Dumb Jokes

A Texan convicted of robbery worked out a deal to pay $ 9600 in damages rather than serve a two- year prison sentence. For payment, he provided the court a forged check. He got his prison term back, plus eight more years.

A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers. The first one shouted, " Nobody move! " When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him.

A man in Orange County Municipal Court had been ticketed for driving alone in the carpool lane. He claimed that the four frozen cadavers in the mortuary van he was driving should be counted. The judged ruled that passengers must be alive to qualify.

The judge called the case of People vs. Steven Lewon Crook. The bailiff opened the door to the holding cell and called, " Crook, come forward. " Five of the prisoners entered the courtroom.

A judge in Louisville decided a jury went " a little bit too far" in recommending a sentence of 5, 005 years for a man who was convicted of five robberies and a kidnapping. The judge reduced the sentence to 1, 001 years.

A lawyer defending a man accused of burglary tried this creative defense: " My client merely inserted his arm into the window and removed a few trifling articles. His arm is not himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole individual for an offense committed by his limb. " " Well put, " the judge replied. " Using your logic, I sentence the defendant's arm to one year's imprisonment. He can accompany it or not, as he chooses. " The defendant smiled. With his lawyer's assistance he detached his artificial limb, laid it on the bench, and walked out.

For those unfamiliar, Welfare payments are made in the US to individuals and families with income below a level. The following quotations are taken from actual letters received by the Welfare Department in applications for support of receiving payments. I am forwarding my marriage certificate and 6 children. I had seven but one died which was baptized on a half sheet of paper. I am writing the welfare department to say that my baby was born two years old. When do I get my money? Mrs. Jones has not had any clothes for two years and has been visited regularly by the clergy. I cannot get sick pay. I have six children can you tell me why? I am glad to report that my husband who is missing is dead. This is my eighth child. What are you going to do about it. Please find for if my husband is dead. The man I am now living with can't do anything until he knows. I am very much annoyed to find out that you have branded my son illiterate. This is a dirty lie as I was married a week before he was born. In answer to your letter, I have given birth to a son weighing 10 lbs. I hope this is satisfactory. I am forwarding my marriage certificate and my 3 children one of which is a mistake as you can see....

Form Feed Insurance form question and answer about a recent accident: Q: Could either driver have done anything to avoid the accident? A: I could have traveled by bus. A man collided with a cow and completed the requested form as follows: Q: What warning did you give the other party before the collision? A: Horn Q: What warning was given by the other party? A: Moo

One of my friends works in the customer service call center of a national pager company. He deals with the usual complaints regarding poor pager operation, as well as the occasional crank caller demanding to be paged less often, more often, or by more interesting people. The best call came from a man who repeatedly complained that he keeps being paged by " Lucille. " He was instructed that he would have to call her and tell her to stop paging him. " She don't never leave no number, so I can't call her back, " he said. After three such calls, someone thought to ask how he knew it was Lucille if she didn't leave a number. " She leaves her name, " was the reply. After establishing that the customer had a numericonly pager, the light bulb came on. " How does she spell her name? " the service rep asked. " L- O- W C- E- L- L" Another problem solved.

(15 July 1999, Alabama) A 25- year- old soldier died of injuries sustained from a 3- story fall, precipitated by his attempt to spit farther than his buddy. His plan was to hurl himself towards a metal guardrail while expectorating, in order to add momentum to his saliva. In a tragic miscalculation, his momentum carried him right over the railing, which he caught hold of for a few moments before his grip slipped, sending him plummeting 24 feet to the cement below. The military specialist had a blood alcohol content of 0. 14%, impairing his judgment and paving the way for his opportunity to win a Darwin Award. (11 August 1999) A 42- year- old man killed himself watching the eclipse while driving near Kaiserslautern, Germany. A witness driving behind him stated that the man was weaving back and forth as he concentrated on the partially occluded sun, when he suddenly accelerated and hit the bridge pier. He had apparently just donned his solar viewers, which are dark enough to totally obscure everything except the sun. (25 May 1999, Ukraine) A fisherman in Kiev electrocuted himself while fishing in the river Tereblya. The 43- year- old man connected cables to the main power supply of his home, and trailed the end into the river. The electric shock killed the fish, which floated belly- up to the top of the water. The man waded in...

August, 1998, Montevideo, UruguayPaolo Esperanza, bass- trombonist with the Simphonica Mayor de Uruguay, in a misplaced moment of inspiration decided to make his own contribution to the cannon shots fired as part of the orchestra's performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture at an outdoor children's concert. In complete seriousness he placed a large, ignited firecracker, which was equivalent in strength to a quarter stick of dynamite, into his aluminum straight mute and then stuck the mute into the bell of his quite new Yamaha in- line double- valve bass trombone. Later, from his hospital bed he explained to a reporter through bandages on his mouth, " I thought that the bell of my trombone would shield me from the explosion and, instead, would focus the energy of the blast outward and away from me, propelling the mute high above the orchestra, like a rocket. " However, Paolo was not up on his propulsion physics nor qualified to use high- powered artillery and in his haste to get the horn up before the firecracker went off, he failed to raise the bell of the horn high enough so as to give the mute enough arc to clear the orchestra. What actually happened should serve as a lesson to us all during those delirious moments of divine inspiration. First, because he failed to sufficiently elevate the bell of his horn, the blast propelled the mute between rows...

Mariah Carey was one of the first celebrities to comment on the death of the King of Jordan. Mariah told CNN " I'm inconsolable at the present time, I was a very good friend of Jordan, he was probably the greatest basketball player this country has ever seen, we will never see his like again". When told by reporters that it was King Hussein of Jordan who had died and not Michael Jordan, Mariah was then led away by her security in a state of " confusion".

Two Kentucky men tried to pull the front off a cash machine by running a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup truck. Instead of pulling the front panel off the machine, though, they pulled the bumper off the truck. They panicked and fled, leaving the chain still attached to the machine, their bumper still attached to the chain, and their license plate still attached to the bumper.

A " tourist, " supposedly on a golf holiday, stood in line at the customs counter. While making idle chatter, the customs official thought it odd that the golfer didn't know what a handicap was. The officer then asked the tourist to demonstrate his swing. He did – backwards. A substantial amount of narcotics was found in the golf bag.

Guns For Hire, an Arizona company specializing in staged gunfights for Western movies, got a call from a 47- year- old woman who wanted to have her husband shot. She was sentenced to four years in jail.

Any time you feel dumb, don't worry. Check out the following excerpts from a " Wall Street Journal" article by Jim Carlton. Lots of people are dumber than you. 1. Compaq is considering changing the command " Press Any Key" to " Press Return Key" because of the many calls asking where the " Any" key is. 2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in. 3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes. After trouble- shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes by rolling them into a typewriter to type on them. 4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of the floppies. 5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was then heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room. 6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't...

MEGA MORON AWARDS Tennessee: A man successfully broke into a bank after hours and stole the bank's video camera, while the camera was remotely recording. (That is, the videotape recorder was located elsewhere in the bank, so he didn't get the videotape of himself stealing the camera). Louisiana: A man walked into a Circle- K, put a $ 20 bill on the counter and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $ 20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer? Fifteen dollars. [If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, was a crime committed? ] Arkansas: Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would- be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. Seems the liquor store window was made of Plexi- Glass. The whole event was caught on videotape. New York: As a female shopper exited a convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The...

AT& T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual leadership". He received a $ 26 million severance package. Perhaps it's not Walter who's lacking intelligence. Police in Oakland, California spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them, shouting please to come out and give himself up. An Illinois man pretending to have a gun kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines. The kidnapper then proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts. A 9- year- old boy in Manassas, Virginia received a one- day suspension under his elementary school's drug policy last week – for Certs! Joey Hoeffer allegedly told a classmate that the mints would make him " jump higher. " A student in Belle, West Virginia was suspended for three days for giving a classmate a cough drop. School principal Forest Mann reiterated the school's " zero- tolerance" policy…not to be confused with the " zero- intelligence" policy. Fire investigators on Maui have determined the cause of a blaze that destroyed a $ 127, 000 home last month – a short in the homeowner's newly installed fire prevention alarm system. " This is even worse than last year, " said the distraught homeowner, " when someone broke in...

A man walked in to a Topeka, Kansas Kwik Shop, and asked for all the money in the cash drawer. Apparently, the take was too small, so he tied up the store clerk and worked the counter himself for three hours until police showed up and grabbed him. In Ohio, an unidentified man in his late twenties walked into a police station with a 9- inch wire protruding from his forehead and calmly asked officers to give him an X- ray to help him find his brain, which he claimed had been stolen. Police were shocked to learn that the man had drilled a 6- inch deep hole in his skull with a Black & Decker power drill and had stuck the wire in to try and find the missing brain. In Medford, Oregon, a 27- year- old jobless man with an MBA blamed his college degree for his murder of three people. " There are too many business grads out there, " he said. " If I had chosen another field, all this may not have happened. " Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn't control himself during a lineup. When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words, " Give me all your money or I'll shoot, " the man shouted, " That's not what I said! " A bank robber in...

These are supposedly actual quotes taken from around the world. " That race was all about competition. " – David Coleman, ITV " And I can see the strong wind blowing the sun towards us. " – Brian Johnson, BBC Radio 3 Mark Goodier: What's the name of the company you work for? Listener: Mining and Engineering Services. Mark Goodier: So, what kind of work do they do; is it mining and engineering services? – BBC Radio 1 " Marling – unbeaten in her three victories. " Peter O'Sullivan, BBC2 TV: " Both drivers are fundamentally wearing white helmets. " James Hunt, BBC2 TV: " A church spire nestling among the trees…there's probably a church there too. " – Richie Benaud, BBC2 TV

Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22- year- old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $ 16 bills. A man in Johannesberg, South Africa, shot his 49- year- old friend in the face, seriously wounding him, while the two practiced shooting beer cans off each other's head. A company trying to continue its five- year perfect safety record showed its workers a film aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles on the job. According to Industrial Machinery News, the film's depiction of gory industrial accidents was so graphic that twenty- five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush to leave the screening room. Thirteen others fainted, and one man required seven stitches after he cut his head falling off a chair while watching the film. The Chico, California, City Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $ 500 fine for anyone detonating one within city limits. A bus carrying five passengers was hit by a car in St. Louis, but by the time police arrived on the scene, fourteen pedestrians had boarded the bus and had begun to complain of whiplash injuries and back pain. Swedish business consultant Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a book about Swedish economic solutions. He took the 250- page manuscript to be copied, only to have it reduced to 50, 000 strips of paper in seconds when a...

It is once again time to vote for- the Darwin Award nominees for 1997. As you may already know, the Darwin Awards are for those nominees who will not be contributing to the gene pool (thankfully). The 1997 nominees are: NOMINEE No. 1: [San Jose Mercury News] An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut. NOMINEE No. 2 [Kalamazoo Gazette] James Burns, 34, of Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he was trying to repair what. police described as a " farm- type truck. " Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Bums hung underneath so that he could asthe source of a troubling noise. Burns'clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns " wrapped in the drive shaft. " NOMINEE No. 3 [Hickory Daily Record] Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, N. C., when, awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson. 38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear. NOMINEE No. 4 [UIPI, Toronto] Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto Skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and...

Saddam Hussein's stockpile is deadly. The smoke from his biological weapons could mix with sulfur from his chemical weapons and create an atmospheric condition known as Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Board of Education has OK'd a plan to equip school police cars with guns. The plan works on a tier system: Police at elementary schools will carry supersoakers, junior high patrols will carry paint guns, and shotguns will be used at high schools. A severly disturbed geography teacher killed six people who did not know the capital of Scotland. Police say he's still on the loose and remind everyone that the capital of Scotland is Edinburgh. (Carlin) AT& T announced last week it will lay off up to 8, 000 employees. Ever conscious of its image, the company is promoting the layoffs as a new feature called job forwarding. El Nino storms are affecting trade with Asian countries. A freighter bound for Long Beach Calif. with a cargo of yo- yos got caught in a particularly violent storm. It sank 65 times. Charloote Hornets star Anthony Mason faces charges of statutory rape of two girls, ages 14 and 15. His attorney will use the Kennedy defense, which states that together they were 29. Marcia Clark has signed with NBC to become a legal affairs commentator. In the job, she'll discuss ongoing court cases and then describe what she would do to lose them....

I was signing the receipt for my credit card purchase when the clerk noticed that I had never signed my name on the back of the credit card. She informed me that she could not complete the transaction unless the card was signed. When I asked why, she explained that it was necessary to compare the signature on the credit card with the signature I just signed on the receipt. So I signed the credit card in front of her. She carefully compared that signature to the one I signed on the receipt. As luck would have it, they matched.

SIX DIE TRYING TO SAVE CHICKEN – August 1, 1995 CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – Six people drowned yesterday while trying to rescue a chicken that had fallen into a well in southern Egypt. An 18- year- old farmer was the first to descend into the 60- foot well. He drowned, apparently after an undercurrent in the water pulled him down, police said. His sister and two brothers, none of whom could swim well, went in one by one to help him, but also drowned. Two elderly farmers then came to help, but they apparently were pulled down by the same undercurrent. The bodies of the six were later pulled out of the well in the village of Nazlat Imara, 240 miles south of Cairo. The chicken was also pulled out. It survived.

An actual tip from page 16 of the Hewlett Packard Environmental, Health & Safety Handbook for Employees: " Blink your eyelids periodically to lubricate your eyes. "

Man Killed Repairing Truck – April 1, 1995 Kalamazoo Gazette – – James Burns, 34, of Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police described as a " farm- type dump truck. " Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could asthe source of a troubling noise. Burns's clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns " wrapped in the drive shaft. "

A 22- year- old Reston man was found dead yesterday after he tried to use accessory straps (the stretchy little ropes with hooks on each end) to bungee jump off a 70- foot railroad trestle, police said. Fairfax County police said Eric A. Barcia, a fast- food worker, taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, jumped… and hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found nearby. " The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than the distance between the trestle and the ground. " Police say the apparent cause of death was " major trauma". An autopsy is scheduled for later in the week.

The long awaited 1999 Darwin " Natural Selection" Awards have been released! These awards are given each year to bestow upon (the remains of) that individual, who through single- minded self- sacrifice, has done the most to remove undesirable elements from the human gene pool. Ladies And Gentlemen… (drum roll… and envelope please)… We proudly present the 1999 " Natural Selection" awards: 5th runner- up: Goes to a San Anselmo, California man who died when he hit a lift tower at the Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on a foam pad. The 22- year old David Hubal was pronounced dead at Central Mammoth Hospital. The accident occurred about 3 a. m., the Mono County Sheriff's Department said. Hubal and his friends apparently had hiked up a ski run called Stump Alley and undid some yellow foam protectors from lift towers, said Lt. Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department. The pads are used to protect skiers who might hit towers. The group apparently used the pads to slide down the ski slope and Hubal crashed into a tower. It has since been investigated and determined the tower he hit was the one with its pad removed. 4th Runner- up: Goes to Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call the police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog, shoved it into...

A man buys a brand new Grand Cherokee for $ 30, 000+, and has $ 400. 00+ in monthly payments. He's pretty proud of this rig and gets ahold of his friend to do some male bonding with the new ride. They go duck hunting and of course all the lakes are frozen. These two Atomic Brains go to the lake with their guns, the dog, the beer and of course the new vehicle. They drive out onto the ice. Now, they want to make some kind of a natural landing area to attract ducks – something the decoys will float on. Remember it's all ice, and in order to make a hole large enough to interest a flock of ducks – a hole big enough to entice ducks to land, they needed to use a little more than an ice hole drill… Sooo, out of the back of the brand- new Jeep Grand Cherokee comes a stick of dynamite with a short 40- second fuse. Now to their credit, these two rocket scientists DID take into consideration that if they placed the stick of dynamite on the ice at a location far from where they (and the new Grand Cherokee) would be waiting and ran back quickly, they would risk slipping on the ice as they ran from the imminent explosion and could possibly go up in smoke with the resulting blast. After...

Three young men in Oklahoma were enjoying the coming Fourth of July holiday and wanted to test fire some fireworks. The only real problem was, their launch pad and seating arrangements were atop a several hundred thousand gallon fuel distillation storage tank. Oddly enough, fumes were ignited, producing a fireball seen for miles. They were launched several hundred feet into the air and found dead some 250 yards from their respective seats.

A lawyer and two buddies were fishing on Caddo Lake in Texas when a lightning storm hit. Most of the other boats immediately headed for the shore, but not our friend the lawyer. Alone on the rear of his aluminum bass boat with his buddies, this individual stood up, spread his arms wide and shouted: " HERE I AM LORD, LET ME HAVE IT! " Needless to say, God delivered. The other two passengers on the boat survived the lightning strike with minor burns.

A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. Big deal you may say, but there's a twist here that makes him a candidate. It seems he and a friend were playing catch with a rattlesnake. The friend (a future Darwin Awards candidate himself) was hospitalized.

Not much was given to me on this unlucky fellow, but he qualifies nonetheless. You see, there was a gentleman from Korea who was killed by his cell phone… more or less. He was doing the usual " walking and talking" when he walked into a tree and managed to somehow break his neck. Keep that in mind the next time you decide to drive and dial at the same time.

In a west Texas town, employees in a medium- sized warehouse noticed the smell of gas. Sensibly, management evacuated the building, extinguishing all potential sources of ignition – – lights, power, etc. After the building had been evacuated, two technicians from the gas company were dispatched. Upon entering the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the scene of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a lighter. Upon operation of the lighter- like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The technician that was suspected of causing the explosion had never been thought of as " bright" by his peers.