It's not that we're laughing AT the stupid dead people, we're laughing with (well, maybe not). ;)

DARWIN AWARDS NEWSLETTER - 23 February 2003
Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it in really stupid ways.
This honor is usually awarded posthumously.

2002 DARWIN AWARDS: THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT APPROACHES!
In a few weeks, the 2002 Darwin Award Winners will be decided.
This newsletter contains synopses of twelve top contenders,
and another dozen will be summarized in the next newsletter.
Enjoy the abbreviated versions below, or visit the website
to read the full text and record your votes.

visit http://darwinAwards.com/misc/newsletter.html

FIRER KILLS TREE TRIMMER
England | A tree trimmer decided to save time, and throw
the pruned branches directly into a fire he built near
the base of the tree. Predictably, the tree caught fire,
putting an end to further timesaving innovations.

WHAT'S THAT SOUND?
Kansas | A man whose vehicle broke down on I-35 was struck
and killed by a train while calling for help. The train
engineer spotted him standing on the tracks, holding a
cell phone to one ear and cupping his hand to the other ear
to block the noise of the train.

WOUNDED WIRE BITES BACK
Pennsylvania | Daniel was practicing his marksmanship by
shooting at electrical insulators, whose function is to hold
electrical wires aloft. Eventually the shattered targets were
no longer able to do their job, and a high-voltage wire fell
to the ground, sending Daniel to his shocking demise.

WRONG AND WRONGER
Ukraine | A man was walking his dog, when a Police Academy
cadet pointed out that dogs on a public street must be leashed and muzzled. The men began to argue, until the dog owner pulled out a military hand grenade and threw it to the cadet's feet. His well-trained dog immediately fetched it back,
and man and dog met the same messy fate.

BEES 1, HUMANS 0
Brazil | A farmer decided to burn a beehive out of his
orange tree. He protected his head from bee stings by sealing
a plastic bag tightly around his neck. His worried wife found
him dead a few hours later. He had forgotten to put breathing
holes in the bag.

CABLE CAR STAR
Italy | A 53-year-old Glasgow tourist used a mountain climber's snap hook to attach himself to an unused cable car cable, and attempted to slide down a mountain. Unable to defeat the force of gravity, the man accelerated out of control and proceeded to bash his way 200 meters down the cable before impacting a pylon.

ELECTRIFIED WORMS
Norway | If you need worms for fishing, just put a 12-volt
electric current through ground, and up they come. A 23-year-old man withdrew his genes form the pool when he tried to speed up the process by using 220V household current. Alas, he did so squatting on a steel bucket, holding an electrode in one hand while pushing the other in the ground...
>
GUN OWNER SHOOTS BACK  72%
New Mexico | 18-year-old Carlos tried to rob a man who had
placed a newspaper ad to sell a gun. Surprise! The gun seller
was also a gun owner. He fired it in self-defense, and the robber died before rescue crews arrived.

SLICK SH!T SLIP
Arizona | Had he been eating too many banana peels?
A 49-year-old Mohave County Jail inmate defecated on his
cell floor, slipped in his own feces, struck his head on the ground, and died.
>
FOOLISH COURAGE
Brazil | On New Year's Eve, some friends were befogged by Pinga, a traditional Brazilian liquor, when they began competing to see who could hold a lit firework in his mouth the longest. Antonio was the winner, biting a firework a bit too long, and thereby earning praise for his "courage" at his funeral.

BOOBY TRAPS TRAP BOOB
The Netherlands | A retired engineer booby-trapped his home
with twenty deadly devices, with the intention of killing his
estranged family. Anyone with common sense could predict the inevitable outcome. He inadvertently triggered one of his own hidden traps, and removed himself from the planet.

WELL-TRAINED
Kentucky | A 20-year-old demonstrating train-hopping to his
friends tried to hop a southbound train, but failed to notice
the simultaneous approach of a northbound train. He was struck and killed.

I love the Darwin Awards :)  It's one of my favorite websites.  I just enjoy seeing how stupid people die in stupid ways, and I hope one day I will be immortalized in kind :D

Wendy Northcutt, aka "Darwin", was an alum of UC Berkeley :)

I love the Darwin Awards.... Can't see why people don't collect the book series like me... although you're most probably sad enough. ;D

I really don't know if I should laugh or cry. It is pretty pitiful.




Cat

I love Darwin Awards.  I have been reading them for a long time.  My favorite one of all time was probably the one with the "Dog and the Jeep" from '99.  Though my favorite one out of those is probably the booby trap one.