What are the world’s weirdest laws?
Here’s a few good ones.
#1 China. The country now bans all depictions of time travel. They consider it a disrespect to history and possibly advocating reincarnation.
#2 Saudi Arabia. If you’re a weatherman is this country, you cannot forecast the weather for the next day or coming days. You can only talk about the current weather. Forecasting the future is banned.
#3 Saudi Arabia. We don’t know if there are any weather women in Saudi. But we know that women cannot drive cars, they can’t vote, they can’t leave their homes unless accompanied by a man and they must wear burkas. (Maybe this should be #1.)
#4 Singapore and Burma require any assembly of 5 or more persons to apply for government permit. Without a permit, you are subject to arrest and imprisonment.
We cannot forget the good ‘ol USA.
#5 The U.S. Patriot Act This law basically allows the US government to do whatever they want with regard to citizens and foreign nationals. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:
“The Act increases the ability of law enforcement agencies to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records; eases restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the United States; expands the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities; and enhances the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts.
Closer to home.
#6 In Sarasota, Florida it is illegal for women to sing in public wearing a bikini.
Everyone is welcome to add their personal favorites to the list.
The photo at the top, BTW, is from The Time Traveler’s Wife, which will not be seen in China.
What a crack up!
restricting, archaic, and silly comes to mind reading these….
but i am ever so excited after reading your last comment. you must must must let me know how i can get the book when its available. are you publishing it on kindle perchance???
Kindle, amazon, barnes and noble online…
After reading 1 through 4, I was beginning to actually feel good about living in the US…until I got to number 5. Bummer….these are some crazy laws!
Yes, sigh, #5.
China recently passed a law that forbid Tibetans from reincarnating. Now that’s truly bizarre, because are they saying that they believe reincarnation is reality or are they afraid of someone claiming to be the 15th Dalai Lama a few years after the current one passes?
Wow! Incredible.
Not to get all semantic on you…but “burkas” are the term for the blue beekeeper suits women wear in Afghanistan. In Saudi Arabia, women wear black veils and robes, which is called a chador. Since there is a language and cultural difference, there are different words and slightly different meanings.
A decade ago, the radio station I listened to in Atlanta mentioned weird laws. One was a town in Georgia where it was against the law to eat chicken with a fork. Another town had a law that forbid calling a waiter “boy.” There was a law in Atlanta that one could not load or unload a moving van after sunset. Weird. I guess it keeps state legislature employed coming up with obscure laws.
so – what this means is that i’m illegal in half the world and a major threat in the other half! and wait – who is that coming up my walk? oh, just the MIBs! and the boys in baseball caps with ear pieces!!! again!!!
LOL! I can see those MIBs headed up your walkway now…
and do you see what happened to them after they got here? you’ve read hansel and gretel, right?
😉
🙂 funny!
A couple of odd laws from Britain:
It is illegal to die in our Houses of Parliament. Not sure how you would enforce this or how much they will fine you if you choose to do so.
It is illegal to place a postage stamp up-side-down on an envelope – as this would therefore show the monarch’s head up-side-down – and this is considered an act of treason.
Weird ones, Mike! I esp. like the one about not dying in parliament.
Ha ha, should be “…IT will hit the fan”. I’m hoping to avoid the fan myself… 😉
We also had a mistake earlier in our post on #6. I originally wrote that women could not sign in public wearing bikinis. Trish changed it to women can’t be seen in public wearing bikinis. But of course the beaches are public and bikini-clad women aren’t being arrested. The stupid law is that women can’t SING in public wearing bikinis. Hm, no singing at the beach?
Yeah, the time travel ban in China really is rather silly. Unfortunately the energy is starting to turn in China now, and I’m sensing a hard landing coming up. To be honest it feels rather scary to me. I’m moving towards getting out, and especially getting my Chinese wife out. My sense is that I will hit the fan around January next year. I almost never make any public predictions, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Hope I’m wrong…
You probably aren’t wrong, Marcus. I like the freudian (jungian?!) slip there!