Darwin Awards

This is my second posting following on from the story of the gun instructor who was killed by the 9 year old girl.

I first heard about the Darwin Awards back in the 80s.

Every year an email would circulate describing how people managed to do the most ridiculous things that resulted in their deaths. I remember some of the stories being absolutely hilarious.

The name for these awards has the following explanation:

"Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it"

Now, of course, there's a website where you can go and see the most popular stories whenever you like.

I don't think the story of the gun instructor will make the list because I get the impression that deaths from gun accidents are just too common.

Snopes.com

My last posting on the accidental killing of a gun instructor leads me on to two other topics.

The first I will cover in this posting and is the excellent website snopes.com. You can see the entry relating to this tragic incident here.

Whenever I hear something which I think cannot be true, I check it on Snopes. And more often than not the story is identified on the site as an "urban legend".

On the site you can research fascinating stories such as these:

Escape artist Harry Houdini died from a ruptured appendix caused by his being punched in the stomach.

There are alligators in the sewers under New York

You might wake up in an ice-filled bath some day with your kidneys missing

My favourite story from the site relates to a story which I was told by a friend who assured me that it was true ("happened to a friend of a friend"). This is the story that kids are kidnapped from shops by people who alter their appearance in some way. Thanks to Snopes I know that this story is not true.