Getting lost in a corn maze is supposed to be fun.

But it turned into a nightmare for a Massachusetts couple who got so lost that they had to be rescued by the police.

It all started late Monday afternoon, when the couple entered a corn maze at Connors Farm in Danvers, Mass., about 23 miles north of Boston.

After about an hour in the maze, darkness began to fall. The couple, who were there with their 3-week-old baby, were unable to find a way out. As the mosquitoes started to descend, they placed a desperate call to 911 asking to be rescued.

The Danvers police released audio of the call.

Here’s an edited transcript:

Woman in tears: Hi, I just called. I’m still stuck at Connors Farms. I don’t see anybody. I’m really scared. It’s really dark and we’ve got a 3-week-old.

Police officer: Your husband is with you?

Woman: Yes. But my baby…

Police officer: A police officer is on the way. Can you put your husband on the phone?

Husband: I see lights over there at the place, but we can’t get there, we’re smack right in the middle of the corn field.

Woman: I don’t know what made us do this, it was daytime when we came in, we thought if we came in someone would come in and find us… We can hear [the police officers]… Oh, my goodness. The mosquitoes are eating us alive, and I never took my daughter out, this is the first time. Never again.

Woman: This is embarrassing.

The family was lost in a corn maze so they decided to call 911… how fucking stupid can somebody be? I’m actually shocked that this lady remember to breathe. Just stop and think about this for a moment, between the woman and her husband the couple didn’t have enough brain cells between the two of them to determine the best way out of the corn maze would have been to pick a direction and start walking straight. Corn isn’t concrete, it doesn’t form a solid barrier you are unable to pass through.

As Joshua Seto, 27, and his fiance, Cara Christopher, walked to a local grocery store last week for refreshments, he tried securing her pink handgun in the front waistband of his pants.

The gun fired, striking Seto’s penis and continuing through his left thigh. The bleeding started immediately and was heavy, according to police dispatch recordings released Sunday.

I’m not a fan of carrying a firearm in the front of my pants as there is very important equipment there. Should some freak scenario unfold the resulted in my firearm discharging I’d rather not have it discharge into my junk. But that’s a personal preferences, so long as the bang switch is properly covered the risk of a negligent discharge is negligible. Even one of those cheap Uncle Mike holsters should have likely saved this man a lot of pain and agony.

Remember, firearms are weapons meant to cause damage to anything covered by the muzzle. Like any weapon firearms must be handled safety and with the utmost respect.

1. All guns are always loaded.
2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
4. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

If you follow all of these rules you’ll never encounter a negligent discharge and two of these rules must be broken for somebody to get hurt. On the other hand if you violate those rules bad this happens as demonstrated by this article:

Twenty-four-year-old Joshua Kurer was hit in the chest Monday night and later died. Twenty-six-year-old Anthony Velure was charged Wednesday with first-degree reckless homicide in St. Croix (KROY) County. Velure told police he didn’t mean to harm his friend and that he assumed the gun was empty.

You never assume a gun is unloaded, that violates rule one. You never let the muzzle cover anything you’re not willing to destroy so rule two was violated. I would talk about rules three and four being violated but after reading the following I believe the man was sure of his target and may have even kept his finger off of the trigger until his sights were on that intended target:

The Eau Claire Leader-Telegram says Velure told police he and Kurer had aimed guns at each other and pulled the trigger at least a half dozen times in the past.

There are two lessons to learn from this; firearms are not toys and Darwin will catch up to you eventually. A firearm is a deadly weapon and should be respected as such.

A French hacker has effectually tied a noose around his own neck when he bragged about hacking into the systems of a big government contractor on national TV.

He participated in a France 2 television program called “Complément d’enquête” (Further investigation), and he said – and demonstrated – that he has gained access to computers belonging to the French Army and Thales Group, a French company that provides information systems and services for the aerospace, defense, and security markets.

What I said goes double if your crime is against the government or its military. Doing crime is the government’s job and they don’t like competition.

Police said a group of boys and men went to the boy’s house in La Vergne on Wednesday night and knocked on the door. The 16-year-old answered the door and was shot twice. He was treated at Vanderbilt University Hospital and released with non-life-threatening injuries.

“He opened the door. He tried shutting the door and what we believe (is) that one of the persons outside the door got a foot in the door. He couldn’t shut it completely. He was able to shut the door after the shots were fired,” said police Chief Ted Boyd.

Wait for it… and now the pay off:

During an investigation, officers found the boy’s phone hidden in a couch in the house and reviewed text messages. Police said it appears the teen had hired someone to kill his parents. He texted that he had “three stacks,” or $3,000, and that he was thinking about doing it himself but couldn’t bring himself to.

My question is what this will do to the parents’ emotional state. First their child is shot and then they learned the kid was shot by a man who was originally paid by their son to kill them. The moral of the story? Don’t fuck with karma because it’ll fuck you back.

Darwin needs to step up his game I think.

CLEMSON, S.C. – A man has been hospitalized after police in South Carolina say he was hit by an SUV while playing a real-life version of the video game “Frogger.”

How can you not laugh at that?

Alas what he wrote reflects ideas I’ve often heard spouted by environmental extremists. I’ve been trying to determine how a person can develop so much hatred for their own species that they believe the only way to save the planet is to wipe out the human race. What leads somebody to develop that view? That view requires self-hatred as you ultimately are stating you believe you should be dead.

Personally I like to look on the brighter side of things. To that end I’m presenting a series of solutions to the “population problem” as the wackos like to call it that don’t involved death camps and violence.

All of you environmentalists need to start donating money to companies researching practical space travel. If you believe the Earth is unable to support the human population then it’s time to relocated some of the people. Mars is another planet which in theory could be setup to support a large population of people. The sooner we get there and colonize it the sooner we reduce the population of Earth. As an added bonus Mars is already a lifeless wasteland so there isn’t a previous Mother Gaia to destroy. Seriously what could we do to Mars that the universe hasn’t done already?

There you go a non-violent means of reducing the population of the planet. Next up a peaceful solution to extinction. Although extinction is nature’s way of eliminating creatures unable to adapt to their changing environment some people believe the human race must be wiped out to save these creatures. Here is a better idea, cloning. Get a genetic sample of every creature you can and put some of your money into researching the science of cloning. Did your beloved Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal get wiped out by slash and burn operations in the Amazon? Good news with a genetic sample and proper research you can just make some more. Hell you could open a wildlife refuge dome on Mars for wayward animals and bring back all those species that nature decided no longer fit to survive. Hell if you want to seriously considering bringing back dinosaurs let me know and I’ll chip in some money.

Now if you’re an environmentalist reading this (why your reading this site and an environmentalist baffles my mind honestly) your next question will probably involve pollution. Due to our awesome ability to build shit the human race does create byproducts. Everything from sulfur in the atmosphere to mercury in the water are byproducts of industry. Remember the statement about colonizing Mars? We can move a ton of industry there as well. Think about it, who the fuck cares if we’re pumping shit into Mars’s atmosphere? We can’t breathe it and apparently nothing else living has found it useful enough to park their butts down on that planet. What’s a little more toxic material in the atmosphere on a planet who’s atmosphere is already deadly toxic? We could also setup orbital factories that could pump byproducts into space. I don’t care how many widgets you build, you’ll never be able to create enough particles of any pollutant to fill the massive vacuum that is space.

Instead of wasting your time with creeds an whining about how terrible the human race is and how great Mother Gaia is why not work to correct it in a peaceful and practical manner that may actually have popular support? Just imagine how much you could accomplish if you put all that time and effort into something useful instead of bitching and moaning?

Let’s all work together to make a better future… a future with bad ass space ships.

The national parks’ history is full of examples of misguided visitors petting bears, putting children on buffaloes for photos and dipping into geysers despite signs warning of scalding temperatures.

But today, as an ever more wired and interconnected public visits the parks in rising numbers — July was a record month for visitors at Yellowstone — rangers say that technology often figures into such mishaps.

People with cell phones call rangers from mountaintops to request refreshments or a guide; in Jackson Hole, Wyo., one lost hiker even asked for hot chocolate.

I have a solution for this little issue. If anybody uses their cell phone to call a park ranger in the hopes of getting a beverage delivered to them I say the rangers oblige by launching a barrage of artillery onto the caller’s location. Of course this will require buying artillery for the park rangers but I’m willing to donate money to a good cause.

“Because of having that electronic device, people have an expectation that they can do something stupid and be rescued,” said Jackie Skaggs, spokeswoman for Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

“Every once in a while we get a call from someone who has gone to the top of a peak, the weather has turned and they are confused about how to get down and they want someone to personally escort them,” Skaggs said. “The answer is that you are up there for the night.”

Damn right make them sit it out. Stupidity is meaningless without lessons being learned and people generally don’t learn when they get bailed out. Of course the rangers aren’t be Luddites:

The service acknowledges that the new technologies have benefits as well. They can and do save lives when calls come from people who really are in trouble.

Technology is a tool and like any tool can be used to enhance good and bad. Many people use it stupidly and end up driving into a lake because their GPS told them to. These people should be removed from the gene pool as soon as possible so I feel even in the hands of the stupid a GPS is ultimately being used for good.

Of course the article also brings up the fact a whole 58 people are killed (on average) every year by lightening lightning. The population of the United States is 307,006,550 according to Google meaning .0000188921051% of the population of the United States are killed each year (on average) by lightening lightning.

With a risk that tiny who the Hell is going to buy a shitty $5.99 app?

EDIT 2010-08-18 22:02: Proof reading is important just remember that. And no matter how many times you use the closely spelled but completely incorrect word it doesn’t make it right. Thanks for pointing it out Linoge.