Yes, it’s that magical time of year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed.  Here is the glorious winner:

1. When his 38 caliber 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 submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company suspecting 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 shoveled 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 claiming they were not mad but had been picked up by the driver. 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. An Arkansas man wanted some beer pretty badly so he decided he’d 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 hit the window, bounced back hitting the would-be thief on the head and knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on the stores CCTV.

8. As a female shopper left a  New York  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 thief. They put him in the patrol car and drove him 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 that these weren’t available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away again. – THIS WAS AWARDED THE 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 vomit and spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man had admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he pushed 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 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!!!*** And They Breed  ……   Be very afraid!!

Rick Perry, the Texas Lawn Chair Larry, full of hot air.

Remember Lawn Chair Larry?  The former trucker, Larry Walters, got an honorable mention from the Darwin Awards which “salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it.”
Larry lived to tell the story of his 1982 experience attaching helium-filled weather balloons to his lawn chair after hatching a plan to drink a few beers while floating 30 feet above his girlfriend’s house.  But his friends cut the rope he had attached to his jeep, and the lawn chair with Larry in it shot up to 16,000 feet.  Larry wisely decided not to use the bb gun he brought along to shoot the balloons when he was ready to come down.  He wound up being rescued when he came up on air controllers’ sites near the LA Airport.
Rick Perry is our very own Texas Lawn Chair Larry.  Though he is a big joke on Texas, his stunts, like bringing pigs to crash opponent Kay Bailey Hutchison’s press conference, just aren’t funny.  Hey Governor, bringing pigs to press conferences are what grassroots organizers like me do to entice media attention.  For god’s sake, you’re the flipping Governor!
I am advocating that independents carry out an “Anyone But Perry” strategy in the 2010 Governor’s race.  We should use the Texas open primary and vote in the Republican primary and then again, in the general election as a massive voting block of at least 1.3 million voters.  That is the number of voters who voted either for Carole Strayhorn or Kinky Friedman in 2006.
We’ve got two chances to cut Perry’s rope.  The first is to vote for one of Perry’s opponents in the March Republican primary: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison or Debra Medina, a Republican Party activist aligned with Ron Paul. Perhaps Medina can get enough steam going to split the conservative wing of the Republican Party.  Kay Bailey could unite some Republican conservatives with Republican moderates and win over enough independents to beat Perry in the primary. The second chance will be in the general election in November.  The Democrats may consider running a more viable candidate than the current menu (no offense Kinky and Hank) to take on one of the two titans, Kay Bailey Hutchison or Rick Perry.  I predict that if Perry is the Republican nominee, most independents (including many third party and Libertarian voters) will vote Democratic to help send Rick Perry 16,000 feet above the Dallas airport.
So many reasons to cut Perry’s rope, yet so little time.  My favorite is Perry’s dogged efforts to rob Texans of their land for a $700 billion project that nobody wants.  The Trans-Texas Corridor (or whatever name the Governor cooks up to confuse us) is a massive road, utility and rail trade corridor designed to import even more cheap mostly Chinese goods moving through Mexican ports.
The Corridor and the Governor’s privatized toll road schemes are his Achilles heel because they spurred a grassroots cross-partisan citizens movement that is independent of the parties and the mess they’ve created.  How about those toll roads to nowhere, like the near infamous Grand Parkway (aka “Porkway”) and the expansion of 290E in Austin?  Thanks to the our slick Governor and the corrupt agency otherwise known as TxDOT, these two roads are slated to use stimulus funds to satisfy the Growth Lobby.  The Growth Lobby (the perpetual hogs at the government trough) consists of companies like CINTRA (the Spanish toll road consortium, whose lobbyists have worked inside the Governor’s office); homebuilders like Bob Perry (no relation) who have given Perry millions; Democrats like Austin area State Senator Kirk Watson (who is so smart he could have really been somebody), Chambers of Commerce, the Real Estate lobby, some road contractors, and a litany of related companies and lawyers.
The Growth Lobby helps ensure that Texas has highest property taxes in the nation, and is one of only five states without real estate sales disclosure.  Under this scenario large-scale commercial developments and raw land across Texas are undervalued by, on average, 40%.  The Growth Lobby is driving population growth to areas, like Austin, where they want to double the population in just 16 years.  Their plans for infrastructure, including roads and water are at best speculative.  (For details go to CostofGrowth.com).
Lawn Chair Larry gave us all a helluva lot more than Rick Perry — a great big laugh at our own silliness.  Let’s not be so silly as to re-elect Lawn Chair Perry. The only award Rick Perry deserves is the one actually bestowed on Lawn Chair Larry.  That was the Bonehead Club Award of Dallas.

Day’s End

Frequent Photo

Thanks to SoHumBorn the following Craig’s list Ad came to my attention:

Look, i get that if people dont no you, ((( No 420 job)))) for you.. !!!!!!

I am not looking to be the next, Eric Sligh, I just want a kushjob…

hit me up, I have a salesman sample, of what i do w/ seed’s ….

Do growers ever hire workers this way? I’ve never heard anyone admit it.  Perhaps hiring guys from internet ads is roughly equivalent to lighting up inside a police station—people who do it don’t last long in the business.

Most (if not all) writers would like to think they are able to conjure the unlikeliest of outlandish plots, dialogue and artifacts, and then insert them into their work so well as to obscure the ridiculous nature of such things. But… Real life (as is always the case) is stranger then any fiction. There are very good reasons why the phrase “You couldn’t make it up” exists. No matter how strange the things we invent an industrious idiot will have managed to do it first. We’re always at least three or four steps behind the wave of monstrous stupidity which is unique to our species. You only ever have to remember one thing when you are trying to weave fiction that is believable:

It’s already been done.

Not only has it been done, it’s probably been done a few times. Pulling a Stretch Armstrong doll until it bursts? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Going over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Wow, a bit behind the times, aren’t you. Checking to see if the room really is too small to swing a cat? Don’t even think about it…

Some of my favorite books are non-fiction, but they read like fiction. They contain the stuff that would make great storytelling if it wasn’t for the annoying fact that they were real. Take a look at the Darwin Awards if you think a plot twist (which sends a character to an untimely end) is too far-fetched. Whatever the means for dispatching a character, there is someone who has shuffled off this mortal coil in a similar manner. The awards are a litmus test for any OTT element wherein a character is killed in a manner that feels too outrageous to be believed. People can display incredible ingenuity in killing themselves.

Here’s a story from The Fortean Times Book Of More Strange Deaths which illustrates this point:

PASTOR Michael Davis, of the Larose Christian Fellowship Church in Louisiana, finished his sermon, stripped down to his bathing trunks, exhorted the faithful to prepare for rebirth and stepped into the pool where he intended to baptise a dozen of his flock. Unfortunately, his microphone was badly earthed; the resulting explosion left the pastor floating belly up and melted the microphone.

How can I compete with that?

And if you think that you would be safe making up a comedy epitaph to go on a gravestone in your story, you might want to take a look at some real ones out there. From Awful Ends: The British Museum Book Of Epitaphs by David M. Wilson:

Here lies the body of John Shine,
Who was no Jew for he ate swine;
He was no Papist for he had no merit;
He was no Quaker for he had no spirit;
For forty years he lived and lied,
For which God damned him as he died.

There’s nothing I could make up that would even come close…

And it continues through every other aspect of life. Coincidences? There was a story a while back about two guys who had worked their entire lives together finding out they were brothers. That would be laughed at in fiction, but in real life? It is treated as a feel-good story, regardless of how cliché it is. ‘Predictable’ is looked at so differently in fiction that I’m almost tempted to use the above as a continuation on my argument that real life isn’t represented properly in fiction.

If real life was to interrupt every aspect of fiction, then we would be writing soap operas rather than anything meaningful. Wait. Did I just insult everyone working in soap operas? Sorry. I meant to insult every soap opera except Dark Shadows, because at least that had an excuse.

Il video è old lo so ma questo video fa riflettere molto sulla demenza umana! Però è anche vero che fa morire dal ridere.

Un giovane austriaco è stato multato dalla polizia per aver “messo in pericolo la sicurezza pubblica” per una flatulenza scappata durante una festa della birra che si svolgeva in un tendone. E’ accaduto nello Stato austriaco della Stiria. Al protagonista della vicenda, un 20enne, è stata inflitta una multa di 50 euro per aver infranto la legge regionale, ha riferito la tv pubblica Orf, citando il testo del verbale.
Ad accorgersi del gesto, oltre a numerosi presenti scoppiati in una fragorosa risata, è stato un agente, che evidentemente meno divertito ha interpretato in modo rigido l’articolo 2 della legge sulla sicurezza dello Stato.
Un avvocato di Graz ha spiegato che l’articolo 2 punisce l’oltraggio alle autorità. Il 20enne ha subito pagato la multa.

Fonte | CrashDown

Tragedia sfiorata in India. Durante un’esercitazione militare un aereo dell’Air Force ha sganciato una bomba per errore. L’ordigno e’ esploso a 30 metri dal canale Indira Ghandi riuscendo fortunatamente a non colpire gli argini. Lo rende noto il Times of India spiegando che se la bomba avesse colpito veramente il canale le acque avrebbero sommerso le citta’ vicine causando centinaia di vittime. Invece il danno si e’ limitato a un cratere di otto metri e all’incenerimento di decine di alberi. L’incidente e’ stato confermato dall’Air Force che ha aperto un’inchiesta sul caso. Si tratta del terzo incidente di questo tipo in un anno: altre due bombe infatti sono state sganciate per sbaglio a febbraio: anche in questi casi non c’e stata nessuna vittima ma solo danni alle coltivazioni.

Fonte | Repubblica.it

Andare in ferie è sempre un problema: e se durante l’assenza passano i soliti topi d’appartamento? E se la casa delle vacanze non ha tutte le comodità alle quali si è abituati? Così un tunisino di Albano Sant’Alessandro, nel Bergamasco, non si è limitato a fare le valigie: ha caricato in macchina anche tutto l’arredamento di casa e lo scooter. Ma durante il “trasloco” è stato bloccato in autostrada e ha perso 17 punti della patente.

A vedersi passare davanti, in modo assolutamente disinvolto, il tunisino, sono stati gli stupefatti agenti della polizia stradale di Seriate. Gli agenti erano sull’autostrada A4 fra Trezzo e Cavenago quando hanno visto arrivare la Opel Corsa dell’uomo con sul tettuccio tavolo, sedie, frigo, materasso, mobiletti vari, uno scooter Piaggio Zip, una mountain bike, valigie e perfino il secchio per lavare i pavimenti.
Non solo: una grande quantità di merce varia era poi stipata all’interno della vettura insieme a moglie e due figli piccoli. L’automobilista era intenzionato a raggiungere in quel modo il suo Paese natale per le vacanze, imbarcando l’auto e tutto il suo carico a Genova. Gli agenti gli hanno spiegato che non se ne parlava proprio, poi hanno cominciato a fare una multa per carico fuori misura, mancato uso delle cinture e, visto che nonostante il carico la vettura viaggiava sulla corsia centrale, anche violazione dell’obbligo di circolare sulla corsia libera a destra.
Quindi è scattata una maximulta, 17 punti in meno e ritiro immediato della patente. E l’ordine di riportare subito indietro tutto il carico.

Fonte | TgCom

Mai l’espressione “guidare da cani” fu usata in modo più appropriato. Ha dell’incredibile la vicenda accaduta a Hohhot, una città della Mongolia interna, dove una donna ha affidato la guida della sua auto al proprio cane. La trovata ha avuto un esito nefasto: alla prima curva il veicolo ha fatto un frontale con una macchina che proveniva in senso opposto. Nessun ferito, per fortuna: la padrona di Fido risarcirà i danni.

Protagonista dello strano episodio, una certa signora Li, che confidava nelle straordinarie capacità intellettuali del quadrupede. Dopo l’ incidente, la donna ha raccontato alla polizia che il suo cane aveva preso l’ abitudine di osservarla attentamente quando era alla guida. Qualche volta, le aveva perfino fatto “capire” che non gli sarebbe dispiaciuto giocare un po’ con il volante. Detto fatto, la signora Li non ci ha pensato due volte ad affidare la guida al cane, limitandosi per “sicurezza” a controllare i pedali del freno e dell’ acceleratore. Tutto questo però non è bastato: la lezione di guida, sabato, si è conclusa con un disastroso incidente che – come riferisce l’agenzia ‘Nuova Cina’ – non ha fortunatamente provocato feriti.
Sotto shock anche gli agenti della polizia locale, che mai avrebbero pensato di trovarsi di fronte a un pirata della strada in versione canina. ”Questa donna è un tipo assurdo”, si sono limitati a commentare…

Fonte | Notizie Incredibili

Qualche fotografo “curioso” ha immortalato una coppia come mamma li ha fatti in atteggiamente diciamo intimi in un luogo diciamo poco appartato.

Cosa potrebbe succedere durante una pesante sbornia? In teoria di tutto, ma il sollievo è che solitamente, al risveglio, dopo un buon caffè rigorosamente amaro, avremo già rimosso quanto accaduto prima e durante.
La stessa cosa, però, non potrà dirla un giovane ventisettenne svedese, che dopo aver bevuto una bottiglia di vodka, ha perso i sensi ed è rimasto in coma etilico per tutta la notte. Al suo risveglio, però, si è ritrovato con una bella sorpresa tatuata permanentemente sulla sua gamba. Per l’esattezza si tratta di un pene della lunghezza di 16 cm.

Quello che avvenuto durante la sbornia, e che il giovane ha completamente rimosso, possono però rivelarlo i suoi amici, che raccontano come, durante la serata, mentre il giovane era già mezzo ubriaco, non faceva che dimenarsi urlando che voleva un tatuaggio. Dietro l’angolo, (s)fortuna volle, che ci fosse un negozio di tatuaggi, che ha esaudito il suo desiderio. Ma il tatuatore, nel compiere il suo dovere, ha messo una condizione: la scelta del tatuaggio l’avrebbe fatta lui. E così è stato…

Che dire? Mai assecondare un amico in preda ad ubriachezza molesta!

Fonte | CrashDown

Questa volta, la notizia giunge dalla Polonia, dove una ragazza, in vacanza in un albergo egizio, dopo una nuotata in piscina sarebbe rimasta incinta.
La madre ovviamente, ha denunciato l’accaduto.

Secondo la signora Magdalena Kwiatkowska, madre della tredicenne rimasta incinta, la figlia pare non avesse mai avuto, ancora, rapporti sessuali.
La donna sostiene che nella piscina dell’albergo, in cui la figlia nuotava, ci fosse dello sperma umano, che ha ’sverginato’ così la sua piccola.
Da qui la denuncia, a carico della piscina, la quale avrebbe ‘abusato’ della ragazzina tredicenne.
Nonostante questo, gli esperti son pronti a smentire tutto. Pare infatti sia impossibile restare incinta per un bagno in piscina, poichè lo sperma, semmai fosse davvero presente in acqua, non sopravvive, a maggior ragione se viene usato il cloro.
Che sia opera dello Spirito Santo, o di qualche essere dallo sperma super potente?

Fonte | CrashDown

Doveva essere la sua ultima serata di divertimento e massima trasgressione ma si è trasformata in tragedia: il promesso sposo, un giovane di 32 anni, si trovava in un night club con gli amici per festeggiare l’addio al celibato, essendo prossimo alle nozze.
Arma del delitto è niente di meno che il seno di una spogliarellista, una decima misura al silicone che ha soffocato il giovane facendogli mancare il respiro. Secondo le dichiarazioni dei presenti, la stripper stava ballando in modo provocante in braccio alla vittima tenendogli la testa “affondata” nel suo enorme seno rifatto.

Gli altri spettatori hanno notato che il ragazzo agitava le mani ma hanno pensato a tutt’altro che ad una richiesta di soccorso. Neanche la ballerina ha capito cosa stesse accadendo e, solo quando il ballo è finito, si è accorta che l’uomo non si muoveva più. La polizia sta indagando sull’episodio per capire se possano esserci altre cause, nel frattempo sia la stripper che i proprietari del night club sono stati citati in giudizio per omicidio.

Fonte | CrashDown

LIMA, 19 NOV – La polizia peruviana ha arrestato con un vasto blitz 4 banditi sospetti aver ucciso 60 persone per vendere grasso dai corpi a fini cosmetici. Grasso ceduto in Perù ma pure in Europa ad aziende disposte a utilizzarlo per fabbricare prodotti cosmetici.Per i media locali tra gli acquirenti anche due italiani. Il prezzo era 15.000 dlr al gallone. Il caso fu scoperto a inizio mese quando agenti arrestarono due uomini che ritiravano un involucro contenente grasso di un uomo ucciso a settembre.

Fonte | Corriere.it

Hey FAILers! Let us know in the comments who you think deserves the Darwin Award from these 3 epic Safety Fails. Is it the driver that really didn’t want to pay for movers? Or the man just out for a “joy ride” with his mattress? Or is it the gas station attendant that is trying to multi-task by smoking and cleaning the gas pumps at the same time? Make your voice heard FAILers!

Picture by: dunno source Submitted by: DrunkStepdad via Fail Uploader

Picture by: dunno source Submitted by: dunno source via Fail Uploader

Picture by: dunno source Submitted by: TnT via Fail Uploader

…E la sposa ci rimise il naso: tragicomica performance di un’invitata un pò troppo esuberante.

Mi sa tanto che questo soldato sarà andato a ringraziare tutti i santi in paradiso.

I giornali molto gentilmente la chiamano “Gaffe Mondiale” ma perche non chiamarla con il suo vero nome “Figura di Merda”

Da una vecchia VHS risalente al 1991 è stato estratto un breve passaggio di un contest nazionale per la migliore barba dello stato di Washington, organizzato nella città di Tacoma.

Il tizio che entra dopo una ventina di secondi davvero non ha rivali, lo potete anche sentire dalle urla del pubblico presente. Un vero eroe!

Fonte | HappyBlog

I have come across quite an interesting legal case that explores the boundaries of autonomy, namely the much heard of and famous R v Brown [1993] 2 All ER 75 . (If you haven’t heard of it…well, good for you, you have a social life and did not decide to dedicate your life to the boring a depressing field of Law!)

In this case a group of men were convicted of “unlawful and malicious wounding” and “assault occasioning actual bodily harm” under the Offenses against the Person Act 1861. (Yes, this sentence is straight off Wikipedia)

Whoever is in shock and appalled by such sadistic offenses  will be even more in shock to hear that the crimes were in fact consensual committed towards each other (even though it was suggested that alcohol and drugs might have “helped” them on their way towards consenting). Yes, we dive into the mysterious  and controversial world of SM.

The matter of consent of the “victim” wasn’t really an issue in the court case anyway, it was more about what we can consent to in order to make an otherwise criminal act lawful. SM-activities are apparently not among these things. Bodily harm with no good reason apart from sexual satisfaction is not allowed. Period. And don’t you dare act otherwise!

Anyway, these men were obviously very violent towards each other. I remember reading something along the lines of ‘nail-guns’, ‘sandpaper’ and ‘burning’ all done on rather delicate areas.

However, I think if a person of an adult, stable mind is consenting to this, telling them not to do it is rather paternalistic (I thought we were past that?!). Yes, these men might have ended up killing themselves (at least they would have had fun while doing it), but more likely they would have become impotent. Either way, they would have failed to contribute to the gene pool, thereby satisfying Darwin’s theory and they might even have gotten a Darwin award. (Don’t know what Darwin Awards are? Check out the official website: http://www.darwinawards.com/)

If people want to endanger their lifes who is to say they are not allowed to? It all serves natural selection. I think we should give Darwin a chance.

If you have the nerve (and nothing better to do) to read the full judgement on R v Brown, go here: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/R_v._Brown

Da noi si ha il brutto vizio di parlare al cellulare o fumare mentre si guida. In cina riesco a fare ben di peggio, date un’occhiata al resto delle immagini c’è da mettersi le mani nei capelli.

Fonte | DamnCoolPics

Le telecamere di sicurezza di un magazzino in Russia hanno documentato un incredibile “incidente sul lavoro”.

Un addetto al carico e scarico della merce sugli scaffali stava lavorando a bordo di un muletto quando un pacco, urtato per errore ha perso l’equilibrio generando una pioggia di scatoloni degna del miglior domino. La reazione a catena è terminato solo quando l’ultimo scaffale è crollato a terra, risultato devastante!

Fonte | HappyBlog