As a New Year arrives, here are 10 wacky laws that remain on the books across the country:

1. In Billings, Mont., it is illegal for anyone to sell, harbor or give away rats as pets or toys for any purpose other than to feed snakes or birds of prey. Scientists, however, can keep lab rats.

2. Using profanity is against the law on playgrounds and in public parks in Columbia, Md.

3. The last Sunday in June each year is Log Cabin Day in Michigan.

4. In Michigan, it is legal to kill a dog for attacking chickens, livestock or people, but you can't snuff the pooch in a high altitude decompression chamber or by electrocution.

5. In West Virginia, anyone who taunts someone who decides not to participate in a duel or who declines to accept a challenge is guilty of a misdemeanor and can be sent to jail for up to six months and fined up to $100.

6. In Kentucky it is illegal to sell, exchange, offer to sell or exchange, display, or possess living baby chicks, ducklings, or other fowl or rabbits that have been dyed or colored. It is also illegal to dye or color baby chicks, ducklings, fowl or rabbits. And unless they are at least two months old, the aforementioned animals must be sold in batches of six.

7. At shooting ranges in Massachusetts, it is illegal to shoot at targets depicting a human -- whether as a figure, effigy or a silhouette -- unless you're a public safety officer performing official duties.

8. In Alabama it is against the law to alter the natural appearance of the teeth of a horse or mule to make the animal appear younger than it actually is.

9. In Alabama anyone performing a marriage rite is entitled to a fee of $2 per marriage.

10. In Alabama it is against the law to exploit a bear by promoting, engaging in or being employed at a bear wrestling match, or by subjecting a bear to surgical alteration of any kind, including, but not limited to, declawing, tooth removal and severing tendons.


Here's a question for everyone; In Arkansas, is it legal for a man to marry his widow's sister?

11. As far as I know, it is still illegal to wear roller skates in public restrooms around Portland.

In Arkansas, is it legal for a man to marry his widow's sister?

In Arkansas, they start by marrying their sister and work toward making her a widow.

Here's a recent blog in Seattle
regarding making 'CITIZENS ARRESTS':

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/seattle911/archives/158118.asp

10. In Alabama it is against the law to exploit a bear by promoting, engaging in or being employed at a bear wrestling match, or by subjecting a bear to surgical alteration of any kind, including, but not limited to, declawing, tooth removal and severing tendons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bC_0R6q_kA

A man cannot marry his widow's sister anywhere on the planet! If he has a widow, he's DEAD! Doh.

When I was a kid my lawyer father would often mention a law still on the Portland books at the time making it illegal to wear high heels in downtown Portland. (They'd catch in the wooden sidewalks and cause injuries.)

A man cannot marry his widow's sister anywhere on the planet! If he has a widow, he's DEAD! Doh.

Ding, ding, ding! The winner is Terry!

I wondered how long it would take someone to catch that!!

Good job!

6. In Kentucky it is illegal to sell, exchange, offer to sell or exchange, display, or possess living baby chicks, ducklings, or other fowl or rabbits that have been dyed or colored. It is also illegal to dye or color baby chicks, ducklings, fowl or rabbits. And unless they are at least two months old, the aforementioned animals must be sold in batches of six.......

8. In Alabama it is against the law to alter the natural appearance of the teeth of a horse or mule to make the animal appear younger than it actually is.

Actually, these kinds of laws make sense (I think) from a stand-point of consumer protection.

For example, if an animal as in item #6 should have some sort of illness or genetic defect, one of the symptoms of which exhibits itself as a coat-colour that wouldn't normally be found on said animal--such as, a dull-gray plumage on a duckling which would otherwise have yellow feathers--and would otherwise render the animal unfit for livestock use or in other cases, render it as lower retail value than a normally healthy animal would command. Thus, helping (I suspect) curtail the possible commission of fraud.

In any case the immortal phrase of commerce prevails: CAVEAT EMPTOR!

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By the way, did you know that in Washington it is illegal to possess more than ten wooden shipping pallets--like the ones that the huge shrink-wrapped volumes of yet-to-be-sold commodity product on the high shelves at Costco are on--in one's yard at any given time?

It's also supposedly illegal to capture rain-water in buckets on private property anywhere in Washington because it apparently violates water rights; water being a "public resource" and as such belonging exclusively to the state. It's an archaic old law dating to the mid-1800s when we were still part of Oregon Territory, but which Olympia either hasn't goten around to repealing, or has just forgotten about it over time. I read a piece about it in the Columbian last summer.

(So if you have that big 20-gallon drum full of rain out on your back deck or front porch that you use to water your flowers with in the summer, better go dump it out right now lest you end up pullin' 20-to-life with no chance for parole in the maximum security area at Walla Walla!! ;o)

Here are some wacky laws:

It's illegal for non-hextrosexual couples to marry.

Its LEGAL to kill your unborn child by smoking.

Its also LEGAL to give your children cancer caused by YOUR 2nd hand smoke.

Its ILLEGAL for a cop in the state of Washington to pull you over while you've BOTH hands on your cell phone driving at highway speeds. You've got to have a burned-out license plates light bulb before they can get you! Heh, so typically Clark countyish.