January 04, 2001
I cannot think of a better way to look back on the previous year than to read about and give due credit to those who made the human species just a tad bit hardier, evolutionarily speaking, during the course of the year 2000. I'm talking about the official Darwin Awards web site, naturally (errr... natural selectionally?)Seriously, if you want to read about the bizarre ways in which people stupider than you (and thus less fit to swim about unrestricted in the gene pool) have killed themselves during the last year, this is the official collection of the best, verifiable death-by-misadventure mishaps.
You may recall the JATO story. It's an urban legend, and mentioned as such, but it's a great story, and it's on the site. Another great read is the story of some terrorists who refused to acknowledge daylight savings time. Pity, their fellows who created and set the timers for the bombs they were carrying had no such qualms about correct clockitudification (err... timepieceishness?). The bombs went off earlier than expected (by an hour), taking out just terrorists, and cleaning the palestinian gene-pool quite nicely.
So go have a read. As the site's slogans indicate, it's like a documentary of natural selection in action. "I don't think, therefore I am not."