I have driven 20 miles on a flat and while it is possible just be sure that you have no other alternatives. It ruined the tire, the rim and soon after the wheel bearings failed.

The situation was a hot summer day in southern Italy during the siesta hours (a great idea for coping with the summer heat). Tire went flat. Wasn’t much of a tire anymore anyhow with the cords showing through but I was young, dumb and making the most of everything. I stopped to change it but the spare was flat too – though new in appearance it did not contain air. An option that year? Drove home about 20 miles slowly and survived to tell about it.

Tire remains were smoking!

It’s hard for me to argue over teh name as I don’t believe in “natural selection” (call me a heretic). But, I believe the only story where the winners were identified as drunk were the criminally stupid individuals who moved the barriers away from the trenching in the road. In the other events listed, the victims did not really deserve what they got, but in the case of the ranch hands, I think they did deserve what they got. They thought it would be funny to create a deadly situation and then paid for it with their own lives. Seems fair to me.

It does not detract from the ultimate stupidity of the award winner.

I think I was mainly referring to the way Calvinism attributes all events to part of God’s plan. So when he hear about people getting killed for doing stupid things we somehow want to believe they deserve it.

Back to the Darwin thing, I don’t think having a car accident due to driving drunk necessarily cleans out the gene pool.

I think Darwin would argue that someone who had a random mutatation that allowed him to safely drive drunk would be naturally selected to live. That person would not be any better in terms of the gene pool than the guy who can’t drive after one beer, unless we lived in an environment where people had to drive after drinking and that gene mutation gave him an advantage.

In a just world people would always get what they deserved. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for some) this isn’t a just world. Also, I don’t see how this ideal is Calvinist. Calvin undoubtedly thought that people ultimately get what they deserve, but most likely after death, not in this world.

Darwin makes perfect sense as a name. The idea that stupid people are removed from the gene pool fits in nicely with natural selection.

Someone did here; so, I’m sure it happened elsewhere as well.

The Cayenne one was my favorite (the ranch hands too). The others were sad – I hate mistakes like that to be paid for in blood, but running towards a train and falling into your own deadly trap aren’t mere oversights.

Also, willbodine, the .22 bullet used as a fuse is false – it’s on the DA site as an urban legend.

As a antidote to the Darwin awards, (which should probably be named the Calvinist Awards, since they perpetuate the myth that people get what they deserve – whereas Darwin’s theories were based on mutation and natural selection); I would offer the story by the Nobel prize winning novelist, Issac Bashevis Singer, titled “Gimpel the Fool.” http://www3.telus.net/Gimpel_Family/Gimpelthefool.html

In this story, a person who is considered and played for a fool ends up being more of a human being than those who found pleasure in his failures.

We are all humans and all humans make mistakes. I can find no pleasure in the grizzly death of another person, even if he or she made a tragic miscalculation.

In 2003, a 27 year-old French woman lost control of her car on a highway near Marseilles and crashed into a tree, seriously injuring her passenger and killing herself. As a commonplace road accident, this would not have qualified for a Darwin nomination, were it not for the fact that the driver’s attention had been distracted by her Tamagotchi key ring, which had started urgently beeping for food as she drove along. In an attempt to press the correct buttons to save the Tamagotchi’s life, the woman lost her own.

My ironic thought of the day:

Rick Wagoner is the most qualified man to be president over the next four years. Barak should find a way to make him at least VP.

GM is just a mirror image of the problems with the entire economy/federal governemtn and Rick has managed to avoid losing his job and bankruptcy against all odds.

I think that might qualify as an Honorable Mention with the Darwin folks. This guy only got the job half done and he got an Honorable Mention:

http://www.darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid1998-10.html

Just to be clear. The Darwin Awards site that you linked to says that the JATO story is an urban legend and that it’s been “Confirmed Bogus by Darwin URBAN LEGEND!”, lest people think that the DA folks are perpetuating a myth.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4804007.ece?token=null

Well, there are some orthodox rabbis like Natan Slifkin that don’t have a problem with an old universe and the Diety working through natural selection.

There’s another talmudic saying that he who saves a single life is as though he saved an entire world. I suppose that Darwin Award winners demonstrate some kind of corollary to that.

BTW, David, speaking of Judaic law, I like the idea of your engine valve Chanukah menorah, though technically it’s not a kosher menorah because the lights all have to be separately visible (and on the same height) and mounting them in a circle like you did is problematic. Mount them on something straight, like a steering rack, and even my rabbi would approve. I’ve made at least a couple of menorahs with my welding/brazing torches. I did one out of brass that’s a model of the Western Wall/Kotel and plaza and uses glass globes for the flames. People look at it, say it’s beautiful and then tell me I should make them for sale. When I say, ok, how about $200? They change their minds. My personal favorite things to scavenge for menorahs are .38 bullet casings. They are perfectly sized for standard Chanukah candles and I think they’re appropriate in light of the military aspect of the events celebrated on that holiday. A friend of mine, when in the IDF and on exercises during Chanukah, used 25mm shell casings and diesel fuel.