2008 Darwin Awards

[Emery]

2008 DARWIN AWARDS

Darwin Awards are finally out, the annual honor given to the
persons who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in
the most extraordinarily stupid way.

Last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke
machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free
soda out. This year's winner was a real rocket scientist... HONESTLY! Read
on...And remember that each and every one of these is a TRUE STORY!!!
And the nominees are:

Semifinalist #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.

Semifinalist #2
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.

Semifinalist #3
A 22-year-old Reston , VA , man was found dead after he tried to
use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot rail road trestle. Fairfax
County police said Eric Barcia, a fast food worker, taped a bunch of these
straps together, wrapped an 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 that 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.'


Semifinalist #4
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 hospitalized.

Semifinalist #5
Employees in a me dium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the
smell of 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 warehou se 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.

And Now, for the winner of this year's Darwin Award:
(As always, awarded posthumously):

The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal
embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a
curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a
car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. Police investigators
finally pieced together the mystery. An amateur rocket scientist... Had
somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off, actually a solid
fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra
'push' for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala
out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached
the JATO unit to the car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the
JATO!

The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator
of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0
miles from the crash site. This was established by the scorched and melted
asphalt at that location.

The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum
thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of
350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20 -25 seconds. The
driver, and soon to be pilot, would have experienced G-forces usually
reserved for dog fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, causing him to
become irrelevant for the remainder of the event.

However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for
about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely
melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the
road surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and
impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet leaving a blackened crater
3 feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable.

Epilogue: It has been calculated that this moron attained a
ground speed of approximately 420-mph, though much of his voyage was not
actually on the ground.

You just couldn't make this stuff up, could you?

PEOPLE JUST LIKE THIS ARE STILL ALL AROUND US, AND THEY ARE
ALLOWED TO HAVE KIDS AND TO VOTE...

[stavemillbeagles]

that gives new meaning to the saying GOING OUT WITH A BANG