I’ve Heard Of A Plane Going Missing – But An Entire Airport???

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Bureaucrats lose things because they are incompetent and stupid.

We all know that.

My posts on the debacle at the US government’s Office of Personnel Management, where they lost over 21 million records of government employees and those who had applied for government jobs, was a good example.

I though at the time I read about this and did my blog posts that this would be a tough one to beat as regards stupidity and incompetence.

I was wrong.

 

Enter the Irish.

Irish bureaucrats have lost an entire airport.

And it only cost them €27 million  to do it.

A bargain one might think in terms of bureaucratic faux pas.

Up until last week you could find Ireland’s Shannon Airport, in Shannon, County Clare.

Sounds logical enough. If I was looking for Shannon Airport, Shannon is the first place I would look for it. They have had an airport there for over seventy years.

Now, however, after the introduction of Ireland’s new €27 million postcode system, the ‘Eircode’, you can now find Shannon Airport in – wait for it – a different county, County Limerick.

If that isn’t funny enough, the system also has a ‘mapping’ option which the bureaucrats say can identify the exact latitude and longitude of 2.2 million individual addresses. They’ll most likely be in the wrong latitude and longitude, but at least you know exactly how wrong the location is.

Naturally there are other problems with the ‘Eircode’ postcode system, ranging from other incorrect addresses to data protection concerns, but the airport one is the star of the show.

In typical bureaucratic fashion, despite the fact that the whole thing is an almighty mess, Communications Minister Alex White defended the new national system.

He even claimed it would make postal deliveries much easier in the long run – the ‘long run’ presumably referring to the distance traveled by your mail going to the wrong delivery address and confused users of the system going to all the wrong places.

Not only do the bewildered Irish users of this new system get wrong addresses for their €27 million, but they are only allowed a miserable fifteen searches per day, meaning you would need to persevere with it for more than a week if you were organizing a big event, like a wedding or anniversary do.

There is an option to search for more wrong addresses but the fee for that dubious privilege is between €60 and €180 a year, depending on the number of searches performed.

Good luck with selling that too!

Now where did I put the milk for my coffee?

Ah yes, in the garage next door.

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Forget The Cold War, The Summer Is Here

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The world breathed a great sigh of relief when the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, but somehow we’re in the middle of another cold war that nobody wants or needs.

How did that happen?

As most things do, it all started with a huge mistake. That mistake was the West, particularly America, treating Russia like a defeated country after 1991, instead of the formidable nation that it still was despite the breakup of the USSR. Mikhail Gorbachev has acknowledged that fact.

Unfortunately Americans have no clue about foreign affairs and never have had. That, plus a ton of arrogance, led us to the Ukraine which America thought it could more or less capture as an ally to be slotted into NATO. They wanted a fully armed NATO nuclear arsenal on the Russian’s doorstep.

The Americans quite rightly didn’t like it when the Russians tried to do it to them in Cuba way back in the early 1960s, so what idiot thought that the Russians would like it when they did it to them?

Whoever formulated the plan, it was heavily influenced by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US National Security Advisor during President Carter’s administration. His theory was that the only way to prevent Russia becoming a great power again was to remove the Ukraine from its sphere of influence.

Thus America initiated an eastward expansion of NATO, using the EU to present the Ukraine with a choice between Russia and Europe. Some Ukrainians, like those in the Crimea favored Russia and others in other parts wanted closer ties with the EU.

Like many other countries, the prospect of joining the EU is attractive to a significant proportion of Ukrainians. But the way America tried to bring it about was just a step too far. The Ukrainian President, who had been duly elected, was removed in what would have been called a “coup d’etat” had it happened elsewhere, or had Russia been the culprit.

That is why a lot of the tensions between the West and Russia is centered on the internal troubles within the Ukraine.

If one looks into the history of the Ukraine another significant part of the puzzle presents itself.

In much the same way as stupid English bureaucrats redrew borders in the Middle East without any consideration for the people who lived there, (for example, the Kurds), which resulted in wars and upheaval ever since, when the Soviet Union broke apart somewhere in the region of 25 million Russians were left outside the borders of Russia. A lot of them were in the Crimea in the Ukraine.

But the Ukraine had only been independent for three years in its history (1917-20), after the collapse of the tsarist armies.

The post-December 1991 Ukraine was thus a composite entity, its western regions had belonged to Poland between WWI and WWII; its eastern regions were Orthodox and Russian-speaking; and its Black Sea coast had been Ottoman.

The Crimea had never been Ukrainian until Nikita Khrushchev decreed it should be in 1954.

Thus, for anyone with any degree of understanding of foreign affairs, the troubles now being suffered by the various peoples in the Ukraine were both predictable and avoidable.

But the stupid bureaucrats in power were not able to predict it and thus the mess became inevitable.

Sadly the situation has now deteriorated into what amounts to a civil war in the Ukraine. On one side there is the Ukrainian army plus “volunteer battalions”, supported by the US and its allies, and on the other the “separatist” militias who draw their support mainly from Russian-speakers in the east, and who are supported by Russia.

Outside of what is happening in the Ukraine itself, the US and EU implemented severe sanctions against Russia which have hurt, but not nearly as much as they were supposed to. In turn Russia announced counter-sanctions on food and looked to emerging markets, particularly China, to diversify its foreign trade and industrial cooperation.

And so the Cold War part two has begun and shows little sign of ending just yet.

In fact it looks like the Ukraine will remain in a mess until it gets its act together and decides whether it wants to remain on friendly economic terms with its huge neighbor Russia, or whether it will settle for becoming subservient to the whims of the US, via some kind of economic agreement with the EU.

It has a third option, though, perhaps its best option, and that is not taking sides, but rather remaining on friendly terms with both East and West.

However, they may never get the chance to choose option three. In plain language, I don’t think that the people who arrange assassinations and coup d’etats will let them do that.

Meantime, summer or not, the chill continues.

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Are Government Bureaucrats Capable Of Looking After Data They Collect About Us?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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If you’ve read any of the political posts on this blog you’ll already know the answer to the question posed in the title.

Staffed by stupid bureaucrats, the government isn’t capable of doing anything right, apart from trying to make all our lives miserable with needless and intrusive rules and regulations.

Proving the point, recently in the press there have been numerous stories about the personal data of an estimated 18 million current, former and prospective federal employees being the victim of what they call a ‘cyber breach’ at the Office of Personnel Management.

I say 18 million because that is what has currently been estimated by none other than FBI Director James Comey in a closed-door briefing to Senators recently. A far cry from the government’s lies that ‘only’ 4.2 million files were hacked. And that 18 million number is expected to grow, not get smaller – which I suppose makes the government’s lie even bigger.

The same hackers who accessed the Office of Personnel Management’s data are believed to have last year breached an OPM contractor, KeyPoint Government Solutions. When that OPM breach was discovered in April, investigators found that KeyPoint security credentials were used to breach the OPM system.

Some investigators believe that after that intrusion last year, OPM bureaucrats should have blocked all access from KeyPoint, and that doing so could have prevented more serious damage.

But the bureaucrats refused to do anything – probably waiting for a sub-committee to write a 2,000 page report first!

It is believed that the Chinese government is behind this latest ‘cyber breach’, which is considered the worst ever against the U.S. government – so far, that is. The Chinese hackers are believed to have built their own backdoor access to the OPM system, armed with high-level system administrator access codes.

Naturally since it happened under his watch and the buck stops with him, President Obama has ordered his administration to answer all accusations of incompetence by minimizing the severity of breach.

But the OPM’s internal auditors told a House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee last week that key databases housing sensitive national security data, including applications for background checks, had not met federal security standards.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., responded thus, “I wish that you [the OPM] were as strenuous and hardworking at keeping information out of the hands of hackers as are at keeping information out of the hands of Congress.”

If only!

So are the government bureaucrats capable of looking after the data they collect on us?

Of course they aren’t.

Looks as if all Snowden, the subject of Wednesday’s post (if you want to read it click here), is really guilty of, is doing the bureaucrat’s job more efficiently.

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Wonder When They’ll get Round To Making Blogging Illegal?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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While he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, the former Speaker, Dennis Hastert, used his political power and connections to enrich himself. No shocks there. He is just one among many politicians who routinely do likewise.

But unlike most of the others, Hastert was charged by the Feds with five felonies, each of them carrying a minimum of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

But, before you get the wrong idea and start to cheer, Hastert’s use of political leverage for personal gain has nothing to do with the charges against him.

What he did when in office was merely corruption and we live in a corrupt political system that those in charge like to call ‘democracy’.

No, Hastert has apparently committed a far worse crime than political graft. And it wasn’t anything to do with the leaks doing the rounds that he had been paying off a high school student for alleged sexual abuse decades ago. He hasn’t been charged with anything related to that either.

Instead, he has been pursued and indicted for the heinous crime of

…wait for it…

“structuring” cash withdrawals from his bank accounts so as to avoid federal bank reporting requirements, and lying to the FBI about what he was doing with his money.

Now, I could care less what they do to a corrupt politician like Hastert. There is a certain irony that he has been caught by a law that he probably helped to create.

But the problem is that many of us could be similarly indicted simply because most of us don’t even know we are committing a crime in the first place.

Stupid bureaucrats have enacted so many laws in recent years, using misleading cover titles such as ‘money laundering’, ‘terrorist threats’, or ‘national security’, that they have turned millions of law-abiding people into de facto criminals, without them even knowing it.

The piece of invasive and unnecessary legislation that Hastert has been caught breaking is the ‘Bank Secrecy Act of 1970’, which makes it compulsory for U.S. banks to file a “currency transaction report” for deposits or withdrawals of more than $10,000 in currency. Banks suspicious of specific transactions are further required to file a “suspicious activity report.”

If the banks don’t capitulate to this government nonsense then they face penalties. This means that the banks comply, over-zealously so as not to ever infringe the regulations – which many of them don’t even understand. Now as a matter of routine they report ALL large cash transactions as suspicious, whether they really are or not.

Hastert didn’t intend or commit any money laundering, fraud or tax evasion. But the authorities don’t care about that. He had a legal and legitimate agreement in place with another individual and he withdrew his money in smaller amounts because he didn’t want this private arrangement to become public knowledge. The Justice Department even admits as much. But the authorities don’t care about that either.

So why have they charged Hastert when they know he really did nothing wrong apart from infringe on a stupid law that was never intended to catch the likes of him?

They did it to terrorize the rest of us.

What most western governments are about nowadays is control. The type of control that used to pervade communist states in the Soviet era. They want to criminalize ordinary people by making trivial and harmless acts into major felonies.

Woe betide you now if you want to spend you own money or transfer it to someone else. It’s your money, you earned it, you saved it up, but touch it in a way not specified by the government and you’re in Federal Court, you criminal bad person you!

All these spurious and unnecessary laws give government law enforcement agencies the ability to punish anyone at any time because there are so many regulations that everyone is in breach of something.

Wonder when they’ll get round to making blogging illegal?

Think I’m joking???

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General Confusion And Major Disaster.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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No, today’s post is not about matters military, although the term ‘SNAFU’ would be rather appropriate.

This one is about the General Election in Britain in May 2015 that will decide who will run the country for the next five years and who will be Prime Minister. This is a crucial election for voters because there is no real front runner. One party is as bad as the other. So a few votes here and there could make a crucial difference. Sounds a bit like Florida!

It may even end up with another coalition government in Britain, although I don’t know if the Conservatives could stomach another five years of being tied to the Liberals – but what am I talking about, of course they could, if it meant clinging on to power.

The election might be even closer than it should be because millions of people may be unable to vote. The secretive Whitehall department of stupid bureaucrats responsible for – wait for the irony, “efficiency” – refused to heed warnings from its own pilot programs that showed it had major problems with data matching.

It is very similar to the way the nerds at Microsoft didn’t believe their testers when they told them Windows 8 was a pile of doo-doo.

The bureaucrats first of all created new legal requirements for voter registration requiring them to verify information that was previously taken on trust.

The only thing is, about five and a half million voters went missing from the Electoral Register. The tests they carried out told them this was likely to happen, but they didn’t listen. Bureaucrats never do until it is too late.

According to government sources, “The digital service allows anyone to register to vote online, from any device connected to the web. It’s incredibly quick and simple – it takes less than five minutes.”

They forgot to add the crucial line that – it doesn’t work.

The problems became apparent as soon as the web service went live. The Electoral Register was a lot shorter than it had been. Not only that but strange things also began to happen.

For example, a five-year-old boy in Crewe had been given the vote – but he couldn’t get off the Electoral Register, because he was not able to produce his National Insurance number, which of course he didn’t have – because he was only five. Duhh!!!

In another case a woman, who had been an eligible voter on the Electoral Roll for twenty years, failed to get on to the new one because her National Insurance number was in her maiden name which did not match with her married name which the system insisted she use now.

The whole thing has turned into a government-created mess. People are now filling in the registration form thinking that means they are registered to vote, but actually they haven’t. All they have managed to do is submit an application to register to vote.

It’s bit like filling in a form so that you are eligible to fill in a form. A bureaucrat’s dream!

So it’s looking like general confusion and major disaster for the election. Just more proof that government bureaucrats and computer systems just don’t belong together.

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The Poor Suckers!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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It’s an unwritten rule that the more power you give bureaucrats the stupider the regulations they come up with.

The European Union is a prime example. The bureaucrats there have already decided that our bananas shouldn’t be too straight, or our cucumbers too bent. Their scientists have even declared that there was no proof that drinking water helped with dehydration. (Yes, they really did!)

These examples give you an idea just how intrusive and how dumb these people are.

Unfortunately they are in a position to issue these stupid regulations and to have them enforced by an even stupider team of morons who spend their worthless lives checking to make sure that rules that should never have been passed are adhered to.

And it just keeps going.

There are new wattage rules for light bulbs, and televisions, and washing machines, and refrigerators. And within the past few days the poor vacuum cleaner has come under attack.

They’ve decided that vacuum cleaners that use more than 1600 watts can no longer be sold in stores in the EU, nor manufactured in EU plants. And the wattage is to be reduced even further during the next two years to a paltry 900 watts.

I don’t know whether the term “poor suckers” is being applied to these weak powered machines or the citizens of the EU who have to put up with such endless nonsense!

Next on the bureaucrat’s hit list are lawn mowers, mobile phones, hair dryers, kettles, in fact just about everything they can think of interfering with.

Strangely, though, the one thing they never ever consider in their quest to reduce energy consumption is to cut the numbers in the EU Parliament along with their tens of thousands of support staff.

Or maybe it’s not so strange at all!

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Are These Dumb Politicians And Bureaucrats Trying To Make America A Better Place Or Just Trying To Destroy It!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I talked before about the bureaucrat’s insatiable desire to make things more difficult, awkward and expensive for legitimate businesses in America and Europe. That’s all they know how to do. I’ve also said before that introducing ever more taxes and regulations on bricks & mortar businesses would not be enough. They would have to try to destroy businesses operating online as well.

Well that latter attempt at destroying what is left of American entrepreneurship moved up another notch this week when the US Senate passed the “Marketplace Fairness Act”.

 

I’ll come back to that in a moment, but the title of this latest piece of needless bureaucratic interference illustrates perfectly once again the deceitfulness of the politicians and bureaucrats.

The “Marketplace Fairness Act” is not about “fairness”. It is not about leveling the playing field between those businesses operating online and those on the proverbial “High Street”. Anyone who tells you that is lying. (Really, a politician lying? Whatever next?)

 

Like all similar legislation, the “Marketplace Fairness Act” is about control; about making life more difficult for people who want to do business; and, not least, about trying to extort the last penny out of your pocket in the form of taxes.

I say “your” pocket, because at the end of the day businesses have to pass their increased costs on to the final consumer and that my friends is us!

Yes, the “Marketplace Fairness Act” has just been passed by the US Senate. As these things do, it still has to pass through the House of Representatives as well, and it will, if not on the first attempt on subsequent ones. Have you ever seen a stupid bad law that wasn’t pushed through by fair means or foul?

What the “Marketplace Fairness Act” does is to impose sales taxes for business transactions or sales done online. In other words, when you buy something from an online retailer, or a retailer with an online facility, you will be subject to the addition of a sales tax.

In the simplest terms, for you, the consumer, this Bill means that your bills will be bigger – you will have to pay more! For the business operating online it means more bureaucracy, more forms to fill out, more tax filings to be done – in short more hassle.

But for the government it means more money to be squandered on another war or on the next idiotic idea that Washington can think of.

 

And another unfairness that the Marketplace Fairness Act will create is that online businesses operating outside the United States will be laughing their tax free socks off.

You see this law will not – cannot – apply to foreign companies who do business online and sell to US-based consumers.

Why? Because the US authorities have no practical way to enforce it, and because businesses in foreign countries couldn’t care less about enforcing it, nor will their governments.

Do you seriously think for one moment that either businesses or governments in, for example, China, or India, or even Mexico are going to waste their time collecting sales tax for Uncle Sam?

So if I was setting up an online business would I still do it in America? I think you know the answer.

You could be forgiven for asking whether these dumb politicians and bureaucrats are really trying to make America a better place or just trying to destroy it!

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Cyprus Theft Update

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Anyone who has been following this story that I posted about a few days ago, (here if you missed it), will know that the European Union bureaucrats made an attempt to steal the savings of the Cypriot people right out of their bank accounts.

With at least one eye on their chances of being re-elected, the Cypriot parliament rejected the proposal out of hand. The proper thing to do no doubt, but there is also no doubt that this will not be the end of it. Indeed the fallout continues.

Western governments are desperate because of the financial mess that they and their bankster accomplices have created. And desperate governments are known to take desperate measures to try to patch things up.

Look out for more attempts by these governments to steal your money, whether it be in the form of savings in the bank, government bonds, stocks or in pension plans. Nothing is safe from the clutches of these thieves.

The goings on in Cyprus has already proven their intent and alarm bells have begun to sound among those who are awake and paying attention. The bureaucrats’ attempted money grab has already sparked off suspicion and panic throughout Europe and elsewhere as to the amount of trust people can have in their governments.

Even among the financially stronger nations the trend is clear. In Germany, for example, a recent opinion poll showed that the majority of Germans do not trust their leader, Merkel’s, pronouncements that their money is safe in a bank.

Throughout Europe those who can are moving their money to offshore locations away from the thieving hands of their own governments. Big corporations, including US corporations, are doing the same. It has already happened in Ireland and Spain and France and, to a lesser extent, in the UK too.

What a sad commentary on how these stupid politicians and bureaucrats have mismanaged our affairs.

Will it hit America as well?

That depends just how stupid the political administration in Washington really is – which is perhaps a kind way of saying, please err on the side of caution if you are an American citizen.

The $ as a currency will probably be okay for a while, despite the humongous debt that Obama is piling up, but eventually it will become impossible to print their way out of trouble.

All those highly paid morons and herd followers called ‘money managers’ who work for the various funds that you entrust your savings and pensions to, and who do little more than buy up T-Bills with it, may find that their strategy is going to backfire. Like the banksters, however, they will still charge you a fee for looking after your money whether they invest it wisely or lose it all.

But whilst the bureaucrats will never be able to figure out how to run an economy – their, “take more and more taxes out of less and less income” strategy will never add up – eventually the penny will drop with the good citizens and they will waken up and realize they have been completely shafted by incompetent politicians and greedy banksters.

Then the brown stuff will hit the fan – big time – and people will get real mad. And then the powers that be will have no choice but to turn on their own citizens if they are to cling to power. Preparations for this started under Bush and now Obama has added even more legislation to make this possible.  

It is a rather bleak scenario, particularly for those who choose to ignore what is happening around them. But whether it happens in one year or another five, if the politicians and bureaucrats do not wise up – and their is little sign of them doing that especially when they have yet to realize how incompetent they are – it will happen.

So start to think seriously about your own circumstances and what you can do to protect what you have from thieving governments. Or just settle down and get another 40 winks assured in the knowledge that those in Washington, Brussels, London and Berlin know what they’re doing.

Cyprus ATM

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Stupid Politicians And Bureaucrats Make What? Yes, That’s Right – Stupid Laws, Part Three

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Today we have the third of my three-part series highlighting some of the stupid laws that have been made by the stupid politicians and bureaucrats that we have allowed into positions of power.

So here are some more of the lesser known laws that govern the good citizens in the United States (listed by state alphabetically, part 1 covered A to L, part 2 covered the M’s and N’s, this week it’s O to W.).

Enjoy (or cringe, perhaps).

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OHIO

• Women are prohibited from wearing patent leather shoes in public. (I hope that’s no reflection on them.)
• It is illegal to fish for whales on Sunday. (And immoral any other day.)
• It is illegal to get a fish drunk. (Would Sir like some water with that?)
• The Ohio driver’s education manual states that you must honk the horn whenever you pass another car. (But I want to ‘beep’.)
• If one loses their pet tiger, they must notify the authorities within one hour. (That’s greeeaaaatttttt!)

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OKLAHOMA

• It is illegal for the owner of a bar to allow anyone inside to pretend to have sex with a buffalo. (And the real thing is okay???)
• Dogs must have a permit signed by the mayor in order to congregate in groups of three or more on private property.
• It is illegal to have the hind legs of farm animals in your boots. (That reminds me of a joke about…… no, better not.)
• People who make “ugly faces” at dogs may be fined and/or jailed. (What happens if you just have a ugly face to begin with?)
• Cars must be tethered outside of public buildings.
• Oral sex is a misdemeanor and is punishable by one year in jail and a $2,500 fine. (Well, blow me, that’s expensive!)
• It is illegal to conceal the birth of a child that would be a bastard. (But you never know how they are going to turn out until they get a bit older???)

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OREGON

• Babies may not be carried on the running boards of a car. (That’s okay, you need both hands to hang on to the car anyhow.)
• It is illegal to whisper “dirty” things in your lover’s ear during sex. (So where do you whisper them?)
• Ice cream may not be eaten on Sundays. (Ridiculous!)
• It is illegal to buy or sell marijuana, but it is legal to smoke it on your own property. (To pot with that!!)
• You cannot eat a doughnut and walk backwards on a city street. (Well, maybe YOU can’t, but….)
• Juggling is strictly prohibited without a license. (And quite difficult even with one.)
• It is a crime to publicly scrape clean a skeleton in a cemetery. (And let’s make no bones about it.)

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PENNSYLVANIA

• It is illegal to sleep on top of a refrigerator outdoors. (This is another one of those ‘how many people were doing this that a law was needed against it’ kind of things.)
• Any motorist driving along a country road at night must stop every mile and send up a rocket signal, wait 10 minutes for the road to be cleared of livestock, and continue.
• A special cleaning ordinance bans housewives from hiding dirt and dust under a rug in a dwelling. (Ya hear that one ladies?)
• In Harrisburg it is against the law to wear lead nipple shields. (I bet Superman goes there – a lot!)
• You may not sing in the bathtub.
• You may not catch a fish by any body part except the mouth. (I don’t think I could catch a fish with my mouth.)

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RHODE ISLAND

• No one may bite off another’s leg. (Ears, noses, arms, etc., are okay?)
• Any marriage where either of the parties is an idiot or lunatic is null and void. (I’m saying nothing.)
• One must make a loud noise before passing a car on the left. (Can do!)
• The penalty for biting off another’s limb is twenty years in jail, but only if it was intentional. (Whoops, sorry, there’s your leg back. I didn’t mean it.)
• It is illegal to wear transparent clothing. (Clearly!)
• You may not sell toothpaste and a toothbrush to the same customer on a Sunday.

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SOUTH CAROLINA

• It is considered an offense to get a tattoo. (I just consider it stupid.)
• Horses may not be kept in bathtubs. (I guess there’s no room, what with all the donkeys in there.)
• It is perfectly legal to beat your wife on the court house steps on Sundays.
• It is a capital offense to inadvertently kill someone while attempting suicide. (You mean if you are attempting suicide or you can’t kill the person who is attempting suicide?)

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SOUTH DAKOTA

• It is illegal to lie down and fall asleep in a cheese factory. (But is there a law about cutting the cheese?)
• If three or more Indians are walking down the street together, they can be considered a war party and fired upon.
• In Huron it is an offence to cause static. (Shocking law that one.)
• Otherwise illegal explosives can be set off in sunflower fields.

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TENNESSEE

• It is a crime to share your Netflix password in Tennessee. (Is it okay in English?)
• It is illegal to use a lasso to catch a fish. (And very difficult.)
• “Crimes against nature” are prohibited.
• Skunks may not be carried into the state. (Yeah, let the little stinkers walk.)

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TEXAS

• It is illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing. (What sort of a guy ‘sips’ beer? Come on!)
• Up to a felony charge can be levied for promoting the use of, or owning more than six dildos.
• It is illegal to milk another person’s cow. (Is that a double entendre?)
• The entire Encyclopedia Britannica is banned in Texas because it contains a formula for making beer at home.
• In Dallas it is illegal to possess realistic dildos.

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UTAH

• It is illegal not to drink milk.
• It is illegal to detonate any nuclear weapon.
• Birds have the right of way on all highways.
• In Salt Lake County an official milkman is limited to casual contact with his customers. (What’s all this about milk in Utah?)
• A husband is responsible for every criminal act committed by his wife while she is in his presence.
• No one may have sex in the back of an ambulance if it is responding to an emergency call. (So turn the sirens off??)
• It is illegal to cause a catastrophe. (So are these laws not breaking this law?)

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VERMONT

• Women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth. (By gum!)
• At one time it was illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole.
• All residents shall bathe every Saturday night.

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VIRGINIA

• Not only is it illegal to have sex with the lights on, one may not have sex in any position other than missionary. (Just how did the people who thought this one up think that they were going to enforce it?)
• It is illegal to tickle women. (You just said that, see above!)
• A man may face 60 days in jail for patting a woman’s derriere. (How long for a good slap?)
• Women must wear a corsette after sundown and be in the company of male chaperone.

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WASHINGTON

• The harassing of Bigfoot, Sasquatch or other undiscovered subspecies is a felony punishable by a fine and/or imprisonment. (Do tell how exactly do you harass an ‘undiscovered’ species? Wouldn’t you have to discover it first, and once discovered it is no longer ‘undiscovered’ and therefore can be harassed?)
• All lollipops are banned. (This law really sucks.)
• People may not buy a mattress on Sunday.
• In Washington it is a misdemeanor to sell poison without a license.
• In Seattle possessing an electro-magnetic wave generator is a crime.
• It is illegal to pretend that one’s parents are rich. (Can you pretend that they are poor?)
• You may not carry a concealed weapon that is over six feet in length. (And where would you be able to conceal it anyway?)

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WEST VIRGINIA

• It is legal for a male to have sex with an animal as long as it does not exceed 40 lbs. (And I would imagine dangerous if it does!)
• It is illegal to snooze on a train.
• One may not walk a lion, tiger or leopard, even on a leash.
• Firemen may not whistle or flirt at any woman passing a firehouse.

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WISCONSIN

• Condoms were considered an obscene article and had to be hidden behind the pharmacist’s counter.
• At one time, margarine was illegal.
• It is illegal to kiss on a train.
• It is illegal to cut a woman’s hair. (People from Brazil please take special note.)
• The government may not prohibit manual flushed urinals. (That’s handy.)
• Cheddar cheese must be “highly pleasing”.
• Followers of the Ho-Chunk religion may hunt deer without a license.
• It is illegal to produce baby Swiss cheese without well-developed eyes. (Otherwise how could you see what you were doing… Duh!!)

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WYOMING

• If one is drunk in a mine, he or she could land in jail for up to a year. (Prospects aren’t good then?)
• It is illegal for women to stand within five feet of a bar while drinking. (Iron or wooden?)
• You may not take a picture of a rabbit from January to April without an official permit. (That really bugs me.)
• It is illegal to charge for the use of a toilet. (No sh**!)

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What Do Stupid Politicians And Bureaucrats Make? Yes, That’s Right – Stupid Laws

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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If you were ever in any doubt, let me assure you that when you elect morons to positions where they can legislate for the rest of us then you are assured that they will spend their time and our money making stupid laws, rules and regulations.

It happens in every country and in every state in every country. Such is the horrendous scale of the problem that I would be blogging forever if I tried to highlight worldwide stupidity, so as an example let’s look at some of the lesser known laws that govern citizens in the United States of America (I will list them state by state alphabetically. Part one today is A to L).

Enjoy (or cringe, perhaps).

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ALABAMA

• It is considered an offense to open an umbrella on a street, for fear of spooking horses. 
• In Alabama, it is against the law to wear a fake mustache that could cause laughter in the church. 
• A voter spending more than four minutes in a voting booth can be asked to hurry up.

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ALASKA

• No one may tie their pet dog to the roof of a car.
• A clumsy or unknowledgeable person may not use a ski-lift.
• Owners of flamingos may not let their pet into barber shops.
• It is a crime to deceive a machine.

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ARIZONA

• Hunting camels is prohibited.
• It is illegal to buy a human egg in order to clone yourself.
• You may not leave a fishing pole unattended.
• Donkeys cannot sleep in bathtubs.
• You may not have more than two dildos in a house.
  

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ARKANSAS

• A man can legally beat his wife, but not more than once a month. (Ridiculous idea!)
• Dogs may not bark after 6 PM. (How about a “woof”?) 
• It is against the law to own a dangerous cat.

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CALFORNIA

• The Shell Egg Advisory Committee must have seven members.
• City Council order reads: “No dog shall be in a public place without its master on a leash.” (A little bit of role reversal there.)
• In Chino, testing a nuclear device within the city limits is prohibited.
• Ice cream may not be eaten while standing on the sidewalk. (Repealed when Clint Eastwood took the chair – as mayor, I mean)
• If you are selling your house you must warn potential buyers if the house is thought to be haunted.

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COLORADO

• It is illegal to permit ones llama to graze on city property. (I’m so cross I could spit!)
• It is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor. (Quite right too, let them wallow in their filth and bring the whole neighborhood image down.)

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CONNECTICUT

• In order for a pickle to officially be considered a pickle, it must bounce.
• Selling a spool of thread without first stating its length is subject to a penalty of up to three months in prison.
• It is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset. (And just plain dumb to do it in daylight.)
• It is illegal to sell milk from skinny cows.
• You may not educate dogs. (Or legislators, it seems!)
• It is illegal for a man to kiss his wife on Sunday.

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DELAWARE

• No person shall pretend to sleep on a bench on the boardwalk. (But actually sleeping is okay?)
• One may not whisper in church. (But if we talk loudly won’t it disrupt the Service?)

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FLORIDA

• Doors of all public buildings must open outwards. (Pushist legislation if ever I saw it.)
• It is illegal for female hot dog stand attendants to wear G-strings. 
• A special law prohibits unmarried women from parachuting on Sunday or she shall risk arrest, fine, and/or jailing.
• In West Palm Beach it is a crime to hang a carpet in public.
• Having sexual relations with a porcupine is illegal. (And bloody dangerous I would imagine!)
• You may not kiss your wife’s breasts. (But someone else’s wife is okay?)

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GEORGIA

• It is a crime to sell your child off to a circus. 
• The term “sadomasochistic abuse” is defined so broadly, that it could possibly be applied to a person handcuffing another in a clown suit.
• It is illegal to use profanity in front of a dead body which lies in a funeral home or in a coroners office. (FFS, oops!)
• No one may carry an ice cream cone in their back pocket if it is Sunday. (Don’t they mean “a Sundae”?)
• One is not permitted to noodle a fish. (I don’t know what this means but it sounds a bit pervy.)
• Donkeys may not be kept in bathtubs. (There it is again, what’s going on?)
• All citizens must own a rake. (Leaf us alone!)

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HAWAII

• All residents may be fined as a result of not owning a boat. (Canoe believe this one?)
• In Maui County building an atomic bomb is subject to a fine.
• Coins are not allowed to be placed in one’s ears. (They’ll have to make change here.)

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IDAHO

• It is illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a box of candy weighing less than fifty pounds.
• You may not fish on a camel’s back. (I take the hump at that rule.)
• Cannibalism is prohibited unless under life threatening situations. 
• Residents may not fish from a giraffe’s back. (They’ve got some neck on them!)
• It is a crime for anyone who is not blind to use a white cane.
• A person may not be seen in public without a smile on their face. (Another good reason for reading the fasab blog!)

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ILLINOIS

• You may be arrested for vagrancy if you do not have at least one dollar bill on your person. (The buck stops here.)
• The English language is not to be spoken. (That’s becoming more and more true of a lot of states in the US)
• In Minooka it is illegal to “suffer any bitch or slut”. 
• One may not pee in his neighbor’s mouth. (Just how much of this was going on that they thought they needed a law against it? Or is someone just taking the piss??)
• Law forbids eating in a place that is on fire. (The hell with that.)
• In Joliet the word “Joliet” must be pronounced properly, with the accent on the first syllable.
• It is illegal to give a dog whiskey. (What a waste, I wouldn’t dream of it.)
• In the Pullman area, it is illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while sitting on the curb. (There goes a good night out!)
• It is against the law to sell a smelly mattress. 
• Humming on public streets is prohibited on Sundays. (I guess I’ll have to take a bath Saturdays in Illinois.)
• Wheelbarrows with For-Sale signs may not be chained to trees.

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INDIANA

• Hotel sheets must be exactly 99 inches long and 81 inches wide. (Even for single beds?)
• Stupefying fish is against the law.
• The value of Pi is 3. (No it isn’t.)
• It is illegal for a man to be sexually aroused in public. (That a hard one – to enforce I mean!)
• Baths may not be taken between the months of October and March. (Definitely have to remember to stay out of Illinois then.)
• Possessing a weapon of mass destruction is against the law.
• It is against the law to pass a horse on the street. (Even if it is coming from the other direction?)

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IOWA

• A man with a moustache may never kiss a woman in public.
• It is illegal to catch more than 48 frogs in one day.
• One-armed piano players must perform for free.
• Within the city limits of Ottumwa, a man may not wink at any woman he does not know.

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KANSAS

• Pedestrians crossing the highways at night must wear tail lights. (How illuminating.)
• It is against the law to modify the weather without a permit.
• No one may catch fish with his bare hands. 
• The state game rule prohibits the use of mules to hunt ducks.
• If two trains meet on the same track, neither shall proceed until the other has passed. (That law will get us nowhere.)
• No one may sing the alphabet on the streets at night. (What’s the penalty for lettering?)

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KENTUCKY

• One may not dye a duckling blue and offer it for sale unless more than six are for sale at once.
• One may not receive anal sex. (No problem.)
• Nudist colonies must make themselves available for inspection by the local sheriff. 
• A woman may not buy a hat without her husband’s permission. (So that’s why they went out of fashion.)

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LOUISIANA

• It is a $500 fine to instruct a pizza delivery man to deliver a pizza to your friend without them knowing.
• It is illegal to rob a bank and then shoot at the bank teller with a water pistol. (Okay, if I ever do that I’ll use a real gun.)
• Biting someone with your natural teeth is “simple assault,” while biting someone with your false teeth is “aggravated assault”. (If you have no teeth can you just give them a big suck?)

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