There is nothing more dangerous than a cunning fool.

Do you read the great demotivational posters at dispair.com.  It’s a great website selling little pearls of wisdoms and mocking all those motivational posters you see around.  You know the ones ”Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.”  Or “You can soar like an eagle” to which the demotivators poster says “Eagles are like leaders – we don’t have any here either”.  My favorite is

“MISTAKES: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others”

With it is a picture of a sinking ship (http://www.despair.com/mis24x30prin.html).   And this was what I thought when I saw this headline

“British man Sean Murphy shoots off own finger with shotgun to remove wart”

Can you believe this headline!  I know, where are the commas???  Commas are the cornerstone of civilization and understanding – the difference between a man-eating shark or a man eating shark.  But I digress.  All in all Sean used a novel method to remove his wart and to be fair he certainly did remove it!  That and his middle finger.  OK, we have all been there haven’t we?.  A few beers and hey suddenly this seems like a great idea.  But no, in the cold light of day, after his court appearance on firearms charges, he said, "The best thing is that the wart has gone, it was giving me lot of trouble."

OK so my point here is that there is nothing more dangerous than a cunning fool, a variation on the “nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talent fool”.  And I would like to suggest to you that we all should be thankful for such people and here’s why.

While these fools might occasionally take some poor unfortunate victim with them more often than not they take themselves out - out of the gene pool. Usually you will find a record of their enterprising demise at the Darwin Awards website (http://www.darwinawards.com/).   By removing themselves they are making the rest of the world a safer place for the rest of us.

That is unless you know one, or worse are one…….

Link to the news story. 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/06/16/2011-06-16_british_man_shoots_off_own_finger_with_shotgun_to_remove_wart.html