Subject: [NEXTEL-1] A Lighter Moment-

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 14:20:27 -0500

A Lighter Moment-

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From: "arclight_arclight" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 23:47:26 -0000

> A Lighter Moment-

How true, Marcel, how true...particularly in the case of marketing 
types and lawyers (not attorneys like Alan T.), and even more so in 
the case of legislators...

Did you ever hear about the IL legislator who entered a bill into the 
state government for consideration that would have redefined PI from 
3.14159... to 3.000 because "...it was easier to work with..."?  I am 
assured it's a true story...

Dave Maples

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From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 21:39:32 -0500

Oh, It gets better..........

One Ga. legislator recently introduced a bill to make it a crime to NOT server "Sweet Tea"
(Ice Tea) in a restaurant.

It failed but he was serious........

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From: "Paul J Zawada" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 16:03:40 -0000

--- In [email-masked], "arclight_arclight" <dsmaples@c...> 
> --- In [email-masked], Marcelrf@B... wrote:

Was that a meeting of Open Spectrum proponents?
 
> Did you ever hear about the IL legislator who entered a bill into 
> the state government for consideration that would have redefined PI
> from  3.14159... to 3.000 because "...it was easier to work
> with..."?  I am assured it's a true story...

I've heard this attributed to several states, though my home state 
Indiana really did try to redefine pi in 1897.  The bill had made it
through one chamber of the state legislature and was on it's way to 
being passed until a math professor from Purdue (my alma mater) 
pointed out how silly and inconsistent the bill was.  (According to 
the Indiana legislature, pi had 3 different values depending on what 
definition you chose.)  After that, the Bill died before becoming
law, but the legend lives on...  See 
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_341.html

As a side note, about the same time this was going on, round barns 
became popular in Indiana.  One of the reasons often cited for the 
phenomena is that county tax assessors consistently underestimated 
the size of round barns.  So perhaps defining pi was an attempt to 
boost tax revenue?

--zawada
(Hoosier by birth, Boilermaker by grace of God)