1999 Darwin Awards

 They're back!!

 One of the long awaited moments of each new year is the awarding of the
 Darwin Award. This prestigious award recognizes those people, who
 through stupid and inane actions kill themselves, thus improving society by
 removing their genes from the gene pool.

 So here are the runners-up for this year's award.

 (15 July 1999, Alabama) A 25-year-old soldier died of injuries sustained
 from a 3-story fall, precipitated by his attempt to spit farther than
 his buddy. His plan was to hurl himself towards a metal guardrail while
 expectorating, in order to add momentum to his saliva. In a tragic
 miscalculation, his momentum carried him right over the railing, which
 he caught hold of for a few moments before his grip slipped, sending him
 plummeting 24 feet to the cement below. The military specialist had a
 blood alcohol content of 0.14%, impairing his judgment and paving the way for
 his opportunity to win a Darwin Award.

 (11 August 1999) A 42-year-old man killed himself watching the eclipse
 while driving near Kaiserslautern, Germany. A witness driving behind him
 stated that the man was weaving back and forth as he concentrated on the
 partially occluded sun, when he suddenly accelerated and hit the bridge pier. He
 had apparently just donned his solar viewers, which are dark
 enough to totally obscure everything except the sun.

 (25 May 1999, Ukraine) A fisherman in Kiev electrocuted himself while
 fishing in the river Tereblya. The 43-year-old man connected cables to
 the main power supply of his home, and trailed the end into the river. The
 electric shock killed the fish, which floated belly-up to the top of the
 water. The man waded in to collect his catch, neglecting to remove the
 live wire, and tragically suffered the same fate as the fish. In an ironic
 twist, the man was fishing for a mourning meal to commemorate the first
 anniversary of his mother-in-law's death.

 (16 August 1999, Germany) A hunter from Bad Urach was shot dead by his
 own dog on Monday. The 51-year-old man was found sprawled next to his car in
 the Black Forest. A gun barrel was pointing out the window, and his
 bereaved dog was howling inside the car. The animal is presumed to have
 pressed the trigger with its paw. Police have ruled out foul play.

 (1991, Nicosia, Cypress) Under similar circumstances, an Iranian hunter
 was shot to death near Tehran by a snake that coiled around his shotgun as
 he pinned the reptile to the ground. Another hunter reported that the
 victim, named Ali, tried to catch the snake alive by pressing the butt of his
 shotgun behind its head. The snake coiled around the butt and pulled
 the trigger, shooting Ali in the head.

 (August 1999, Australia) Drinking oneself to death need not be a long
 lingering process. Allan, a 33-year-old computer technician, showed his
 competitive spirit by dying of competitive spirits. A Sydney, Australia
 hotel bar held a drinking competition, known as Feral Friday, with a
 100-minute time limit and a sliding point scale ranging from 1 point for
 beer to 8 points for hard liquor. Allan stood and cheered his winning
 total of 236, (winners never quit!) which had also netted him the
 literally staggering blood alcohol level of 0.353, 7 times greater than
 Australia's legal driving limit of 0.05%. After several trips to the
 usual temple of overindulgence, the bathroom, Allan was helped back to his
 workplace to sleep it off, a condition that became permanent. A forensic
 pharmacologist estimated that after downing 34 beers, 4 bourbons, and 17
 shots of tequila within 1 hour and 40 minutes, his blood alcohol level
 would have been 0.41 to 0.43, but Allan had vomited several times after the
 drinking stopped. The cost paid by Allan was much higher than that of
 the hotel, which was fined the equivalent of $13,100 US dollars for not
 intervening. It is not known whether Allan required any further
 embalming.

 (28 January 1999, London) A flock of sheep charged a well-meaning
 British farmer's wife and pushed her over a cliff to her death. Betty Stobbs,
 67, was charged by dozens of sheep as she brought them a bale of hay on the
 back of a power bike. The sheep rushed forward and rammed the vehicle,
 knocking Betty and her bike over the edge of a vacant 100' quarry near
 Durham, in northeastern England. "I saw the sheep surround the bike. The
 next thing she was tumbling down the incline," neighbor Alan Renfry told
 reporters.

 First Runner Up Award goes to ...
 (22 March 1999, Phnom Penh) Decades of armed strife has littered
 Cambodia with unexploded munitions and ordnance. Authorities warn citizens not to
 tamper with the devices. Three friends recently spent an evening sharing
 drinks and exchanging insults at a local cafe in the southeastern
 province of Svay Rieng. Their companionable arguing continued for hours, until
 one man pulled out a 25-year-old unexploded anti-tank mine found in his
 backyard. He tossed it under the table, and the three men began playing
 Russian roulette, each tossing down a drink and then stamping on the
 mine. The other villagers fled in terror. Minutes later, the explosive
 detonated with a tremendous boom, killing the three men in the bar. "Their wives
 could not even find their flesh because the blast destroyed everything,"
 the Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper reported.

 And the 1999 Darwin Award winner is.....
 (5 September 1999, Jerusalem) The switch away from daylight savings time
 caused consternation among terrorist groups this year. At precisely 5:30
 Israel time on Sunday, two coordinated car bombs exploded in different
 cities, killing three terrorists who were transporting the bombs. It was
 initially believed that the devices had been detonated prematurely by
 klutzy amateurs. A closer look revealed the truth behind the untimely
 explosions. Three days before, Israel had made a premature switch from daylight
 savings time to standard time in order to accommodate a week of Slihot,
 involving pre-sunrise prayers. Palestinians refused to "live on Zionist time." Two
 weeks of scheduling havoc ensued. The bombs had been prepared in a
 Palestine-controlled area, and set on Daylight Savings time. The
 Confused drivers had already switched to standard time. As a result, the cars
 were still en-route when the explosives detonated, delivering to the
 terrorists their well-deserved demise.