I'm not sure if this is the best or worst

[mrsid2]

This should apply to MA too:

In New York, it's illegal to knit while serving on jury duty. (If you knit, you must quit.)

http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0203/sillylaws.html

Politicians in Logan, Utah, made it a crime for women to swear. Long Beach, California had a more specialized problem, so they baned cursing only on mini-golf courses. And in Texas, politicians decided to protect people who weren't going to complain anyway: They made it a crime to curse in front of a corpse.

Now we know why AH has a cuss filter too - people die in it and Texas law prohibits cursing in front of a corpse. It all makes sense now..



LOL

[mipoikel]

I dont know about US laws but I think there is lots of funny laws and we europeans keep them really weird.

For example isnt there (in some states) a law that you cant have an opened beer or alcohol bottle in your car? Well this is only one example and there sure is some more funny laws.

Sometimes I wonder is USA a free country at all? All seems to be forbidden.

[J_A_B]

"For example isnt there (in some states) a law that you cant have an opened beer or alcohol bottle in your car? "

Drinking and driving is highly illegal (as it should be).  The [often correct] theory here is if you have open alcohol bottles in the car then you're probably consuming it.  I don't know about other states, but in Ohio it is indeed illegal to have open alcohol bottles in the car and I wouldn't want it any other way.  There are a lot of silly laws, but IMO this isn't one of them.   I've lost enough friends to know that alcohol and automobiles do not mix.  I just wish the laws were stricter; anyone caught DUI or even with an open bottle should lose their license for 10 years minimum (instead of 90 days).  

J_A_B

[mipoikel]

I agree that drinking and driving is higly illegal, it is also here in finland. How about passengers? They cant drink either?

Here can passengers be as drunk as they want. Most important is that driver is clear.

Anyway that law is really weird for me and I cant understand it. We have very long distances from place A to place B here and if people want to drink some beer during it its possible.

Personally I drink only once or twice in a year.

[Eaglecz]

Originally posted by mipoikel


Sometimes I wonder is USA a free country at all? All seems to be forbidden.

hehe hallo mipo.. :) psssst be carefull or they will send B52  to strike your arse because you dont have clue what is it freedom  :))))))))))))))))))))))))) ...

well ... when somebody have free market that doesnt mean that he have freedom.

freedom became history looooong time ago

[mipoikel]

LOL well if there is B52's coming I have freedom to run to Sweden and they dont even ask passport in border.

[SirLoin]

Here's a good one from just down the street...

A couple of years ago,Toronto City Councel created a nude beach on the Island just off the city(Centre Island).It was an instant hit with hundreds of unclad bathers taking to the water....Now along comes a couple of Toronto's Finest warning everyone that it was ok to be nude on the beach,but on entering the water,one must have a swim suit on or they would be arrested in accordance to a by-law from 1894...The bathers were stunned at the announcement butt a group of them laughed at the sheer lunacy of the situation and went into the water anyway...They were summarily rounded up,arrested and thrown in the paddywagon.

On the same day of this misappropriate use of police enforcement,a pedestrian was struck and killed by a hit and run driver...He/she is still at large.

[mrsid2]

Mipoikel: Yeah or run to russia where the border guards are sometimes literally, well, anal

That nude beach thing is very funny indeed
In finland it's ok to be nude practically anywhere. People commonly run about naked after sauna, jumping in lakes and rivers to cool off. We don't have as many nude beaches like greece for example, where I've had my best nude encounters

[Dawvgrid]

The most stupid thing i know,,,is in TV-shows,if you swear,,,
you hear the famous bip sound.But in Hollywood productions
it`s more the rule to curse alot,,,,,,,,,,,,do you remember "platoon"
I believe they said diddly every 30 seconds without bipsounds,and that I don`t understand.

[Skuzzy]

In Texas, you can have an open alcohol container in your vehicle and a hidden hand gun as well (as long as it is licensed).

BUT, it is illegal to spit on a sidewalk.

You see, here in Texas we have what is commonly known as the "Bubba Faction".  This is a very powerful coiliation and covers the state like a massive spider web.
It allows for enforcement agencies and the representatives of said agencies to basically ignore laws they think are quite inappropriate.
For instance, there was a case a few years back where a man killed his wife and her lover when he caught them in bed together.  Clearly it was a double murder, and the person was charged as such, but after 3 days in trail, the person was proclaimed innocent.  The basic justification that was upheld in court was, "well she should not have been having an affair", even though it is not illegal to have an affair in Texas, and cannot be used as a basis for divorce.

In another case, an ISP here in Texas was hacked into.  The hacker then proceeded to hack into NASA, MIT, and several other ISP's across the nation.  Because the hacker broke into systems outside of the state, the FBI was called in.
The FBI worked with the ISP and got a phone trace to the hacker.  A few days later the FBI called the ISP and told them the Attorney General was not going to prosecute as it was an election year and the Attorney General decided there would not be enough press to warrant the effort to prosecute the hacker.  The FBI was a bit livid about this, and contacted the hacker just to let him know they knew who he was.

On a more personal note.  My home got broken into a couple of years ago.  Serveral thousand dollars worth of personal items were stolen.  Me, being the geek that I am, had all the serial numbers, model numbers, receipts, pictures, and so on for the police.  The police came out, wrote the report, then told me, "quite frankly, we won't be able to find out who did this, so its good you have insurance."  And that is all they did.  To my knowledge, there was never an attempt to find out who did it.


I could go on and on about these types of things.

Bottom line:  While we have laws, there is nothing that garantees the laws will be enforced and if they are enforced they are subject to re-interpretation by the locals.

[J_A_B]

"Here can passengers be as drunk as they want. Most important is that driver is clear. "

In Ohio the passenger can be as drunk as he wants to be too, he just better not be drinking anything alcoholic while IN the car or else he can get the driver into a heap of trouble.  This rule is also open to a certain amount of interpretation; it's not absolute.  For example, you're going to be in a lot of trouble if you're alone in the car and you have an open half-empty bottle sitting in your cup holder.  However, if you have open but old dry bottles rattling around the floor in the backseat then nobody is likely to care.

Basically this rule gives the police another option for dealing with people who are obviously drinking while driving but might not be legally drunk (yet).  

J_A_B

[Elfenwolf]

We have several laws in Wisconsin that might seem silly on the surface but actually make perfect sense. In Wisconsin, it is illegal to-

Posess, transport, sell or use any Goat's milk, Goat's cheese, Goat yogurt or any other Goat dairy product within the boundries of Wisconsin. Mandatory penalty is five years, hence the expression "Feta will get you Five." The logic behind this law is to protect our dairy industry.

Leave a sheep in a pasture between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM. All sheep must be stabled at night. Now I know a curfew for sheep sounds stupid, but Wisconsin had the third highest rate of sexual assaults against sheep behind West Virginia and Texas, and Texas' figures are flawed because so many Texans keep sheep for house pets.

Wear ANYTHING with the Dallas Cowboys' logo on it. Get caught and you will be forced to surrender your pants and put on display, naked from the waist down, at the public square. Draconian? I don't think so. First of all, not many Texans even OWN an article of clothing without a blue star on it, and second of all, once they have to display their "shortcomings" they quit talking about how big everything in Texas is.

Supply, offer, sell, provide or otherwise furnish any powdered milk, powdered dairy creamer or instant milk flake product to a Canadian. Penalty is banishment to Texas for life or the death penalty (Most of those caught choose the death penalty. Those that choose banishment to Texas commit suicide within a week).
You have to understand a social problem unique to Wisconsin to understand the reason for this one. We rely on migrant dairy workers from Canada to do that labor us Americans find demeaning, such as mucking out stalls, carrying buckets of milk and feeding the cows. (No, milk- drinking America, we don't allow them anywhere near the milking machines. Only God knows what they'd put in it.)
   The Canadians get ahold of powdered milk, convert it to rock form and smoke it like crack cocaine. Then they wander the pastures all night, smoking rock milk and tipping cows, and by morning time they're all too wasted to muck out the stalls. It's a genetic thing- They can't handle their rock milk.
   This law was enacted after the recent Winter Olympics when the migrant Canadian dairy workers got out of hand celebrating their hockey gold medals and rioted thoroughout Wisconsin all night. Hopped up on rock milk they broke windows and tipped cows until, by morning, there wasn't a cow left standing in the entire State and we all had to drink our coffee black because there wasn't any powdered dairy creamer left.
  BTW, one unexpected added benefit of the Ban on Powdered Dairy Product Sales to Canadians is that the number of sexual assaults against sheep in Wisconsin is down 92%.