Dumb Laws

I came across this site today. I *highly* recommend it if you are in need of a laugh. Oklahoma has some particularly good ones (check out the Ada-specific one, Meredith). Just a sampling of my favorites so far:

It is illegal to have the hind legs of farm animals in your boots. - OK

One-armed piano players must perform for free. - IA

The "Ice Cream Man" and his truck are banned. - Indianola, IA

Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants. - Marshalltown, IA

A person may not cross state lines with a duck atop his head. - MN

And quite similarly...

Citizens may not enter Wisconsin with a chicken on their head. - MN

A fine of $25 can be levied for flirting. This old law specifically prohibits men from turning around on any city street and looking "at a woman in that way." A second conviction for a crime of this magnitude calls for the violating male to be forced to wear a "pair of horse-blinders" wherever and whenever he goes outside for a stroll. - NY

Women may go topless in public, providing it is not being used as a business. - NY

and yet...

It is illegal for a woman to be on the street wearing "body hugging clothing." - NY

The scary thing is that someone must have done each of these things for it to be declared illegal. I'm particularly interested to know why the Ice Cream Man and his truck are banned from Indianola. I bet there's a good story there.

And yes, these laws are all still on the books.

The Nuclear Option

I'm not going to ramble on about the filibuster issue, since anyone who knows me (and if you don't know me, why are you reading this?) knows that I would never support the nuclear option. But I came across this today on Wikipedia and it made me chuckle:

In 2005, some Republican senators led by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), responding to the Democratic threat of filibustering some judicial nominees of President George W. Bush to prevent a vote on the nomination, floated the idea of a rules change that would eliminate filibusters on judicial nominees. They originally called this plan the nuclear option, which they later changed to constitutional option. Opponents of the plan continue to use the term nuclear option.

Seriously. Do these guys only have one trick up their collective sleeve? Any time they want to pass legislation that takes a crap on the American public, they just give it a patriotic, upright, I-bleed-red-white-and-blue type name, and suddenly everything is just fine. And it gives them such lovely soundbites. "You don't support the PATRIOT Act? Well, then, you're unpatriotic". "You don't support the constitutional option? Well then you clearly don't support the constitution." Flawless logic. The sad thing is, it seems to work. Are the majority of Americans really that dumb? I'd like to say no, but I'm not seeing any evidence to the contrary.