re 93,000,000 miles from the Sun or if we’re 150,000,000 kilometers?  Does it really amount to a hill of beans if the speed of light (the so-called speed limit of the Universe) is 186,000 miles per second (actually closer to 186,282 but who’s counting?) or if it’s 299,792,458 meters per second?  You can’t see it happen.  And regardless if you fall 32 ft/sec2 or 9.81 m/sec2, it’s still going to hurt when you hit.

We even use light years to measure distance which is neither metric nor Imperial (the name given to the US measuring units because they were once imposed by Imperial Britain).

What good is it to buy gasoline in liters if you measure your performance in miles per gallon?  It still costs about $40 to fill my gas tank.  Perhaps it’s time to start drilling in some of the 77,000 km2 of the Alaskan Arctic Refuge (ANWR) for some of the estimated 10 billion barrels of oil we have there.

Gotta Love those Numbers

We know that most statistics are bogus in one way or another.  Oh, the margin of error might be 2.73844692% or some other just about as valid number, however the truth is not in the numbers but rather in the questions asked or the data chosen for the report.  I’d like to take two examples that I feel are very suspect, both from last Friday’s (Feb 18, 20110 USA Today.

The first one entitled “Late Mortgage Payments Declined” began:

The Mortgage Bankers Association said 8.2% of homeowners missed at least one mortgage payment in the October-December quarter.  The figure, adjusted for seasonal factors [emphasis mine] improved from 9.1% in the previous quarter.

My question is, how does one reasonably seasonally adjust late mortgage payments?  We see it every month with the phony labor statistics where unemployment is “seasonally adjusted”.  Is it that if you don’t have a job in the wrong season that you’re not really unemployed?

Either you made your mortgage payment or you didn’t.  Is it OK not to pay your mortgage during the late months due to holidays?  Is is OK not to pay your mortgage during summer when you might be on vacation rather than paying your mortgage?  What is it?  If you know, please post a reply here.

The other problem was with an article entitled “Most consumers OK with new bulbs,” which tries to prove that the Republicans are wrong to try and repeal the phase out of 100-watt incandescent light bulbs.

According to the study, most Americans are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the new compact florescent (CF) or light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs so what’s the beef?  The article implied that the Congress was wasting its time on this subject and therefore by extension were in favor of frying the planet and hasten Global Warming.  They couldn’t say that with winter being as cold as it is, so they have to imply it.

The problem I have here is that the questions merely asked about the performance of the new bulbs.  One should be satisfied if one turns on the light switch and the light comes on.  However, the people were not asked how they felt about being forced to spend upwards of 10 times the cost of the old bulbs for a new one.

The people were not asked how they felt about needing at least 5 years on some of their bulbs to break even due to the increased cost versus energy savings.

The people were not asked how they felt when a 7-year CF didn’t last even 2 years before it needed to be replaced,thus never realizing the energy cost savings.

The people were not asked how they plan to dispose of these poisonous mercury-containing bulbs that cannot be thrown out in the normal trash or even discarded in recycle bins.

The first article mucks with the numbers by scrubbing the data.  The second article asks a question that is meaningless to the true issue at hand and thus drawing a false conclusion.

The sad thing is that we have to read the newspaper as critically as they should have been when they wrote their articles.

What can you expect, however, from the liberal media?

Cap and Trade away our Way of Life

Most rational people who are not Socialist Democrats feel that last Tuesday’s election was a repudiation of the Obama agenda, an agenda and set of policies that the majority of Congress embraced over the past two years.  One of those agenda items is called “Cap and Trade”.  Cap the amount of pollution you can create and trade credits if you produce less.

Like most liberal ideas, on the surface it sounds good.  Lower your pollution and you can make money.  Those that don’t have to buy someone else’s unused pollution permits.  The free market will set the price.  Sounds good but we have to dig deeper.  Where can I, the small investor, find credits to “buy low and sell high”?  Sadly, you can’t unless you’re rich or have set up a dummy company to qualify for credits that you’ll never use.

What’s wrong with cutting down on pollution?  Absolutely nothing. I’ve written before on how little I believe that humans are responsible for Global Warming so I won’t cover it here.  (Check the links below for the topic that amuses or intrigues you.)

The problem with Cap and Trade is that you can’t win.  There won’t be enough credits to sustain a recovery let alone fuel one, assuming, of course, that there would be enough Cap and Trade credits to begin with.  After all, isn’t the US the chief cause of man-made global warming?  Regardless of how much we lower our pollution, it will never satisfy the jealous xenophobes around the world until we become like the socialist countries who have tried to manage their societies: bankrupt.

This so-called solution to this assumed problem is totally backward.  Instead of punishing energy users who fuel our economy and improve the quality of life, the push should be toward providing alternative sources of energy.

Where are the nuclear plants?  France generates about 70% of its electricity with nuclear energy.  We don’t.

Where is the conversion to use methane (an even more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide) rather than release it into the atmosphere?

Where are the windmill farms?  Now that Ted Kennedy is out of the picture, we can build them off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard where there’s plenty of wind.  Yes, there are arguments that a bird or two might fly into one but if it does, it probably was sick anyway.  They won’t destroy habitats.  They, like the Alaska pipeline, may even improve the habitat for some wildlife by providing a man-made reef in the water and shade on desert lands.

Where are the tidal generators?  Put undersea watermills in the Gulf Stream, Hudson River, and other swift moving waters.  We don’t need to dam them up to tap their energy.  The East River pilot project seems to have been a success.  Why not expand this use?

Where are the geothermal generators?  Lord knows we have enough hot rocks around Yellowstone, Mount St. Helens and other volcanically active places in our western regions.

Why are we using ethanol?  Studies show that its production produces more CO2 than it saves.  Has anyone looked at methanol?  It works great in the Indy cars and won’t take corn out of the food supply (which also raises food prices, of course).

Where is the Hydrogen for fuel cells?  Where are the fuel cells to use it?

Electric cars are an interesting concept.  Unfortunately the current technology generally available makes it infeasible for long trips due to recharge times.  We need work there.

There are several ways to solve energy crises without bankrupting industry by limiting what they produce.

A Time for …?

Today’s USA Today had a headline that read, “Now what?  Obama, Republicans face choices of compromise or conflict.”  That may be true for Obama but sadly, each time that Republicans have gotten any kind of power in recent times, they took another choice: Cave.

Mainline Republicans want so much to be loved by Democrats and the main stream media that they have been willing to sacrifice values and their political careers to get on their good side.

When will the learn that some people live to hate them?

This new crop of Republicans in congress seem to have heard the message that this election was not an embracing of Republicans but a repudiation of the Obama plan.  The Republicans seem to have heard this but I doubt the President has.

For once the people have had a chance to speak where Obama and Congress were forced to listen, and for many of them, the message was, “Good bye!”

President Obama in his address yesterday essentially said that he lost track of the voters but that we were not smart enough to understand his policies so he should have explained better.  Which pieces of his policies did the voters not understand?

Was it Cap and Trade, which promised to raise energy prices and put coal miners out of work?  This in a time when unemployment is still very high and most families don’t have a lot of extra money to spend on higher energy bills?

Was it treating the Christmas underwear bomber as a criminal which allowed him to “lawyer up” in place of treating him as the terrorist he is?

Was it the give away programs to the labor unions (Harry Reid owes them big time for his re-election)?

Was it the rising debt that will bankrupt our children and grandchildren as it races to $14 Trillion?

Was it the growing government?  During this time of unemployment, the federal payroll continued to grow.

Was it ObamaCare, the unprecedented takeover of the health system?  I don’t think it was just an unfortunate coincidence that the last big Republican take over of the House happened after HillaryCare was soundly rejected by society.

Every one of the problems that these “fixes” were designed to address have  fixes.  Many of the fixes don’t require rampant socialism.

It is doubtful that the new Congress can repeal ObamaCare outright.  Obama still has the veto pen.  They can, however, deny funding for the federal programs and enact legislation that address the real problems without sacrificing liberty and our futures.  If necessary, we can address some of the more rational fixes.

I sincerely hope the new Congress will follow the mandate given to them in this election.  Let’s break with tradition.  It will take some compromise and a lot of conflict.  Let’s not cave this time.  Maybe the Democrats and media won’t like them but “We the People” will.

Their Fair Share

I stopped to get gas when I was on my way home today.  As I was filling up my tank, I saw a Prius and two other hybrid vehicles drive by.  I started thinking about the all-electric cars coming and asked myself a question: Are they paying their “fair share”?  That’s only natural to ask that, I suppose.  After all it is the election season.

“Their fair share of what?” you may ask.  Their fair share of the taxes that build and maintain the roads upon which we drive.

I believe Congress and state Legislators suffer from some kind of group multiple personality disorder.  On the one hand, they mandate ever higher gas mileage averages for the auto makers.  Then they turn around and steal (they call it “reallocating”) money from highway trust funds for purposes other than building or maintaining highways for those vehicles.  In the vernacular, I believe we call this being “schizo”.

Higher mileage means you buy less gas.  Less gas sold means less gas tax money.  Less gas tax money means reduced highway funds (or what’s left of them).  Reduced highway funds means construction, maintenance and safety suffer.  I don’t know many people (other than politicians) who think this is a good way to maintain roads.

It gets even worse with electric cars coming out.  Let’s say I buy an all-electric car that I can charge up in my garage.  How much gas will I need?  Zero.  How much highway gas tax money will I “contribute”?  Zero.  Not only that, I would also get (if it hasn’t expired) a tax credit!  At least the hybrids use some gas and pay some tax.

I don’t think it will be long before the legislative “powers that be” wake up to this fact and start getting back some of that tax credit money they gave you to buy those more expensive cars.  They’ll get it back by giving you some kind of a “non-gasoline tax”.  You’ll probably pay it along with your auto registration or with your vehicle inspection.  Hybrid taxes will be lower than all electric vehicles because they do pay some fuel taxes (but not “enough”, I’m sure).

Don’t worry, they’ll come up with some fancy name like “alternative fuel highway reconciliation usage fee for the children”.  They will call it a “usage fee” and not a tax and it will be “for the children” so it will be OK, I’m sure.  It probably will come out to be so many cents per mile per year based on your odometer readings.  Like all taxes it will start small.  Nevertheless, once they get the taste of that new tax in their collective mouths, there will be a feeding frenzy so fierce that the Discovery Channel will have to preempt Shark Week for it.

To be sure the died-in-the-wool tree hugger will whine and moan that they shouldn’t have to pay this “fee”.  After all, aren’t they saving the world by not burning fossil fuels?  Well, maybe they’re not burning them but the power plant that generates their electricity is burning them or creating radioactive waste for them.  It doesn’t fly.  If you use the roads, somebody has to pay for them.

Don’t get me wrong.  Unless we privatize all roads (an ultra Libertarian view, I believe), and as long as Congress has the Constitutional requirement to regulate interstate commerce, governments will build and maintain roads.  The question will be how to fund it.

I’m not opposed to usage fees, including those to use our roads.  In a way, the gas tax is one form of that.  The more I use the roads, the more gas I use and the more tax I pay.  It’s progressive in that poorer performing cars pay a higher tax because they burn more fuel.  The crime is that we pay for roads but they’re not maintained well and bridges fall.

The question will be how to balance electric non-gas vehicle usage with the more traditional usage.  Maybe we abolish the gas tax and implement a straight forward mileage charge.  Chances are, though, that Congress will impose both.