Child of a Metal God

I read the other night -- and probably already knew but had forgotten -- that A: in 1866 Congress declared the metric system a legal system for commerce (the only system they've so certified) and in 1893, because the 'standard yard' was noticeably changing size, we officially stopped using the Imperial system as a standard, and rebased Imperial on metric definitions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendenhall_Order). So we *are* using metric, just with goofy awkward units.

I'm not sure whether that makes it better or worse.