Linux Law

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...

The difference between a lawyer and a rooster is that
the rooster gets up in the morning and clucks defiance.

The District of Columbia has a law forbidding you to exert pressure on
a balloon and thereby cause a whistling sound on the streets.

        The judge fined the jaywalker fifty dollars and told him if he was
caught again, he would be thrown in jail.  Fine today, cooler tomorrow.

The justifications for drug testing are part of the presently fashionable
debate concerning restoring America's "competitiveness." Drugs, it has been
revealed, are responsible for rampant absenteeism, reduced output, and poor
quality work.  But is drug testing in fact rationally related to the
resurrection of competitiveness?  Will charging the atmosphere of the
workplace with the fear of excretory betrayal honestly spur productivity?
Much noise has been made about rehabilitating the worker using drugs, but
to date the vast majority of programs end with the simple firing or the not
hiring of the abuser.  This practice may exacerbate, not alleviate, the
nation's productivity problem.  If economic rehabilitation is the ultimate
goal of drug testing, then criteria abandoning the rehabilitation of the
drug-using worker is the purest of hypocrisy and the worst of rationalization.
                -- The concluding paragraph of "Constitutional Law: The
                   Fourth Amendment and Drug Testing in the Workplace,"
                   Tim Moore, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.
                   10, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 762-768.