It is time for the Darwin Awards

Thinning the herd.

You’ve been waiting for them, so without further ado here are the 2008 Darwin awards.

Eighth Place

In Detroit , a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.

Seventh Place

A 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who ‘totally zoned when he ran,’ accidentally, jogged off a 100-foot high cliff on his daily run.

Sixth Place

While at the beach, Daniel Jones, 21, dug an 8 foot hole for protection from the wind and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom when it t collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach used their hands and shovels trying to get him out but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Fifth Place

Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed as he fell through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth to keep his hands free rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.

Fourth Place

Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.

Third Place

After stepping around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door, a man walked into H&J Leather & Firearms intent on robbing the store.

The shop was full of customers and a uniformed officer was standing at the counter. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-up, and fired a few wild shots from a target pistol. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, and several customers also drew their guns and fired. The robber was pronounced dead at the scene by Paramedics.

Crime scene investigators located 47 expended cartridge cases in the shop. The subsequent autopsy revealed 23 gunshot wounds. Ballistics identified rounds from 7 different weapons. No one else was hurt.

HONORABLE MENTION

Paul Stiller, 47, and his wife Bonnie were bored just driving around at 2 A.M. so they lit a quarter stick of dynamite to toss out the window to see what would happen.  Apparently they failed to notice the window was closed.

RUNNER UP

Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from a local bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope.

Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman’s cable, lay near by. They secured one end around Bingham’s leg and then tied the other to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. Bingham’s foot was never located.

AND THE WINNER IS…

Zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt ( Paderborn , Germany ) fed his constipated elephant 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally got relief.

Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded. The sheer force of the elephant’s unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground where he struck his head on a rock as the elephant continued to evacuate 200 pounds of dung on top of him. 
It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that proves. ‘Shit happens’.

THEY WALK AMOUNG US….

IT ALWAYS SEEMS IMPORTANT TO THANK THESE PEOPLE FOR REMOVING THEMSELVES FROM THE GENE POOL.

The 2007 Darwin Awards

Yes, it is that time of the year again. 

Cross posted at Grizzly Groundswell and Socialist Squirrel

The 2007 Darwin Awards

Yes, it’s that magical time of year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us.

Here is the glorious winners:

1. When his 38-calibre revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach , California , would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder.  He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again.  This time it worked.

And now, the honorable mentions:

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat-cutting machine and, after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company.  The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself.  He tried the machine and he also lost a finger.  The chef’s claim was approved.

3. A man who shovelled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space.  Understandably, he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped.  Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride.  He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies.  The deception wasn’t discovered for 3 days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana 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 . . . $15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)

7. Seems an Arkansas 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.  The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas.  The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran.  The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher.  Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher.  They put him in the car and drove back to the store.  The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID.  To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that’s her.  That’s the lady I stole the purse from."

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti , Michigan , at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and demanded cash.  The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn’t open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren’t available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away. (*A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER)

10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage.  A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home’s sewage tank by mistake.  The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges saying that it was the best laugh he’d ever had.

In the interest of bettering mankind, please share these with your friends and family .. unless of course one of these individuals by chance is a distant relative or long-lost friend. In that case, be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.

*** Remember .. they walk among us! ***

Child Labour is Offsetting Prince Charles’ Carbon Excesses

Turns out the Prince of Wales is increasing child labor in India to offset his carbon footprint.

Way to go, Charlie!!!   I’m sure AlGore is proud.   

The ‘carbon offset’ child labourers

Indians work off West’s holiday guilt

Dean Nelson in Delhi

Pumping furiously on a foot treadle in the afternoon heat, six-year-old Sarju Ram is irrigating her impoverished family’s field, improving the crop and – without knowing it – helping environmentally sensitive holiday-makers assuage their guilt over long-haul flights to dream destinations.

But Sarju and her four brothers and sisters working flat out in a clump of trees that provide scant shelter from the sun illustrate a growing argument over claims that British environmentalists’ efforts to curb greenhouse emissions are inadvertently fuelling an increase in child labour.

Sarju’s family is a beneficiary of Climate Care, an organisation that helps some of Britain’s leading public figures and companies to offset their carbon dioxide emissions by funding sustainable energy projects.

The Prince of Wales turned to Climate Care after his environmental adviser, Jonathon Porritt, worked out the prince’s carbon footprint.

Customers of British Airways are among those who have been encouraged to log on to Climate Care’s website and calculate how many tonnes of greenhouse gases their flights will generate, and how much it will cost to neutralise the impact on the atmosphere. A flight to Barbados for a family of four, for example, generates 7.55 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which will cost them £56.64 to offset.

Climate Care uses the money to help persuade families such as Sarju’s to give up labour-saving diesel pumps and buy human-powered treadles instead. It claims that by using the treadle, a family will save money on diesel and hire charges, earn more from increased crops and cut the carbon emissions that would have been produced by the pump.

Last week Indian experts criticised the scheme, saying it was promoting child labour and forcing poor farmers to work harder so that wealthy air travellers could enjoy exotic holidays without worrying about the environment.

“The problem is the number of times child labour is involved,” claimed Ashutosh Pandey of Emergent Ventures India, which advises companies on clean technology.

“It’s not being monitored properly. It’s not reducing emissions. People are selling their diesel pumps to others who are using them.”

Sunita Narain, an environmentalist at the Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi think tank, said: “It won’t help global warming if people take more flights to the Seychelles.”

Michael Buick, a spokesman for the Oxford-based Climate Care, confirmed that children were working the pumps it promotes, but said that people had to focus on the benefits to the whole family.

He said his group was proud of its scheme, which had led to more than half a million foot treadles being sold, and had won several awards. Four reports had identified major benefits.

According to Buick, critics are mistaken in claiming that diesel pumps are better than human-powered alternatives, because they are costly to run. The treadles meant farmers could rely on increased crops.

Buick said that by “all mucking in” families were able to increase yields and earn more to pay for children to go to school. The extra income also meant fathers could stay with their families rather than leaving them to look for work in the cities.

“If mum is planting and harvesting, the daughters help out. It’s just a different way of life. The phrase ‘child labour’ is emotive. It implies factories, but these are family farms where everyone gets stuck in, watering the crops and taking a turn on the treadle pump,” he said.

Last week in Pairapur village, Sarju and her family took turns on the pump, 30 minutes for each child and an hour for each parent. They are growing more corn, aubergines, and papayas, they said.

They had been paying £1 an hour to hire a diesel pump, said Sarju’s father Hari Ram, and had fallen into debt. They have now repaid a £900 loan and for the first time are saving money. “Our life has improved a lot,” he added.

But Sunita Narain said the rich needed to cut their own emissions by 50% rather than relying on offsets. “An increase in manual labour is an ethical issue,” she said.

More info about the the manual water pump – and watch a video of the pump being used by an Indian farmer in Utter Pradesh

Source:  http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/article2512731.ece

Julia

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Thinning the herd

Another year, more stupidity.  They are just thinning the herd andwe are lucky thewy can not reproduce from now on.

1. (17 April 2006, England) There’s always someone who thinks good advice doesn’t apply to him. For example, if a doctor advises that the one thing you must not do is go near a flame, as you are going to be covered wtih a flammable material, most people would take this advice onboard, and not strike a match until the flammable material has been removed.

   However, Phillip, 60, knew better than his doctor. Philip was in the hospital to treat a skin disease, said treatment consisting of being smeared in paraffin-based cream. Philip was warned that the cream would ignite, so he definitely should NOT smoke. But he just couldn’t live without that cigarette."

   Smoking was not permitted anywhere on the ward, but Phillip took this setback in stride, and sneaked out onto a fire escape. Once he was hidden, he lit up… inhaled… and peace descended as he got his nicotine fix. Things went downhill only after he finished his cigarette, at the moment he ground out the butt with his heel.

   The paraffin cream had been absorbed by his clothing. As his heel touched the butt, fumes from his pyjamas ignited. The resulting inferno "cremated" his skin condition, and left first-degree burns on much of his body. Despite excellent treatment, he died in intensive care.

   Using the Darwin checklist:

   1.Reproduction — if he has children, he’s not having more.
   2.Excellence — this one I’ll remember!
   3.Self-Selection — he was warned paraffin & flames don’t mix.
   4.Maturity — At 60 I guess he was old enough.
   5.Veracity — Major UK news carriers covered the story.

   This ticks all the boxes, and though I feel sorry for the family, his death acts as a warning to others. If a doctor tells you not to smoke, there’s a very good reason.

   Link: mirror.co.uk, the Guardian

2. Take a deep breath…

   (3 June 2006, Florida) Two more candidates have thrown themselves into the running for a Darwin Award. The feet of Jason and Sara, both 21, were found protruding from a deflated, huge helium advertising balloon. Jason was a college student, and Sara attended community college, but apparently their education had glossed over the importance of oxygen.

   When one breathes helium, the lack of oxygen in the bloodstream causes a rapid loss of consciousness. Some euthanasia experts advocate the use of helium to painlessly end one’s life.

   The pair pulled down the 8′ balloon, and climbed inside. Their last words consisted of high-pitched, incoherent giggling as they slowly passed out and passed into the hereafter.

   Sheriff’s deputies said the two were not victims of foul play. No drugs or alcohol were found. The medical examiner reported that helium inhalation was a significant factor in their deaths. A family member said "Sara was mischievous, to be honest. She liked fun and it cost her."

   Other Darwin Awards Featuring Helium:
   Lawn Chair Larry (Honorable Mention)
   Helium and Oxygen Don’t Mix (Personal Account)

3. (August 2006, Brazil) August brings us a winner from Brazil, who tried to disassemble a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) by driving back and forth over it with a car. This technique was ineffective, so he escalated to pounding the RPG with a sledgehammer. The second try worked–in a sense. The explosion proved fatal to one man, six cars, and the repair shop wherein the efforts took place.

   14 more RPG grenades were found in a car parked nearby. Police believe the ammunition was being scavenged to sell as scrap metal. If it wasn’t scrap then, it certainly is now!

   5 Submissions

   (2006, Vietnam) In a similar event, a Rolling Stone isn’t all that gathers no moss. Three men scavenging for scrap metal found an unexploded 500-pound bomb perched on a hill, and decided to retrieve it with help from Sir Isaac Newton. As they rolled the bomb down the hillside according to the laws of gravity, the bomb detonated, leaving a four-meter crater and sending the three entrepreneurs to a face-to-face meeting with their Maker.

4. (New York) "My father works as an investigator for an insurance company, a job he frequently reminds me of how much he hates. One of his major clients is a train station. On a day not unlike any other, a man awoke on a train to find that he had missed his stop. Instead of looking out the window, or asking another passenger where the train was, he ripped open the doors of the train and threw himself through them, much to the astonishment of onlooking passengers.

   "Had the ill-fated passenger taken the time to look out the window before leaping off the train, he would have noticed that it was moving in excess of 50 MPH, and it was also moving over a bridge. "Look before you leap." He died at the scene in the Hudson River.

   "My father investigated this case for the insurance company. The family of the deceased was suing because ‘you should not be able to open doors on a moving train.’ My dad’s defense was, ‘you should not open doors on a moving train.’ I imagine the case was either dropped or settled."

5. Darwin says, First selected as the 2006 Winner, this story is now disqualified! No one dies; worse, an innocent woman bystander was injured during her (hopefully former) friend’s bid to create a Jackass-style video. And it didn’t even happen in 2006! The nomination, "Disqualified: Star Wars," has been disqualified:

   Discuss the rules as they apply here.

   Fitzroy says, "I read a series of concerns about the Star Wars story. Apparently neither participant died, a fact highlighted by fresh media accounts of the prosecution of the male in the mishap. The female took a passive role, allowing her friend to break gasoline-filled tubes over her back. The man wanted to capture a Jackass-style video. The girl suffered terrible burns.

   Discuss the rules in the Philosophy Forum.

   DISQUALIFIED: (2006, England) Two people, 17 and 20, imitated Darth Vader and made light sabres from fluorescent light tubes. That’s right, they opened up fluoresceent tubes, poured gasoline inside, and lit the end… As one can imagine, a Star Wars sized explosion was not far behind. One died, the other survived to confess to their creative, but stupid, filmed reenactment.

   Darwin says, "Some moderators say 17 is too young, but I disagree. 17 is legal driving age. Old enough to pump gas is old enough to know not to light gas."

6. (September 2006, Florida) A fearsome mythical giant was felled by a humble slingshot. But a modern speargun vs. an underwater leviathan is another tale altogether, as a Florida man discovered.

   Outlawed in 1990, hunting Goliath-sized groupers remains surprisingly popular. These fish can weigh hundreds of pounds, yet there are underwater hunters who choose to tether themselves to such muscular sea creatures. However unlikely a pursuit, the poaching of groupers by divers and snorkelers continues, in defiance of both the law and common sense.

   Of this elite group, our Darwin Award winner distinguished himself yet further by disregarding one essential spearfishing precaution. By embarking on this hunt without a knife to cut himself loose, the "fit and experienced snorkeler" was guaranteeing that his next attack on a giant grouper would be his last.

   Why anyone thinks it’s a good idea to tether yourself to a fish twice your size, I don’t know. Some time later, the body of the spearfisher was found pinned to the coral, 17 feet underwater. Three coils of line were wrapped around his wrist, and one very dead grouper was impaled at the other end of the line.

   In those final hours, the tables were turned, and the fish was given an opportunity to reflect on the experience of "catching a person."

7. (August 2006, Libreville, Gabon) In August, a congregation’s 35-year old pastor insisted one could literally walk on water, if one only had enough faith. Big and bold was his speech. He extolled the heavenly power possessed by a faithful man with such force that he may well have convinced himself. Whether or not he believed in his heart, his sermons left room for only shame should he leave his own faith untested. Thus, the pastor set out to walk across a major estuary, the path of a 20-minute ferry ride. But the man could not swim.

   Lacking the miraculous powers of David Copperfield, let alone holy Jesus Christ, this ill-fated cleric found only a Darwin Award at the end of his final path.

   (A related Personal Account from Palorca, Portugal: "I met an elder villager who once tried to walk on water. He strapped small floaters to his feet. He floated, all right, but upside down, with his head submersed. He was rescued by the spectators." –green1 An Amusing /. Criticism

8. "One string short of a kite."

   (19 March 2006, Belize) Benjamin Franklin reputedly flew his kite in a lightning storm, going on to discover that lightning equals electricity. However, certain precautions must be taken to avoid sudden electrocution. Kennon, 26, replicated the conditions of Ben Franklin’s experiment, but without Ben’s sensible safety precautions. Dennon was flying a kite with a short string that he had extended with a length of thin copper wire. The copper made contact with a high-tension line, sending a bolt of electrical lightning towards the man. Just bad luck? Kennon’s father told listeners his son was an electrician, and "should have known better." Kennon is survived by his parents, six sisters, and five brothers.

   Reader comment: "Let me put it this way, I wouldn’t want him wiring my house!!"

Stix