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Darwin Awards 2006
ms1234 writes "The year is coming to and end so it is time to see how our genepool is doing. Darwin Awards 2006 includes everything from whacking RPGs with hammers to recreating experiments by Franklin."
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The story you are refering to is on page 36 of my copy. References to eight news sources are given for the story. And the story says nothing of the gun being unloaded. It does say that the man was tryign to pin the snakes head with the butt of the gun to catch it alive.
The book lists stories in four categories, Darwin Awards, Honorable Mentions, Urban Legends, and Personal Accounts. Stories in the first two categories "are known or believed to be true". Urban legends "should be understood as the fables they are". Personal Accounts "are plausible but usually unverified". The also rates each of the first two categories as Confirmed by Darwin, meaning multiple credile sources, or Unconfimred by Darwin, for stories believed to be true but with fewer or unverifialbe sources. (Quotes from pages six and seven of The Darwin Awards.)
SteveM
I can warrant for this one, it happpened 100 metres from my house in Hertfordshire, UK
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
From snopes.com: The various "Annual Darwin Awards" e-mails (such as the one which is the topic of this article) do not originate with DarwinAwards.com; they are put together by unknown persons. -- snopes asserts that the website is legit.
who let a poet in here?
They do claim these are true stories. I can attest for at least one of them. The 1996 silly-sad tale of the lawyer jumping against the windows in the skyscraper office where he worked was in many Toronto news sources at the time. Where this event occurred is a very busy area, so there were plenty of witnesses.
It was later that same year when I heard of the Darwin awards, as someone mentioned that this well-known story was nominated.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
You may well have read some article assuming they were the same, there are rather too many "journalists" who get all excited when they think they can steal something off the Internet in place of doing real work. The Darwin Awards aren't the only ones suffering from this problem, the True Stella Awards site often gets listed as the source for the bogus Stella Awards email.
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
From the Darwin Awards rules page at:
http://darwinawards.com/rules/rules2.html
"Those who participate in extreme sports are not automatically eligible, as they knowingly assume an increased risk of death. They are, in a sense, correctly applying their judgment that the entertainment is worth the risk. However bizarre the sport, an additional misapplication of judgment must be present in order for the deceased to qualify for a Darwin Award."
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Darwin Awards Condoms: Keep yourself out of the gene pool.
My website has some cruft; however, I do my best to sort truth from fiction. And remember, I've improved over the years, and so has Internet-accessible news.
There was this one time I was fooled "backwards" over a story I KNEW was an Urban Legend. It happened in the ocean off Pee Wee beach, near Darwin, Australia. The woman (a woman!) supposedly drank a case of beer before submerging to give head to her boyfriend... and never came back up. The man's lawyer was supposedly named Ms. Cox, and his last name was Payne. Plus the identical story was submitted hundreds of times. Urban legend for sure!
A few years later... a few people have written to say the story is true, but you know, Pee Wee Beach? Ms. Cox? I still think it's an urban legend, until the Australian court reporter launches himself at me, irate, defamation of his reputation, something like that... Oops!
Who knew?
I have only quite recently started to link to the original submissions. But since late 2001, anyone can search the Slush Pile / Reject Pile and find the original sources. I try my very best to not alter facts, and to incorporate all the relevant facts, but well... sometimes I err on colorful ways of expressing things, or say what he might have been "thinking" which of course no one can know.
Darwin Awards: The tree of life is self-pruning.