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In case you haven't received them yet, here are this year's Darwin Awards -- the annual honor given to the person who improved the "gene pool" the most by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. As always, competition this year has been keen. And the candidates for 2005 are.............

* IN Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.

* A 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran,"--accidentally jogged off a 100-foot-high cliff on his daily run.

* Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beach-goers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach on the outer banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.

* Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.

* Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in Selbyville, Del, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.

* Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover township, NJ, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, when a quarter-stick of dynamite blew up in their car. While driving around 2 AM, the bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what would happen, but apparently failed to notice the window was closed.

* TACOMA, WA Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM.?? Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy river water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. "All I can say" said Bingham, "is that God was watching out for me on that night. There's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's foot was never located.

Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt (Paderborn, Germany) fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let it fly, and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop! Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him" said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. ' With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that proves that "Shit happens!"

Darwin Awards... We have a winner...!

The following mind-boggling attempt at a crime spree in Washington State, appeared to be the robber's first (and last), due to his lack of a previous record of violence, and his terminally stupid choices:

1. His target was H&J Leather & Firearms, a gun shop specializing in handguns.
2. The shop was full of customers - firearms customers.
3. To enter the shop, the robber had to step around a marked police car parked at the front door.
4. A uniformed officer was standing at the counter, having coffee before work.
Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-up, and fired a few wild shots from a .22 target pistol. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, the police officer with a 9mm Glock 17, the clerk with a .50 Desert Eagle, assisted by several customers who also drew their guns, several of whom also fired.
The robber was pronounced dead at the scene by Paramedics. Crime scene investigators located 47 expended cartridge cases in the shop. The subsequent autopsy revealed 23 gunshot wounds. Ballistics identified rounds from 7 different weapons.
No one else was hurt in the exchange of fire.

(For those who don't know about it, the Darwin Awards are awarded
every year to the person(s) who died in the stupidest way, thereby removing
him or herself from the gene pool...)

The Nominees Are:

NOMINEE No. 1: [San Jose Mercury News] An unidentified man, using a
shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield,
accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a
hole in his gut.

NOMINEE No. 2: [Kalamazoo Gazette] James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of
Alamo, Michigan, was killed in March as he was trying to repair what
police describe as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend to drive
the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could
ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on
something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the
drive shaft!"

NOMINEE No. 3: [Hickory Daily Record] Ken Charles Barger, 47,
accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, NC.
Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the
phone but grabbed instead a Smith &Wesson .38 Special, which
discharged when he drew it to his ear.

NOMINEE No. 4: [UPI, Toronto] Police said a lawyer demonstrating the
safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a
pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police
spokesman said Gary Loy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower
early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the
building's wndows to visiting law students. Hoy had previously conducted
demonstrations of window strength according to police reports. Peter
Lawyers, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson told the
Toronto un newspaper that Hoy was one of the "best and brightest" members of the 200-man association".

NOMINEE No. 5: [Bloomberg News Service] A terrible diet and room with
no entilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by
his own gas. There was no mark on his body but an autopsy showed large
amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily
of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the
right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep
from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had
he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been
fatal. But the man was shut up in his near-airtight bedroom. According
to the article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating
"this deadly gas." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was
hospitalized.

NOMINEE No. 6: ["News of the Weird"] Michael Anderson Godwin made News
of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting South
Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction! Before having his
sentence reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet in
his cell and attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire
and was electrocuted.

NOMINEE No. 7: ["The Indianapolis Star"]. A cigarette lighter may have
triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay County man
using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzleloader was killed
Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff's
investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents'
rural Dunkirk home about 11:30 p.m. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a
54-caliber muzzleloader that had not been firing properly. He was
using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.

NOMINEE No. 8: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario] A man cleaning a
birdfeeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto
suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. Stefan Macko, 55, was
standing on a wheeled chair when the accident occurred, said Inspector
Arcy Honer of the Peel Regional police. "It appears the chair moved
and he went over the balcony," Honer said.

            AND FINALLY: (now, these two guys don't count because they aren't dead
            yet, but this is a goodie, nonetheless) [Arkansas Democrat Gazette]

            Two local men were seriously injured when their pickup truck left the
            road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early
            Monday morning.

            Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly
            after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc and Billy Ray Wallis,
            38, of Little Rock are listed in serious condition at Baptist Medical
            Center.

            The accident occurred as the two men were returning to Des Arc after a
            frog-gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pick-up truck
            headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the headlight
            fuse on the older model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not
            available, Wallis noticed that the 22-caliber bullet from his pistol
            fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering wheel column. After
            inserting the bullet, the headlights again began to operate properly
            and the two men proceeded toward the White River Bridge. After traveling
            about 20 miles and just before crossing the river, the bullet
            apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the right testicle. The
            vehicle swerved sharply right exiting the pavement and striking a
            tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident, but
            will require surgery to repair the other wound. Wallis sustained a broken
            clavicle and was treated and released. "Thank God we weren't on that
            bridge when Thurston shot his balls off or we might both be dead"
            stated Wallis. "I've been a trooper for ten years in this part of the world,
            but this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit
            how this accident happened," said Snyder. Upon being notified of the
            wreck, Lavinia, Poole's wife asked how many frogs the boys had caught
            and did anyone get them from the truck. (Way to go, Lavinia.)