Dan P asks: Did mobsters ever really use cement galoshes on the feet of people they sent to sleep with the fishes like in the movies? If there’s one thing everyone knows about the mob it’s that they had an astonishing number of ways to off the various wiseguys, shysters and snitches who got in the way of their business. […]
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Wayne T. asks: What’s the deal with movies showing sea captains performing marriages? They can’t actually do this, right According to countless movies and TV shows, sea captains, in addition to getting to wear dapper uniforms and snazzy hats, have the ability to marry couples aboard their ships thanks to the power bestowed upon them by… the sea we guess? […]
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Michael S. asks: Do people get anything when they’re knighted by the Queen? As we’ve discussed before and will no doubt talk more about in the future, as a direct result of her position as sovereign of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, the Queen has a large array of powers at her disposal entirely unique to her. Of these […]
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Dave R. asks: A friend and I were arguing the other day about whether or not it’s legal to land a helicopter in a fast food parking lot like in Mr. Deeds when they landed at Wendy’s? While the question of whether a helicopter can legally land in a fast-food parking lot may seem absurd on the surface, given the […]
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Jeremy R. asks: I wanted to know what the point of the crazy clothes you see at fashion shows is? Does anybody actually buy these? Fashion is an evolving beast with the fashionistas of the world endlessly attempting to create impossibly fabulous and unique new outfits for fashion shows. A commonly seen element of such outfits is that they’re often […]
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Jill T. asks – Would you be able to explain what happens to peoples money and property if they end up going to jail forever? Prison, by design, is a place where a number of your rights are either stripped away or are severely limited in some manner. The right most pertinent to the topic of conversation today is the […]
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Jared asks: Why do racehorses have such weird names? Who picks them? In the world of horse racing, the name of a given horse is considered to be almost as important as its ability to run. Thanks, in part, to a large number of rigid rules put in place by the the various governing bodies of the sport, picking a […]
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Mike L. asks: What is the chemtrail smoke behind airliners? So called “chemtrails,” though more technically known as contrails, first appeared behind planes going all the way back to the earliest days of high altitude flight. One of the earliest known surviving references of such occurred when an American soldier by the name of Captain Ward Wells observed a peculiar […]
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Mark H. asks: Is it true diplomats can get away with murder because of diplomatic immunity? While the idea of some form of diplomatic immunity has existed seemingly as long as there have been humans banding together in some form, the modern rules surrounding this were originally laid out in 1961 at the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, with to […]
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Kerri G. asks: Is it true that Rick Astley only made like $10 from Rickrolling? To begin with, for anyone who’s somehow managed to avoid the more than a decade old phenomenon of Rickrolling, in a nutshell this involves tricking someone into clicking on a link that takes them to the video for the relentlessly upbeat and infinitely cheesy 1980s […]
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Sarah M. asks: What happens if you renounce your citizenship but don’t belong to another country when you do it? It turns out, renouncing your citizenship to a given nation is generally a fairly simple affair in many nations of the world. It doesn’t even usually cost that much. For example, in the UK- fittingly for a country stereotypical known […]
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Holly H.asks: I was watching Grey’s Anatomy and in one episode a guy is hit by a bazooka and the bomb gets lodged inside his body without exploding. Has this ever happened in real life? At first thought the idea of a human being hit by some kind of large explosive that not only doesn’t detonate and kill the person, […]
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Chloe T. asks: Can police officers or FBI agents commit crimes while undercover? The use of undercover or covert law enforcement is common throughout much of the world and, for the most part, men and women tasked with going undercover are expected to, and do, follow the law. However, beyond the occasional bad officer doing things they aren’t supposed to, […]
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Gina K asks: When people have to resort to cannibalism to survive, is it considered a crime? To begin with, cannibalism is absolutely legal in the United States (with the exception of the state of Idaho), the UK, much of Europe, Japan, etc. However, as Cornell Law School notes, a number of laws are in place across America “that indirectly […]
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Jeremy B. asks: Is it true that pot is legal in Amsterdam? Amsterdam is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe- a city famous for its canals, its museums, its history and, well, it’s weed. Except, it turns out the common idea that marijuana is legal in the Netherlands isn’t accurate at all. This is despite the fact […]
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Nathan K. asks: How did Pomp and Circumstance get to be the tune always played at graduations? Every year, hundreds of thousands of students march across a stage in a gown and a squared hat to receive a piece of paper that says they’ve completed a particular phase in their education. This school graduation will undoubtedly be marked by cheering, […]
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Orlando D. asks: Does it matter what you sign on contracts? Could you draw a picture or put an X and have it still be legally binding? With so many facets of modern life being automated, signatures being easy to forge, and given how difficult it is to prove based on signature alone whether a given person actually signed something, […]
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Darren W. asks: Are there any records of someone paying with a briefcase full of money or is this just a Hollywood trope? A briefcase full of cash is a trope so common that even TV Tropes, a website dedicated to cataloguing cinematic cliches, requests that users only mention “exceptions, parodies and subversions”. While you’d expect something so ridiculous to […]
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