2009 Darwin Award Winners Announced 208
Greg Lindahl writes "From the woman who jumped in a swollen creek to rescue her drowning moped, to the man who hopped over the divider at the edge of the highway to take a leak, and plunged 65 feet to his death, 2009 was a year both exceptional and unexceptional for Darwin Award-worthy behavior!"
Coral Cache link to avoid /.ing Darwin Awards (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Weak. (Score:1, Informative)
Your request is magically granted:
Every story has a link to the original
submission at the bottom.
Re:Slashdotted (Score:4, Informative)
I'll sum it up for you.
A 50 year old female goes out on her moped during flash flood, gets drunk, tries to drive home and gets washed into creek. Cop saves her, but she jumps back in to save moped. Dies.
20-something male has to pee and gets out of car. Jumps over side embankment, only to find out that he's on an overpass elevated 65 feet above the ground. Falls. Dies.
Two bank robbers use way to much dynamite in attempt to rob an ATM. Take out entire building. Die.
Priest does a "Lawn-chair Larry" for charity. Winds change and blow him towards water. Doesn't parachute over dry land even though this is the situation for which he has the chute. When over the water, calls for help. Can't figure out how to use the GPS he brought along. Disappears. Dies.
Is found later.
Overall, pretty weak. Two of them do not belong as they contain members of our species that were likely not going to reproduce anyway. (priest and 50 year old woman)
Re:While slightly humorous (Score:4, Informative)
Read the article though and regardless of it, they were an idiot. She went into the creek on the moped, the officer PULLED HER OUT with a rope, interviewed her, and when he went to the car for a second she bolted and jumped back into the creek.
Don't matter what she was jumping in for, she was an idiot.
Notorious history of the "Darwin Awards" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Weak. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:While slightly humorous (Score:3, Informative)
> I never understood the "don't speak ill of the dead" idea.
It is for historical reasons. We used to bury our dead with their stuff, but we broke their weapons before putting them into the grave, for our own protection. For the same reason, it was not wise to speak ill of them.
The reason why we still have that rule is best explained with the famous bananas and monkeys example:
http://paws.kettering.edu/~jhuggins/humor/banana.html [kettering.edu]
Re:While slightly humorous (Score:4, Informative)
Re:While slightly humorous (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, but at least I had the common sense NOT to do several things that are almost guaranteed to make you appear in the obituaries. You will probably notice that the Darwin Awards rarely if ever show freak accidents. It's usually awarded for doing something that is almost guaranteed to kill you, and that you, as a being more or less capable of thinking coherently, should know that. Care to show me the logic in:
Taking a billiard ball in your mouth" [darwinawards.com]
Digging out armed land mines to place them somewhere else [darwinawards.com]?
Juggling grenades [darwinawards.com]?
Using the blunt end of a loaded shotgun to crack open a window [darwinawards.com]? (last line, not that the other short mentionings were any smarter...)
Cutting off your balls over a bet [darwinawards.com]?
Or your head [darwinawards.com]?
And so many examples more that are impossible NOT to end up lethal.
How do you want to defend ANY of those "logics"?