Lincoln Chafee, former governor and senator from Rhode Island, has crossed the aisle from the Republican to the Democratic side. He recently announced he will run for his new party’s presidential nomination. A key plank in his platform is to convert America to the metric system. No amount of derision can deter him from his self-appointed course. An alert Financial Times reader tells the paper Chafee says he “is not budging an inch” in his plan, if elected, to move America to the metric system. There has been no rush to purchase conversion tables and aps.