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To all of the people who complain about the stunts, the immaturity, the panic, the idiotic ideas...lighten up!

I hate to generalize (Ok, I love it, but pretend for a second I don't) but our society today needs some humor. We hear "terrorist this" and "gas prices that" and "x troops killed today in Iraq by insurgents..." every day. We seem so drenched in sadness and tragedy sometimes we forget what we are: free!

As long as a flash mob/stunt doesn't injure innocent bystanders and cause undue distress to officials I don't see the harm. The way that these people carry out "missions" with their "agents" is harmless. I admit that there is no screening process and no, I wouldn't want to be a manager on duty that day at Best Buy. But these stunts are things that you can look back upon 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, or 2 years later and grin. We need humor! I give my props to the people who have the audacity to go out there, do something very strange while surreptitiously documenting it, and post it for the rest of us to enjoy later! Way to go!

In a world filld with bad news, depressing ideas, and bad people, it's enlightening to smile at the deeds of others without having read it on Fark or the Darwin Awards.

I know I enjoyed the missions (the pantsless ones are priceless!) and I think that they have a great way of making people laugh. If you don't enjoy, that's fine. I don't get British humor and I hate Monty Python. Some humor isn't for everybody. But lighten up!

http://dumbcrooks.com/

You don't have to fork out for the book if you don't want to.

And I got the ref from
http://www.darwinawards.com/

But people who get a darwin award are unlikely to blog about it.

Then this would be false.

But seriously, it's simple to believe that survival of the fittest rules our world, it's simply self-evident. Whereas our genealogical timeline is a bit shakey, however with each year that passes more gaps are filled with these scientific findings.

Disbelief in undeniable fact that human remains date back far beyond the Biblical "6000 Year History" of our kind amuses me, but what annoys me is the utter disregard for this fact by calling it fallacy and pagan trickery.

If someone slapped you in the face, would you deny it as "The Wind"? I doubt it, so why dispute something so tangible as this obviously tangible evidence?

I could help but want to award this City Manager the highly coveted, never duplicated, Darwin Award. http://www.darwinawards.com/

Please cast your vote to this wonderful individual.

http://www.tuttle-ok.gov/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SE C=%7BCC5DEFB6-1B2A-4783-A5F8-A92275C95081%7D

Or at least let him know how "Wonderful" ;) he really is.

I'd argue that drilling someone in the actual coordination of pulling a gun and firing is the more dangrous part:

http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2005-03.html

Just sci-fi, fantasy, DYI tech, and gadgets.

Do Yourself In?

You're not one of... those guys , are you??

If your vehicle is more likely to roll-over, it should be better protected against roll-over accidents.

I disagree.

That isn't the case--in fact, cars are more protected in roll-over accidents than SUVs even though they are less likely to roll over.

True, but I think this is the way it should be. In fact, SUVs should be made with less rollover protection, and this should be advertised. Then, anyone who buys an SUV and dies in a rollover can get an automatic Darwin award. Honestly, all the info is publicly available about how dangerous SUVs are, how they don't meet car safety standards, etc., but people keep buying them. Why not make them even less safe (thus increasing the automakers' profits), and if anyone dies, it'll be their own fault? Or they could make different models: some that are very unsafe (but still big and "safe-looking"), and some that are genuinely safe by current standards, but cost $10k more. Then we'll see how much consumers really value safety over just looking safe.

I don't think that would be a very fair test...

if you saw yourself in a photo, surrounded by a dozen perfectly identical copies of yourself, do you honestly beleive you could tell which one was the "real" you?

I don't think I could, and if I can assume that I am self-aware and conscious, then we are not testing self-awareness or even self-identity.

Personally, I'd like to see AI progress to the point where we can use the "dolphin test" on a robot to determine self-awareness.

references:
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050723/fob6. asp
http://forum.darwinawards.com/lofiversion/index.ph p/t5184.html
also, google for "dolphin self-aware paint mirror", that will provide other sources.

It is one thing to be sanguine about the loss of polar bears to natrual selection. The loss of human populations, that's another thing.

Really? I, for one, favor improving our gene pool.

Damn you and your logic. Of course people wouldn't do anything irrational like that. I guess it was a silly idea.

Most people are generally intelligent. No way could they be easily duped.

I don't think you'd like it if I took, say, a sample of Americans from a Darwin Awards website and said it 'says a lot about the education system'.

But hey, you know, there are some pretty stupid people in the world. Most of which are already, thankfully, dead.

Once upon a time, there was a guy named Darwin. Though his ideas have been contorted into the Theory of Evolution, his principles were brilliant. This is clearly an example of natural selection. This one deserves a Darwin Award for sure. http://www.darwinawards.com/

> Whatever the cause of death may be, it is no funny matter. You guys are truly ill-mannered, and you show a great deal of disrespect to others. It is you who have not been raised properly ...

You must be new here. You really should get educated

We are pleased to report that your son is now being considered in this years running for a prestigious darwin award. You should be very proud.

Apparently you missed the memo where laughing at dead people is now ok.

[...] we simply made war so deadly with nukes that people stopped having them because is was MAD...

Excuse me, stopped having wars?

Seriously though, I'm a smoker and I absolutely love smoking. I can spend 10 minutes doing abosolutely nothing but enjoying a cigarette. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. I can find plenty of worse ways to go. Smoking really works for me and I don't mind trading off a few years of my life for it.

I understand and respect how and why non-smokers can be annoyed by smoke, that's fine and understandable, but don't force your tired arguments down our throats. Smoking is a personal choice, so leave it at that, please. I've met one too many non-smokers who's been trying to "save me", which really just annoys me and won't ever work.

Oh yes, we humans are very well equipped to engage wild carnivores in a hand-to-claw combat. I am sure this guy would agree with you:

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1994-13.h tml

They get those all year.
http://www.darwinawards.com/

Dr Marshall proved that H. pylori caused gastic inflammation by deliberately infecting himself with the bacterium

just 1 step away from winning the darwinian award.

an award named after a well known scientist.

After all, "A man can't just sit around."

The Darwin Awards.

They really still do weed themselves out (just not always the ones *you'd* like). :)

No, I don't honestly believe anyone is that stupid.

http://www.darwinawards.com/

Be careful what you wish for rocket car

Natural selection still rules, and there is one less brainless retard in the mankind gene pool.

I hope this guy will at least be nominated for the darwin awards. He really deserves a mention.

Yeah, I feel so dirty. It's like seeing Your Mom's apple pie used in that movie about... Well you know which one I mean.

Great, they are always looking to test products out on people, and as a bonus if you survive you get to keep the product.

On a more serious note, these people (protestors) are just pointing out that there hasn't been enough research done to make sure that the long term effects of the new coatings don't cause long term problems for people. Obviously what those protestors did worked, because we are now talking about it.

Example Asbestos, I could make you some pants that are fire retardant, 50 years ago this would sound great. Today we know the problems associated with Asbestos.

Anyway the list is long of great ideas that turned out deadly. The best one is X-Ray's. They used to use this for everything. Need to find out if that shoe fits. Let's X-Ray your foot in the shoe, or put it in cosmetics. At the start everything seemed good, until everyone started to die, including Marie Currie who died in 1934 from leukemia.

Radium was used to make the watch hands glow. Great idea except it caused radiation poisoning.

More radioactive products that seemed good at the time and some we still use: http://www.blackcatsystems.com/science/radprod.htm l

Anyway, the list is endless, and not just with radiation either, many other ideas through time that have left a lasting effect on us today. (DDT)

And who knows you may even earn yourself a Darwin Award along the way. http://www.darwinawards.com/

...I would have had one kid instead of five...

This is because you are such a responsible person. Me, on the other hand, being irresponsible, I would still have 5 kids, and go to jail when one of my kids gets drunk and drives over your (only) kid, rendering you OBSOLETE! End result - by being responsible, you effectively remove yourself from the gene pool. Here's to responsible people - gulp!

Hall of fame inductees!

This is worse than powering a powering a go-cart with a chainsaw (not a chainsaw engine, a chainsaw). Or any attempt to juggle objects meant to fell trees.

No, this couple gets a waiver straight into the Hall.

They deserve their own wing.

Sounds like the blind following the dumb.

Although he was just an honorable mention, lawnchair Larry was funny. Here's what he did:

http://darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid1998-11.html

http://www.dryiceinfo.com/Pictures/dry%20ice%20bom b%20injury.jpg

This guy gets my vote for the Darwin Awards.

http://www.darwinawards.com/

haha someone submit the passenger for the darwin award

The whole "waah, but they suck me dry with tickets" complaint starts from the false premise that the mean police/government/whatever just taxes you, and there's nothing you can possibly do to avoid that. Well, false: you can stop speeding already, and you'll get no more tickets. It's that simple.

Frankly, I don't think endangering others is some sacred right. Cars can and do kill or cripple. More people die or end up crippled in a year, _any_ year, than in all aircraft-related accidents combined, _including_ the 9/11. That's why all those laws are there in the first place.

And the real issue isn't even getting home faster, which usually isn't even the achieved result. The issue is: thanks to the ads of the car industry some decades ago, the artifficial image was created that powerful cars are some supremely manly thing. That driving anything less than a 200 HP gas-guzzler, and/or god forbid actually driving it carefully or at the speed limit, is akin to wearing an "I have a small dick" banner.

And if they only endangered themselves, I wouldn't even have anything against it. I always said that more people should be encouraged to nominate themselves for the Darwin Awards.But unfortunately these people don't only endanger themselves, they also endanger everyone else on the road.

And I'll be damned if I see anything wrong with sucking them dry. Stuff them with tickets until they finally get it in their head that yes, they too are supposed to obey the speed limit. I'll drink to that.

Or here's a better idea that doesn't even involve turning it into a revenue source: death penalty. No, I'm not kidding. If you get involved in _any_ accident, including "but he just appeared in front of me", and you were over the speed limit, you get to swing by the neck to death. No ifs, no buts, no atenuating circumstances.

Because that's just the kind of thing that the speed limit is there to prevent. The issue isn't what you can do with the car in ideal conditions. The issue is when someone backed out of a parking lot in front of you, or some kid jumped in front of your headlights, or the car in front has to brake, or whatever. _Then_ it starts to matter that braking distance increases with the square of the speed.

That has concerned me too. But there is still evolution in action.

These days there are generally more rewards for intelligence (so more breeding opportunities :), and there is still some culling out some of the folks at the bottom of the intelligence spectrum.

A few volts DC is enough to kill you...

Not true. According to UL it takes more than 5 milliamperes to be dangerous and your skin resistance is too high to permit that much current to flow at a potential of "a few volts".

According to this Darwin Award, if you take skin resistance out of the picture, then a few volts DC is enough to stop your heart.

run an experiment in which speciation occurs.

Also, I'd suggest an experiment...

Dear creationist, inject yourself with some dangerous bacteria. Take half a pencillin cure, wait a while and take the other half. If the bacteria hasn't evolved protection from the antibiotics, you'll live.

Repeat a few times.

We others will think of it as evolution in action -- and as a creationist you should be happy to receive a Darwin award.

Enough humor.

I also have a belief that I'd like to share with you, since you have wasted my time by posting your ignorant beliefs onto a (more or less) serious web page.

The human mind's ability to filter out facts and believe whatever it has emotional needs to believe, is the main reason I classify myself as a misanthrope.

I see true believers like you as worse than psychopats. You are the main problem with humanity that destroys discussions about society and everything else.

JATO is an acronym for Jet Assisted Take Off and should be capitalized. It is used to help heavily loaded aircraft generate enough linear thrust (and thus lift) to take off on runways that would otherwise be too short. There is a neat picture here of a C-130 deploying a JATO.

Attaching an accelerating device to a problem just accelerates the problem (as in Interix's PR problem). No one likes a fast-moving problem. :-)
And just for fun, here is the link to the Snopes debunking of the alleged Darwin Award winner. The stories aren't true but perhaps they should be...

According to the Darwin Awards rules page, the candidate must be dead first - though I guess we can wait a few days and see what happens...

Well, it's just yet another innovative way of getting the Darwin Award...

From In France, Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when he decided to commit suicide. He stood atop a sheer cliff and tied a noose around his neck. He tied the other end of the rope to a large rock. He drank some poison and set fire to his clothes. He even tried to shoot himself at the last moment. He jumped and fired the pistol.

The bullet missed him completely and cut through the rope above him. Now freed from the threat of hanging, he plunged into the sea. The dunking extinguished the flames and made him vomit the poison. He was dragged out of the water by a kind fisherman and was taken to a hospital, where he died of hypothermia.

Or you can, in the true spirit of Open Source, roll your own.

I'd be surprised if this guy doesn't end up featured on another web-site soon.

There have been bank robbers who present a valid ID during the crime, but such cases are rare.

You mean something like this?

http://www.darwinawards.com/book/

Sounds like he may be a future Darwin Awards candidate.

http://www.darwinawards.com/

This would be what you were talking about.

No, I think the duct tape was over his altimeter, and it was the ground crew that left it there (It was an airliner, IIRC). Hopefully they learned from that.

It's happened.