On Wed, 26 Jul 2006 17:30:37 +0100, John Francis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > And, of course, for the maths department you need to hire the resident > loon on sci.math who claims to have a simple proof of Fermat's last > theorem (insert obligatory joke here about the margins of this post > being too small to contain the proof). > > There's a reason why the patent department returns claims about > perpetual motion machines, unopened, and it's not to suppress > freedom of speech - it's to avoid wasting everybody's time. I had the impression that the US Patent Department registers every patent application it receives. That's why US patent law is such a mess. John > On Wed, Jul 26, 2006 at 10:41:28AM -0400, graywolf wrote: >> Then you would not object to paying me to teach a course about Perpetual >> Motion Engineering at the University of Toronto? Or how about a couse >> about how Jackie had Marilyn murdered because John was going to devorce >> her and marry Marilyn (which is no where near as far fetched as the 9/11 >> conspiracy stuff)? >> >> -- >> graywolf >> http://www.graywolfphoto.com >> http://webpages.charter.net/graywolf >> "Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof" >> ----------------------------------- >> >> >> frank theriault wrote: >> > On 7/25/06, graywolf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> I will defend the guys right to get up on a soap box, or write on the >> >> Internet, but I do not think he should be given official sanction or >> tax >> >> payer dollars to do so. Are we required to support every crackpot who >> >> wishes to tell us about his hallucinations? >> > >> > It rankles me that people use the "not with my tax dollars" argument >> > to try to muzzle academics whose views don't coincide with theirs. >> > >> > I didn't realize that part of the deal with public funds going to >> > universities was to allow the public to set curriculum, or otherwise >> > tell profs what to say (or not to say). >> > >> > In fact, I thought that tax dollars going to post-secondary >> > institutions was all about recognizing that the particular values and >> > freedoms of academia were worth preserving and promoting, not so that >> > the government or the people could use that funding as a platform to >> > promote personal or popular agendas or censor unpopular thoughts. >> > >> > I guess I'm naive. >> > >> > cheers, >> > frank >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
