Quote:COPPER KITE
Confirmed Darwin Award
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, as Ben Franklin did, sudden electrocution.
Kennon, 26, replicated the conditions of Ben Franklin's
experiment--sans safety precautions. He 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 artificial lightning down the wire. As Kennon was an electrician,
Kennon's father told listeners, his son "should have known better."
Kennon is survived by his parents, six sisters, and five brothers.
Quote:FAITH AS A FLOTATION DEVICE
Confirmed Darwin Award
(August 2006, Libreville, Gabon) In August, a congregation's
35-year old pastor insisted one could literally walk on water,
if only one 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.
Quote:THE FLYSWATTER
Confirmed Honorable Mention (no one dies)
April 2004, California | An adult education teacher gave 25
students an impromptu lesson in safety during safety class.
Using opaque reasoning, he figured (a 40-mm shell) he found on a
hunting trip must be inert. He kept the round, and even used it
as a desk paperweight. Ordinance is such a unique conversation
piece; and more notably, the teacher's ticking ticket to fame.
One spring morning, a bug crawled across his desk. Should he
squash it with a tissue? Sweep it out the door? Leave it to
pursue its happy existence, and continue with the lesson? No,
the teacher picked another alternative. He took up the "inert"
shell and slammed it onto the insect.
The impact set off the primer, and the resulting explosion
caused burns and shrapnel lacerations to his hand, forearms and
torso. No one in the classroom was hurt. To the teach's further
consolation, his actions did succeed in one respect: the bug was
eliminated.
I recently read that an average of 12 Europeans a year are killed by unexploded World War I ordinance.
50 people a year are killed by sharks, yet people continue to swim and surf in high risk areas.
Smaug Wrote:I recently read that an average of 12 Europeans a year are killed by unexploded World War I ordinance.
Not only is that true but there are still sections of France that are blocked off due to the amount of unexploded ordinance in the ground. There is a small but dedicated group of men whose daily job is to find and remove, defuse, or explode in place 90 year old, highly unstable artillery shells in an attempt to reclaim the battlefields.
Now that's a job that requires a large brass set of testicles.
Portions of the ardenes forest cannot be logged for the same reason. There are manny geran 88mm rounds lodged in tree trunks, that would make sawmill operations....tricky.
Copperblazer Wrote:Portions of the ardenes forest cannot be logged for the same reason. There are manny geran 88mm rounds lodged in tree trunks, that would make sawmill operations....tricky.
Hmm. I'm surprised Greenpeace and other groups haven't realized this and started shooting up trees they don't want cut down....
Grammar-Nazi Wrote:Copperblazer Wrote:Portions of the ardenes forest cannot be logged for the same reason. There are manny geran 88mm rounds lodged in tree trunks, that would make sawmill operations....tricky.
Hmm. I'm surprised Greenpeace and other groups haven't realized this and started shooting up trees they don't want cut down....
Don't give them any ideas...
Enviromental terrorists in the Northwest already "spike" trees as they call it; they go into logging areas and hammer 6 inch nails into the trees.
Now is that really terrorism? It doesn't scare me at all.
It's not too bad until you cut into a nail with a chainsaw; the nail turns the chain into shrapnel. That's the bad part. You do not want to be around when that happens.
Ah, so would it be okay if they also put a big sign up that says
"Warning: Trees spiked in this forest. Cut at your own risk"?
And don't they use big machines to cut these things down?
It's not so much the chainsaws the spikes in the trees are intended for. It's the big ripsaws in the lumber mills. You run one of those bad boys at a couple of thousand RPM into an iron spike and you get tempered steel saw teeth flying in all directions. Nasty if anyone happens to be unlucky enough to be close by, and expensive to repair the equipment.
That's usualy ELF (Earth Liberation Front) a radical branch of greenpeace, who by the way are on the FBI's terrorist watchlist.
They not only spike trees, but burn down sawmills, lumberjack camps, SUV carlots, college labs that do animal research, etc.
