Linux Law

First there was Dial-A-Prayer, then Dial-A-Recipe, and even Dial-A-Footballer.
But the south-east Victorian town of Sale has produced one to top them all.
Dial-A-Wombat.
        It all began early yesterday when Sale police received a telephone
call: "You won't believe this, and I'm not drunk, but there's a wombat in the
phone booth outside the town hall," the caller said.
        Not firmly convinced about the caller's claim to sobriety, members of
the constabulary drove to the scene, expecting to pick up a drunk.
        But there it was, an annoyed wombat, trapped in a telephone booth.
        The wombat, determined not to be had the better of again, threw its
bulk into the fray. It was eventually lassoed and released in a nearby scrub.
        Then the officers received another message ... another wombat in
another phone booth.
        There it was: *Another* angry wombat trapped in a telephone booth.
        The constables took the miffed marsupial into temporary custody and
released it, too, in the scrub.
        But on their way back to the station they happened to pass another
telephone booth, and -- you guessed it -- another imprisoned wombat.
        After some serious detective work, the lads in blue found a suspect,
and after questioning, released him to be charged on summons.
        Their problem ... they cannot find a law against placing wombats in
telephone booths.
                -- "Newcastle Morning Herald", NSW Australia, Aug 1980.

For certain people, after fifty, litigation takes the place of sex.
                -- Gore Vidal

For three years, the young attorney had been taking his brief
vacations at this country inn.  The last time he'd finally managed an
affair with the innkeeper's daughter.  Looking forward to an exciting
few days, he dragged his suitcase up the stairs of the inn, then stopped
short.  There sat his lover with an infant on her lap!
        "Helen, why didn't you write when you learned you were pregnant?"
he cried.  "I would have rushed up here, we could have gotten married,
and the baby would have my name!"
        "Well," she said, "when my folks found out about my condition,
we sat up all night talkin' and talkin' and finally decided it would be
better to have a bastard in the family than a lawyer."

Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions:

It is a rule of evidence deduced from the experience of mankind and
supported by reason and authority that positive testimony is entitled to
more weight than negative testimony, but by the latter term is meant
negative testimony in its true sense and not positive evidence of a
negative, because testimony in support of a negative may be as positive
as that in support of an affirmative.
                -- 254 Pac. Rep. 472.

Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions:

We can imagine no reason why, with ordinary care, human toes could not be
left out of chewing tobacco, and if toes are found in chewing tobacco, it
seems to us that someone has been very careless.
                -- 78 So. 365.

Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions:

We think that we may take judicial notice of the fact that the term "bitch"
may imply some feeling of endearment when applied to a female of the canine
species but that it is seldom, if ever, so used when applied to a female
of the human race. Coming as it did, reasonably close on the heels of two
revolver shots directed at the person of whom it was probably used, we think
it carries every reasonable implication of ill-will toward that person.
                -- Smith v. Moran, 193 N.E. 2d 466.

Fortune's Law of the Week (this week, from Kentucky):
        No female shall appear in a bathing suit at any airport in this
State unless she is escorted by two officers or unless she is armed
with a club.  The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females
weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it
apply to female horses.

Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful
Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan.  During an
impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and
clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following
exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan.

DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are
         having to artificially propagate oysters and clams.
HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters?
DINGELL: They may or may not be natural.  The simple fact of the matter
         is that female oysters through their living habits cast out
         large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large
         amounts of fertilization ...
HOFFMAN: Wait a minute!  I do not want to go into that.  There are many
         teenagers who read The Congressional Record.

Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #18:

Q:  Are you married?
A:  No, I'm divorced.
Q:  And what did your husband do before you divorced him?
A:  A lot of things I didn't know about.

Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #19:

Q:  Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A:  All my autopsies have been performed on dead people.