back to article Kamikaze ballooning Brazilian soars to Darwin Award

The voting has not yet closed, but kamikaze ballooning Brazilian priest Antonio de Carli looks a dead cert to secure the 2008 Darwin Awards crown for the most impressive contribution to improving the gene pool by removing himself from it. The Roman Catholic daredevil decided back in April it was a really bright idea to attempt …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Surely

    ...as a Roman Catholic priest, he wasn't in the gene pool in the first place?

    Unless choirboys count?

  2. Chris Martin

    But as a RC priest.....

    He had already removed him self from the gene pool?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Was he in the pool?

    Presuming this was a Catholic priest, hasn't he already removed himself from the gene pool, thus disqualifying himself from the Darwin Award? Of course, being a "celebate" priest doesn't seem to keep them away from dipping their toes in the water occasionally. :-)

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @Doc Dish

    "...as a Roman Catholic priest, he wasn't in the gene pool in the first place?"

    Hmmm, athough you kinda have a point here, RC priest *are* part

    of the genes pool. At least where I leave.

    You just don't get any official certificate for their deeds in this department :-))

    Anon, just to avoid being excommunicated, or so I believe.

  5. Joe Harrison

    Is it just me

    I never liked these Darwin awards. I do think there is something basically wrong with taking the p after people get horrible injuries or even die. You wouldn't chortle merrily at a road accident would you even if it was provably down to someone's stupidity. Bah humbug and happy new year to all.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    50 year old shotgun wielding man

    Isn't the point of the Darwin Awards to celebrate those who have removed themselves from the gene pool before they've spawned a sprog or two?

    Can we be certain that he wasn't already otherwise ineligible?

  7. Ermie Mercer

    "Amen"

    to the previous comments.

  8. Burch

    @Joe

    Yes, it's a lazy way to present lurid tales of misadventure, and has little relation to evolution.

  9. Dave

    @Joe

    Sorry Joe, it's just you. A standard road accident isn't funny but you do have to admire the creativity of some of the DA candidates. Extreme stupidity has always been a capital offence.

  10. Gareth Jones Silver badge
    Jobs Halo

    Hmmm?

    While this particular story seems to be true, the Darwin Awards people seem to believe any tale related to them with no need for corroboration or confirmation.

  11. Mycroft

    Re: Is it just me

    Yes, it's just you.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Drop it, bros

    As a Roman Catholic priest he was anyho' out of the game.

  13. Sitaram Chamarty

    @is it just me

    yeah, it's just you...

    I wouldn't chortle if one person's stupidity killed someone else, of course, but killing the stupid person himself -- good for a belly laugh even. But it has to be a spectacular, premeditated, stupidity, not just carelessness, a fit of rage/emotion, absent-mindedness, bad luck or any other factor beyond the guy's control.

  14. Jeremy
    Joke

    @ Joe Harrison

    But its on teh interwebz so its fine!

    Thou Shalt Not Steel is quite funny.

  15. Gene Cash Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    @Joe Harrison

    Hell yes, I laugh at a road accident, ESPECIALLY if it was provably down to someone's stupidity. You're joking, right?

    I consider someone being stupid on the roads and getting their just desserts to be a very happy event, especially if it results in one less person to run over me. Stay off the cell phone, stop turning around to smack your snot monkeys, and PAY ATTENTION to where your 2-ton SUV is going!

    Oh yeah, and to the guy on a Harley-Davidson that doesn't^Wdidn't believe in front brakes and skidded past me through that intersection... HA! That was hilarious!

  16. Lotaresco
    Paris Hilton

    Yes it's just you

    Laughing at the stupid is a birthright. The stupid tend not to like it, that's their hard luck.

    Paris, in the hope that she'll buy some balloons.

  17. Craig Zeigler
    Joke

    have to vote for the hometown hero

    Sorry. That was generally funny, but I have to vote for 'Clotheslines' as that genius removed himself about 5 miles from my house.

    In response to Mr. Harrison, yes, sometimes you do have to get a laugh out of people who do away with themselves by an obviously retarded means. As a likely resident of California (or some place like it) I can understand his feelings even if I find them naive.

    Finally, the Priest... Yes, he removed himself from the gene pool, and entered the pool of jeans. As is states in the holy tombs of South Park, he obviously wasn't allowed to have biological children of his own. Little boys and hands can't get pregnant.

  18. Aaron

    Two questions

    1) How did four people in a row fail to notice that the phrase 'Roman Catholic' was not followed by the word 'priest'? Do 'priest' and 'daredevil' suddenly look exactly the same to every English speaker on the planet except me? I know it's Friday, but -- what, you can't even be bothered to waste your employer's time properly?

    2) You'd think the guy would've brought some kind of propulsion device with him. Or, you know, made sure to launch from a place where the wind wasn't going to carry him out to sea. (Belgium? Luxembourg? Another of those useless little postage-stamp European principalities? They're all well inland, I believe.)

    But, then, if he couldn't use the GPS unit he brought with him, I guess there's already sort of a pattern of bad judgement and insufficient foresight being established.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Questionable taste

    The stupid hunter, well yeah serves him right! But the priest, well whilst it was stupid to get himself lost like that, it was a noble act he was doing, and I for one find the story more saddening than amusing :-(

  20. Simon C

    @ is it just me

    at a tragic accident, possibly.I remember laughing @ the colin mcrae jokes.

    at a death occuring due to someones inate inability to process simple common sense - certainly.

    death should provide some comfort to others.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    God hates Darwinians

    That priest proves it.

  22. Pete "oranges" B.
    Thumb Down

    The Thin Line

    I think this one is a bit ify as a Darwin. From the account, it seems likely that he knew the risks, and ignored them for the sake of doing something he wanted to do. Now that's an entirely different beast from:

    A: not comprehending the risks in the first place (as in checking fuel levels with the aid of a lighter)

    or

    B: thinking that it was possible to mitigate those risks in some idiotic fashion (as in wearing dish washing gloves while using your chainsaw-on-a-stick to cut through a high-powered electrical distribution line)

    I have always been a bit amused by the whole chainsaw-on-a-stick concept, by the way. They really do look way more like futuristic polearms to be weilded by zombie hunters than anything suitable for use in the backyard.

  23. Saucerhead Tharpe
    Thumb Up

    @Aaron

    The first sentence of the story calls him a priest, he is later described as RC

    Ergo folk reasonably assume he was an RC priest

  24. James Halliday

    I thought you won the award for removing yourself from the gene pool

    Surely Catholic priests shouldn't be in the pool in the first place (and would probably have some explaining to do, should any individuals wish to contest my statement).

  25. EvilJason
    Unhappy

    Well to be correct...

    Even though the person was a priest he still could have eventually have left the priesthood and spawned the possibility no mater how small still exists that's why he was eligible some priests do leave the church.

    To everyone who says you should not laugh at people like this i ask why?

    Why do these people automatically get the respect to not be laughed at?

    You know respect has to be earned its not a right, and if these people due to there own stupidity cause hurt and grief to friends and family and trouble for the people around them when someone has to pay for there remains to be scraped off whatever they got themselves killed on I as why do they get the automatic respect to not be laughed at?

    Baa whatever my respect for the entire human race is virtually non existent as long as there is "preventable" hunger and thrust in the world, wars because a few people in charge have got there panties in a twist, and general stupidity is the norm in society.

    -Jason

  26. jon

    no, priests ARE included...

    how do ya think we get more of 'em??? yes they do marry....

    - and for the pedantic, humorless people.... NO, it is not that easy to get a Darwin's award...

    Its not as easy as stepping in the road without looking....

    you have to be very organised, to do a complex task straight away with whatever is to hand, and forget one vital thing that a bit of common sense will provide..... like reading the manual, or thinking about safety....

    Strangely enough, these people DO survive, 90% of the time!!! and go on to do even crazier things....

    pedantic people will NEVER 'get it' because they have such boring, planned, adventureless lives....

  27. b

    quality!

    ..always love a darwin awards list! :D

    cheers,

    bill

    p.s. stuff and nonsense: http://www.eupeople.net/forum

  28. Rob
    Flame

    @Aaron

    "...kamikaze ballooning Brazilian priest..."

    I love it when people post rants about things they can't be bothered to check properly. Whoever's time you're wasting, you're overpriced.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    good candidate but...

    The brazilian is a good candidate but in theory he's probably not a candidate for a Darwin because he'd already removed himself from the gene-pool by entering the priesthood.

    There's so much to say but...

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Darwin award is an educational award

    @Harrison:

    Darwin award is an educational award: Main point is to get people learn from the stupidity from the others and then the deaths are good examples of bad examples.

    There's also a pretty strong opinion behind Dardin Awards: "Stupidity should be more painful".

    When humans were mostly food for predators (in ancient times), any stupid was soon food. Unfortunately this is no longer true and stupid people also breed, continuing stupidity.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All so pompous

    "I don't like this. It's not respectful to Brazilan." Ad nauseum.

    If it had been an American on the other hand, I leave it to you to reflect on the level of comment.

    Pip, pip!

  32. TeeCee Gold badge

    @Gene Cash

    Too true. I'd love to know what eventually happened to the bloke I saw commuting this morning on a Honda CBR600*.....................in four inches of snow with more descending.

    Put it this way. 4x4s with snow tyres were having trouble.......

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Removed himself from the gene pool...

    If you want to argue with the semantics of the DA then you should obviously think before you write, there is the possibility of the priest or even the 70yr old man reproducing and hence populating the gene pool with their respective offspring's.

    A priest renouncing his faith and men having babies in their eighties is not unknown.

  34. Joe K

    Confused

    That story about the tree-felling squaddies makes no sense.

    Maybe its just post holiday brainfudge on my part, but i need a diagram for that one.

  35. Joe
    Thumb Down

    @ Aaron

    Belgium has a coast, Antwerp being one of Europes biggest ports. So not really inland. Geogra-fail

  36. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge

    @Aaron

    I think you'll find Belgium is a constitutional monarchy with a Northern coastline and that Luxembourg is a Grand Duchy, not a principality. In fact, the only tiny European principality I can think of is Monaco, which sits right on the Mediterranean Sea, but why let facts stand in the way of a xenophobic rant, eh?

  37. Andrew
    Happy

    @TeeCee

    "What eventually happened to the bloke I saw commuting this morning on a Honda CBR600*.....................in four inches of snow with more descending."

    If this was in Surrey near Epsom, then this is a work colleague of mine. He turned round and got the train.

  38. Ivar Petersen
    Jobs Halo

    Catholic Priests and Gene Pool

    I would have thought catholic priests were disqualified for entering into the Darwin Award competition due to their implicit lack of contributions to the gene pool. Or maybe they should just receive a "life-time achievement" award and that wold be that.

  39. Mark
    Paris Hilton

    re: Catholic Priests and Gene Pool

    Uh, that whole meme here is wrong. As someone stated earlier:

    "As is states in the holy tombs of South Park, he obviously wasn't allowed to have biological children of his own. Little boys and hands can't get pregnant."

    And then forgot that wanking and sodomy is also not allowed, yet is accepted as happening.

    So who says the priest with the pork pipe in the dining room is not a possibility?

  40. Bounty

    have to agree with Joe K

    Either they lost control of the top of the tree, and it fell towards the house, which contradicts the story... Or the tree went sideways and only 1 guy went flying, which contradicts the story... Or there is a big hill, the tree then slid down or something, which isn't in the story......... or the physics don't seem workable. The only other thing I could think of is, maybe they were not pulling the tree "away" from the house, but parallel to it and it fell the opposite way despite thier efforts, which is not how it's described either.

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