Linux Law

                        Pittsburgh driver's test

(9) Roads are salted in order to

        (a) kill grass.
        (b) melt snow.
        (c) help the economy.
        (d) prevent potholes.

The correct answer is (c). Road salting employs thousands of persons
directly, and millions more indirectly, for example, salt miners and
rustproofers.  Most important, salting reduces the life spans of cars,
thus stimulating the car and steel industries.

She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook.
                -- Tommy Manville

Sho' they got to have it against the law.  Shoot, ever'body git high,
they wouldn't be nobody git up and feed the chickens.  Hee-hee.
                -- Terry Southern

Some men are heterosexual, and some are bisexual, and some men don't think
about sex at all... they become lawyers.
                -- Woody Allen

Some of the most interesting documents from Sweden's middle ages are the
old county laws (well, we never had counties but it's the nearest equivalent
I can find for "landskap").  These laws were written down sometime in the
13th century, but date back even down into Viking times.  The oldest one is
the Vastgota law which clearly has pagan influences, thinly covered with some
Christian stuff.  In this law, we find a page about "lekare", which is the
Old Norse word for a performing artist, actor/jester/musician etc.  Here is
an approximate translation, where I have written "artist" as equivalent of
"lekare".
        "If an artist is beaten, none shall pay fines for it.  If an artist
        is wounded, one such who goes with hurdie-gurdie or travels with
        fiddle or drum, then the people shall take a wild heifer and bring
        it out on the hillside.  Then they shall shave off all hair from the
        heifer's tail, and grease the tail.  Then the artist shall be given
        newly greased shoes.  Then he shall take hold of the heifer's tail,
        and a man shall strike it with a sharp whip.  If he can hold her, he
        shall have the animal.  If he cannot hold her, he shall endure what
        he received, shame and wounds."

Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked down upon because he is a
fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.
                -- Montesquieu

Texas law forbids anyone to have a pair of pliers in his possession.

The animals are not as stupid as one thinks -- they have neither
doctors nor lawyers.
                -- L. Docquier

        The Arkansas legislature passed a law that states that the Arkansas
River can rise no higher than to the Main Street bridge in Little Rock.

The City of Palo Alto, in its official description of parking lot standards,
specifies the grade of wheelchair access ramps in terms of centimeters of
rise per foot of run.  A compromise, I imagine...