Freedom of Thought, Offensive Fantasies and the Fundamental Human Right to Hold Deviant Ideas: Why the Seventh Circuit Got it Wrong in Doe v. City of Lafayette, Indiana

[Excerpt] “A precarious balance and considerable tension exists between two competing legal interests – the essential, First Amendment-grounded human right to freedom of thought, on the one hand, and the desire to prevent harm and injury that might occur if thought is converted to action, on the other. To understand this tension, it is useful to start by considering three different and disturbing factual scenarios. This article examines and critiques the majority opinion of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in City of Lafayette. The majority held that the city’s ban of John Doe, a convicted sex offender, from its parks because he once fantasized about molesting children while watching them play in the park does not violate the First Amendment right to freedom of thought. The July 2004 en banc opinion reversed the result of an earlier vacated decision by a three-judge panel of the same court just thirteen months before. […] Part II of this article provides background on the right to freedom of thought, including a discussion of recent United States Supreme Court analysis on this right. Part III then describes, analyzes, and critiques the Seventh Circuit’s 2004 en banc opinion holding that the City of Lafayette did not violate John Doe’s right to freedom of thought. Importantly, Part III contends there are at least four separate reasons, each grounded in First Amendment jurisprudence tied to freedom of expression, why the majority erred in its conclusion. These reasons go far beyond those articulated in the dissenting opinion in City of Lafayette and thus suggest new and additional rationales for reversal. Next, Part IV demonstrates the dangerousness of the precedent set by the majority’s reasoning as it might apply to other scenarios, including the first two hypothetical fact patterns laid out at the beginning of this article. Finally, the article concludes in Part V that the United States Supreme Court should accept certiorari in this case and reverse the Seventh Circuit’s decision.

PAC Learning, VC Dimension, and the Arithmetic Hierarchy

We compute that the index set of PAC-learnable concept classes is $m$-complete $\Sigma^0_3$ within the set of indices for all concept classes of a reasonable form. All concept classes considered are computable enumerations of computable $\Pi^0_1$ classes, in a sense made precise here. This family of concept classes is sufficient to cover all standard examples, and also has the property that PAC learnability is equivalent to finite VC dimension

Redundant motor drive system

A drive system characterized by a base supporting a pair of pillars arranged in spaced parallelism, a shaft extended between and supported by the pillars for rotation about the longitudinal axis thereof, a worm gear affixed to the shaft and supported in coaxial relation therewith is described. A bearing housing of a sleeve like configuration is concentrically related to the shaft and is supported thereby for free rotation. A first and a second quiescent drive train, alternatively activatable, is provided for imparting rotation into said bearing housing. Each of the drive trains is characterized by a selectively energizable motor connected to a spur gear

Connector for vacuum-jacketed lines cuts tubing system cost

A low-cost fitting, fabricated from standard connectors, is used for disconnecting flow lines in cryogenic systems. Utilizing vacuum-jacketed lines made from two sizes of tubing welded at the ends, the connectors are stronger and setup time is reduced

Similar hats on similar heads: uniformity and alienation at the Rat Pack’s Summit Conference of Cool

This article considers the nightclub shows of the Rat Pack, focussing particularly on the Summit performances at the Sands Hotel, Las Vegas, in 1960. Featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, these shows encompassed musical, comic and dance routines, drawing on the experiences each member had in live vaudeville performance. The discussion outlines these individual histories, and draws attention to a shared fascination with impersonation, which forms an explicit and implicit part of the act, as the performers’ stage personas are already emulatory. In addition to the influence of vaudeville, the construction of the Rat Pack also draws on the structures of blackface minstrelsy, with the interactions of the five members being patterned on a fluid variant of the interlocutor-endmen relationships. The interweaving of these influences and performance styles underpins a dominant concern of the troupe, as the comic material frequently negotiates the racial, national and religious identities of the individual performers. In particular, this deals with their shared status of having immigrant ancestry, a status which I term as being ‘hyphenated-American’, suspended between historical, public and aspirational identities

A polarimeter for the high resolution ultraviolet spectrometer/polarimeter

The design requirements of the polarimeter were established by the scientific optical objectives of the experiment to be launched aboard the Solar Max Mission which will study active solar regions. The polarization of the light is accomplished by a rotating magnesium fluoride quarter wave plate. The quarter wave plates are rotated in 22 1/2 degree steps about an axis coincidental with the light beam. As the light beam passes through the wave plate, the transformation that occurs can be expressed by mathematical equations. By having the wave plates calibrated, the data obtained from solar flares can be analyzed and meaningful information provided to the investigators. The polarimeter has two wave plates with different optical characteristics to provide both redundancy and versatility. A four mirror polarizer was added behind one wave plate to provide additional polarization. The mechanical design, testing, and operation of the polarimeter for the high resolution ultraviolet spectrometer/polarimeter are described

Shuttle wave experiments

Wave experiments on shuttle are needed to verify dispersion relations, to study nonlinear and exotic phenomena, to support other plasma experiments, and to test engineering designs. Techniques based on coherent detection and bistatic geometry are described. New instrumentation required to provide modules for a variety of missions and to incorporate advanced signal processing and control techniques is discussed. An experiment for Z to 0 coupling is included