On her annoying show The View, noted constitutional scholar Whoopi Goldberg pronounced that, "the Constitution doesn't say you can carry hundreds of guns."
Luckily for Whoopi the Constitution doesn't limit how much BS you can screech to your birdbrained audience any more than it limits how many guns you can carry.
Here's Whoopi, indicating on her fingers how many metric tons of BS get urped by her dopey show each week.
The British ton is the long ton, which is 2240 pounds, and the U.S. ton is the short ton which is 2000 pounds.
ReplyDeleteBoth tons are actually defined in the same way. 1 ton is equal to 20 hundredweight. It is just the definition of the hundredweight that differs between countries. In the U.S. there are 100 pounds in the hundredweight, and in Britain there are 112 pounds in the hundredweight. This causes the actual weight of the ton to differ between countries.
To distinguish between the two tons, the smaller U.S. ton is called short, while the larger British ton is called long.
There is also an third type of ton called the metric ton, equal to 1000 kilograms, or approximately 2204 pounds. The metric ton is officially called tonne. The SI standard calls it tonne, but the U.S. Government recommends calling it metric ton.
Sorry I forgot to cite my source: http://www.onlineconversion.com/faq_09.htm
ReplyDeleteN matter which ton (or tonne) is used its a lot of BS.
ReplyDeleteExcellent lesson, David.
ReplyDeleteI imagine someone carrying "hundreds of guns" or trying to do so would be pretty helpless.
Being in science, I'm one of those turn-coats who believes the US should have converted to metric when Jimmy Carter suggested it.....it was his only redeeming quality.
ReplyDeleteUse it all you want, Ed.
ReplyDeleteI concur Ed. Read my essay entitled "Furlong per Fortnight" on LinkedIn.
ReplyDelete"Furlong per Fortnight"
ReplyDeleteInteresting reading, David. I concur. I wonder what entrenched interests have held up the conversion.
American Exceptionalism is the "entrenched interest."
ReplyDeleteI swam in a 50 meter pool today. Sometimes they convert the pool to 25 yards for NCAA meets. I buy gas in gallons, I buy beer in ounces, I buy rifle ammo in either millimeters or fractional inches. I don't find any of it a problem.
But Bill (Bill Brockman?), isn't "American Exceptionalism" an oxymoron?
ReplyDeleteIs a dollop metric or English?
ReplyDeleteBill, were your swim fin and paddle board metric or English?
ReplyDeleteYes, and pools are either "long course" or "short course"? I assume this is in response to the long versus short ton?
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I want the metric conversion just so I can legitimately use the term "klick" as a measure of distance.
ReplyDelete"Five Guys is only about 10 klicks from here, let's go!"