🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug30.153801.18561@tygra.Michigan.COM> jp@tygra.Michigan.COM (John Palmer) writes:
>They get money from Merit (not alot) to provide certain services to
>the public. I paid a HELL of a lot of single business tax last year
>as well as state personal income tax, so I'm only asking for what I
>paid for. 

Just because you pay taxes doesn't give you the right to demand that
all tax-funded services be open to the public, any more than I can use
the fact that I pay federal income tax (quite a bit of it, IMHO) as
justification for why the federal government should provide me with an
M1A1 tank at no charge.  The fact that WSU gets money from Merit to
provide services to the general public holds a bit more water, but not
that much more.  I'm sure that WSU is not all that happy about someone
taking up lots of bandwidth on their dialins so they can take the
information thus gained and resell it to the general public for a
profit.  Other organizations providing this service (MSEN, for
example) have a leased line to some commercial Internet provider (such
as PSI, in this case) over which they transmit their news.  They don't
suckle off a university.

>I wasn't demanding either, just criticizing. 

Call it what you like.  A complaint by any other name smells as vile.

>What "behavior" are you talking about. We provide many services to 
>the public (news feeds for a token fee only, USENET access for a 
>token fee, a 6gb  archive of PD software and other files available
>by anonymous UUCP, etc, and the list goes on). Is this the "behavior"
>that you criticize?? Or are you one of those idiots who still beleives
>the b.s. that other people say on the net.

Uh, right.  I was thinking more along the lines of using mainstream
Usenet to further your commercial interestes, causing netnews
connectivity in Michigan to get a lot more difficult by threatening
the UofM with lawsuits, expecting to get commercial-grade service on
something you aren't paying a red cent for, and so forth.

You may claim it's "B.S. on the net" -- me, I've heard the stories
about you from people inside the UofM who had direct contact.


>mister. You had better explain what "behavior" you are talking about, 
>otherwise we'll all know that you're just another one of those 
>assholes.

Funniest line I've heard all day.  If I'm "another one of those
assholes," then I will add that I'm honored to be considered a member
of their elite club.  I'd rather be an asshole than the kind of saint
you seem to be.

>I have tried and they said no. I had a rack of 12 Telebit T3000's
>that I (my now-defunct business) was going to donate. They said
>"no thank you".

Well, that's unfortunate.  However, knowing you there was probably a
string attached somewhere.

-- 
Marc Unangst                | Real men don't use Windows.  Real men use X. 
mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us   | Only a real man would use a GUI where the
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