Beware Articles Without Links
Several sites have announced what purports to be a Darwin Award winner this year. I saw the link first at Q&O, but the same story has been on Pajamas Media and several other sources. I thought the story was awesome, but was suspicious in that too-good-to-be-true way, particularly when the original source had "sources" but no links. This is always a red flag for me.
So I took a key phrase from a quote in the article, in this case "on that bridge when Thurston shot" and plugged it into google. The second link is to the "official" Darwin Awards site, which tagged this story as an urban legend over 10 years ago. Looking down the Google search, it appears this old chestnut comes back in 2-3 year cycles.
ArtD0dger:
You know, MSM articles usually don't have links...
January 23, 2008, 9:39 amRJP:
This story was covered on 'Mythbusters' back in November 2004: http://mythbusters-wiki.discovery.com/page/Frog+Giggin' Doesn't anyone around here watch TV? :-)
-RJP
January 23, 2008, 11:04 amAndy:
I'm sure I have an archived copy of such an email from back in the late 90's, along with the story of Bubba frying himself to death in the cold of winter by warming himself in front of a microwave antenna with a beer in hand.
RJP, I LMAO when I saw the episode.
January 25, 2008, 12:32 pm