Thanks as always to The Other McCain, Pirate’s Cove, Whores and Ale, Bacon Time, Flappr and The Daley Gator for the Rule Five links! As always, if I’ve missed your link, let me know in the comments and I’ll get you added to the rotation.

Now then: Reading the news and opinion pages can be distressing lately, but there are some bright spots.  One of them is my good friend and Townhall Media colleague Stephen Green (Vodkapundit)’s Florida Man Friday posts.  Here is last week’s edition.  A sample of the Florida Man shenanigans documented therein:

Florida Man had a dream. His dream was to construct a human-sized hamster wheel out of buoys and giant red balls and paddles and stuff and then run all the way from Florida to London.

I dunno, maybe he likes the food there.

Nothing would stop Florida Man’s pursuit of his dream. Not the 4,400-mile trip. Not the treacherous waters. Not being entirely sure where London is.

Florida Man claims to have been raising money for charity, but none of the stories I read made mention of any actual charities or donors. Anyhoo, the Coast Guard caught up with him about 70 miles offshore from Tybee Island, Ga. Apparently, there was some kind of issue with the “manifestly unsafe” watercraft he was paddling. There was also a problem with Florida Man’s paperwork for the vessel, in that he didn’t have any.

Florida Man has certainly become an internet meme, and not without some justification.  But Florida or elsewhere, the common thread is “crazy rednecks,” and this is a topic I know something about, having grown up amongst crazy rednecks.  I have, though, and will continue to maintain that you haven’t seen crazy rednecks until you’ve seen crazy Alaska rednecks.

Crazy rednecks and Darwin Awards, by the way, go together like biscuits and gravy.  That’s OK.  The gene pool needs to be cleaned every now and then.