“Until 1976, all hackney carriages (ie black cabs) were required to carry ‘a bale of hay and a sack of oats’ for the horse, even though the nags were long gone. There’s more: by law, councils had to supply ‘a water trough at all hackney taxi ranks’. In case Hackneyites needed to bathe a pug or give their moustache a rinse.”

1976 Black Cabs Required to Carry a Bale of Hay

Laws are supposed to be rooted in logic and yet some of the strangest seem to have been written without a drop of it. Of course this law made sense for the time but there are plenty of antiquated laws that have always been kind of… bizarre.   Did you know that it’s illegal to whistle underwater in Vermont? I wonder how anyone gets caught and I’m especially curious as to what the punishment is…

1976 Black Cabs Required to Carry a Bale of Hay

Weird Laws in England

Every country has their own set of weird laws, and England is no exception. Consider some of these bizarre English laws:

• Eating mince pies on Christmas Day is illegal throughout England.
• If a postage stamp with the Queens head on is placed upside down it is counted as Treason, which still carries the death penalty.
• In York it is still legal to shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow, on all days except Sundays. 
  
• It is very illegal to stand within one hundred yards of a ruling Monarch if you are not wearing any socks.
• It is illegal for an MP to enter Parliament, wearing a suit of armor.
• Interestingly enough it is illegal to die within the houses of Parliament.
• The law allows any pregnant women to relieve themselves in public.
• It is illegal to wrestle an untrained bull in public.
• It is against the law to allow your pet to get it on with any pet of the Royal House.

Weird Laws in England

The 2012 law was put in place to deal with somewhat of a technical issue at sensored lights that don’t recognise motorcycles have approached, leaving them to previously have to wait for a car or illegally run the light. In some cases waiting bikes had been on the end of danger as there are cases of them being mowed down while waiting!

Anyway the law now says that in cases where a reasonable amount of time has passed a motorcyclist can advance safely at a red light run by a sensor. 120 seconds is generally the accepted time even though the law doesn’t state a time.

The law only applies in cities under 2million though so you can’t do it in Chicago!

Related: Illinois bans motorcycle wheelies

- Motorcyclists run red lights Illinois

The law’s were specifically put into place affecting driving a motorcycle or moped on one wheel so bicycles are safe for the moment! Specfic fines have been attributed to 1st, 2nd and 3rd offences. It’s unclear if you can get all three fines if you get caught doing three wheelies in a row of if that counts as the first offence!

So 1st offence is a $100 fine. The second is up to $1,500 six months in jail with a third rising to up to $2,500 and a year of hard time, ouch!

Below is an image of the law so you can take a look.

However before you think Illionois has gone all anti motorcycle consider that they also enacted a law that allowed motorcyclists to skip a red light, in some cases! Read more: motorcyclists run red lights illinois

What do you think of this law? – Illinois bans motorcycle wheelies

She basically said that a large portion of rap and hip hop was tied to ‘rape culture’ and was a ‘contemporary soundtrack of misogyny.’

Of course statements like that don’t sit well with some people who live and breath hip hop and the culture it creates.

Ashlet of course had to respond to the fire storm and she did so in impecible fashion first by calling on a pal in the industry, mogul, Russell Simmons. She did an interview on his site Global Grind and also wrote an excellent piece addressing the backlash.

Here is an excerpt from the interview which can be read in full here.

RS: What were intentions when you wrote that paragraph about hip-hop, Snoop and Puff?

Ashley: My intention was to support artists to know that they have so much power. That they make incredible life changing impressions, particularly on the young. And we have choices everyday with our expressions, we either empower and celebrate unity or to re-enforce inequality and degradation. We are either part of the problem, or part of the solution. There is no in-between.

There are elements, and that is the part that has been so distorted…what I’m being accused of is condemning rap and hip-hop as a whole, and the whole community and when they say community, they mean the fans, and African-Americans, it’s become so generalized. My intention was to take a stand to say the elements that are misogynistic and treat girls and women in a hyper-sexualized way are inappropriate. The male dominance that is displayed, and the reinforcement of girls’ and women value and identify as primarily sexual, is not helpful in any artistic expression, in any cultural form, whether its country music or in television story lines. And if they read amore than one paragraph in the book, they would see that all four hundred pages are about that! We do live in a worldwide culture in which the sexual interests of boys and men are privileged over the bodily integrity and sexual autonomy of girls and women. What about this 11 year old child, gang raped multiple times in Texas over months? That is rape culture: a crowd of people, repeatedly, participating and allowing sexual violence and humiliation. But it isn’t always that extreme, or evident, but it is pervasive. Men having constant sexual access to compliant (or sometimes sassy, but in the end, she always wants it, and if not, hey, nothing wrong with a force, if she resists) females is a theme everywhere: sock commercials, shoe ads, hamburger advertisements. I so regret that my indictment of rape culture as a whole has been with that paragraph interpreted as me blaming rap and hip hop exclusively. That was absolutely not my intentin, and I so regret it has had that effect on some people. That community is incredibly important to me and to the cause of social justice. It is filled with bad ass and brave activists whom I admire, who work under duress fighting epic discrimination. As for the artists themselves who I mention, I write about being friendly with and enjoying Curtis Jackson’s company, then being confused when on stage his .50 personae comes out. I know Sean as a lovely, gracious guy who always remembers my husband’s name, with whom I have had heartfelt talks about the role of pop culture in improving social norms and eliminating discrimination.

I highly recommend you also read her article “All That Is Bitter & Sweet: My Hip-Hop Remarks”

Do you think she rectified her ‘mistake’ well with these comebacks? I personally think she more than made up for it and in some cases her original statements still have a certain validity.

What do you think?

Don’s comments were as usual in fine taste as he used a word to describe the pres that is commonly associated with black people, something that most of us agree should be avoided to some degree.

Let’s face it, the self styled cowboy who now has a show on Fox’s HD channel called ‘Imus in the Morning’ is all about the shock factor so maybe we should just be ignoring him? Afte he was fired in 2007 for racist remarks against Rutgers when he called the girls ‘nappy headed hos’ we shouldn’t really expect less should we?

American-reporter reported that:

“The drawling host, wearing a black cowboy hat and chatting aimlessly about the presidential campaign, abruptly referred to President Barack Obama as “the pimp with a limp,” an apparently conflated reference to President Obama, who appeared with a Miami radio host who uses that moniker on Sept. 11.

The President made news as he was criticized by some for not mentioning the 9/11 anniversary on that show.

The offending phrase is used to describe the Miami, Fla., talk show host La-Z. But there was no indication Imus was referring to La-Z. The comment appeared to make reference to the fact that Obama is black and to extend the description to the President.”

The drawling host, wearing a black cowboy hat and chatting aimlessly about the presidential campaign, abruptly referred to President Barack Obama as “the pimp with a limp,” an apparently conflated reference to President Obama, who appeared with a Miami radio host who uses that moniker on Sept. 11.

The President made news as he was criticized by some for not mentioning the 9/11 anniversary on that show.

The offending phrase is used to describe the Miami, Fla., talk show host La-Z. But there was no indication Imus was referring to La-Z. The comment appeared to make reference to the fact that Obama is black and to extend the description to the President.”

What do you think of Imus and these comments?

Fired from CBS after the incident this man fell from a high grace as he was once seen as one of the 25 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine.

So what happened?

During the 2007 NCAA championship game between Rutgers girls and Tenesse someone off camera said that Rutgers were ”some hardcore hos.”. Luckily Imus couldn’t let that rest and bettered with the insightful comment “That’s some nappy-headed hos there, I’m gonna tell you that now.”

Actually scrap insightful and change that too sexist, derogatory and darn right racist. His first line of defence was that people need to lighten up a little, of course like we should about racism (yes that’s sarcasm from me).

Later on he went onto the Al Sharpton radio show with what seemed like an insincere apology and an attempt to keep his job!

More on the incident can be read on AOL.

Here are some other nice things he has said:

• Don Imus calls rush limbaugh “insincere pig”
• Don Imus calls obama “pimp with a limp”

Tut, tut, tut! What do you think?

However the former Alaskan governor is also known for being firery and outspoken and wasn’t shy on her words calling Republicans wusses over their wobbly stance related to the stances they held during the fiscal cliff debates.

From a Dec 4th 2012 story CNN reported that Palin had said:

“Republicans, don’t get wobbly on us. Don’t be wusses about this,” she said Friday. “We just elected you as representatives of the people to get there in Washington, D.C. and rein it in.”

To the federal government, Palin pleaded: “Become as irrelevant in our lives as possible, please.”

She strongly felt that Obama’s admin were taking the wrong approach to the fiscal cliff and wanted Republicans to stand by their conservative values saying that there was simply not enough money to pay back the money ‘stolen’ from the future generations and borrowed from foreign countries.

Although I think she had a point I don’t think this whole debate is a simple conservative / non-conservative split and over half a year on the right way to move forward is still very much under debate!

Sarah Palin apologizes for “wusses” comments

Palin did eventually apologize for the comments saying that she shouldn’t be calling politicians name and it distracts from the important points.

- Sarah Palin calls GOP members wusses for their wobbly stance

The dolphin was believed to have got stranded on a beach on the southern island province of Hainan after being struck by a boat. Stranded in the shallow waters some tourists took the time to pose with it, one even lifting it’s head out of the water for a photo.

Sadly it seems none of these tourists attempted to help and now of course people who support these intelligent animals are backlashing in China and now the world.

I myself am saddened at the actions of these tourists if we are getting the full story.

A little more can be read in Metro.

What do you think? What would you have done as a tourist in this situation?

Digital Spy reported that:

Within just a few hours, chicks can tell the difference between different figures and can also keep track of numbers up to five.

Chickens can also keep track of objects and individuals that fall out of their sight. This is something that human babies do not develop until they are around 1-year-old.

Source: digitalspy.co.uk

The Happy Egg company said they are using this info to develop new activities for the chickens on their farms.

Personally, as a vegan, I welcome this kind of research and it just adds another slice of info about how much we don’t know about animals and their ‘intelligence’.

Does this do anything to change your attitude towards these clucking critters? Is eating chickens be any better than eating dogs or eating cats?