Linux Law

If there were a school for, say, sheet metal workers, that after three
years left its graduates as unprepared for their careers as does law
school, it would be closed down in a minute, and no doubt by lawyers.
                -- Michael Levin, "The Socratic Method

        In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to
his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's
kill all the lawyers."  That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment
was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc.
Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News,
Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess
of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts.  Lawyers
and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure
out how the pie gets divided.  Neither profession provides any added value
to product."
        According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has
10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population.  The U.S. has 200
lawyers and 700 accountants.  This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of
pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack."  Could Dick Butcher have
been an efficiency expert?
                -- Motor Trend, May 1983

In Blythe, California, a city ordinance declares that a person must own
at least two cows before he can wear cowboy boots in public.

In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs.

In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle
a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order
to get her attention.

In Corning, Iowa, it's a misdemeanor for a man to ask his wife to ride
in any motor vehicle.

In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor.

In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset.

In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on
the sidewalks when a concert is on.

In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket.