They are finally out again. The Darwin Awards - an annual honour given to
the person who did
the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most
extraordinarily stupid way.
This year's nominees are:

1) A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk cheaply,
because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with
milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited into
the
fireplace in his house. This resulting explosion and fire burned his house
down, killing both him and his sister.

2) A 34-year-old white male found dead in the basement of his home died
of suffocation, according to police. He was approximately 6'2" tall and
weighed 225 pounds. He was wearing a pleated skirt, white bra, black and
white
saddle shoes, and a woman's wig. It appeared that he was trying to create
a
schoolgirl's uniform look. He was also wearing a military gas mask that
had
the
filter canister removed and a rubber hose attached in its place. The other
end
of the hose was connected to one end of a hollow wooden tube approx. 12"
long
and 3" in diameter. The tube's other end was inserted into his rectum for
reasons unknown, and was the cause of his suffocation. Police found the
task
of
explaining the circumstances of his death to his family very awkward.

3) Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low altitude
when another plane approached. It appears that they decided to moon the
occupants of the other plane, but lost control of their own aircraft and
crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage with their pants around
their
ankles.

4) A police officer in Ohio responded to a 911 call. She had no details
before arriving, except that someone had reported that his father was not
breathing. Upon arrival, the officer found the man face down on the couch
naked. When she rolled him over to check for a pulse and to start CPR, she
noticed burn marks around his genitals. After the ambulance arrived and
removed
the man - who was declared dead on arrival at the hospital ? the police
made a
closer inspection of the couch, and noticed that the man had made a hole
between the cushions. Upon flipping the couch over, they discovered what
had
caused his death. Apparently, the man had a habit of putting his penis
between
the cushions, down into the hole and between two electrical sanders (with
the
paper removed, for obvious reasons). According to the story, after his
orgasm
the discharge shorted out one of the sanders, electrocuting him !!

5) 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.

6) A 22-year-old, Glade Drive, Reston, VA, man was found dead after he
tried to use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle.
Fairfax County police said Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch
of
these straps together, wrapped one end around one foot, anchored the other
end
to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, jumped and hit the pavement. Warren
Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators think Barcia was alone
because his car was found nearby. "The length of the cord he had assembled
was
greater than the distance between the trestle and the ground" Carmichael
said.
Police say the apparent cause of death was "Major trauma".

7) A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. It seems that he and a
friend were playing a game of catch, using the rattlesnake as a ball. The
friend, no doubt a future Darwin Awards candidate, was hospitalised.

8) Employees in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the smell
from a
gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the building extinguishing all
potential sources of ignition; lights, power, etc. After the building had
been
evacuated, two technicians from the gas company were dispatched. Upon
entering
the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To
their
frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the
sight
of
one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object
that
resembled a cigarette lighter. Upon operation of the lighter like object,
the
gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles
away.
Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually
untouched
by the explosion. The technician suspected of causing the blast had never
been
thought of as 'bright' by his peers.

9) Based on a bet by the other members of his threesome, Everitt Sanchez
tried
to wash his own "balls" in a ball washer at the local golf course, proving
once
again that beer and testosterone are a bad mix. Sanchez managed to
straddle
the
ball washer and dangle his scrotum in the machine. Much to his dismay, one
of
his
buddies upped the ante by spinning the crank on the machine with Sanchez's
scrotum in place, thus wedging them solidly in the mechanism. Sanchez, who
immediately passed his threshold of pain, collapsed and tumbled from his
perch.
Unfortunately for Sanchez, the height of the ball washer was more than a
foot
higher off the ground than his testicles are in a normal stance, and the
scrotum was the weakest link. Sanchez's scrotum was ripped open during the
fall, and one testicle was plucked from him forever and remained in the
ball
washer, while the other testicle was compressed and flattened as it was
pulled
between the housing of the washer, and the rotating machinery inside. To
add
insult to injury, Sanchez broke a new $300.00 driver that he had just
purchased
from the pro shop, and was using to balance himself. Sanchez was rushed to
the
hospital for surgery, and the remaining threesome were asked to leave the
course.

NB: This last one wouldn't normally count, because the idiot didn't die.
But because
he cannot reproduce as a result of his qualifying act of stupidity, we
have
allowed it.