[
Yes, it's that magical time of the year again when the Darwin Awards
are
bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us. Here then, are the
glorious
winners:

1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire
at his intended victim
during a hold-up in Long Beach, California,
would-be robber James Elliot
did something that can only inspire wonder.
He peered down the barrel
and tried the trigger again. This time it
worked....

And now, the honorable mentions:

2. The chef at a
hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting
machine and, after a
little hopping around, submitted a claim to his
insurance company. The
company expecting negligence sent out one of its
men to have a look for
himself. He tried the machine and lost a finger.
The chef's claim was
approved.

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for
his car
during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a
woman
had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

4. After
stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver
found that
the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting
from Harare to
Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his
incompetence, the driver
went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone
waiting there a free ride.
He then delivered the passengers to the
mental hospital, telling the
staff that the patients were very
excitable and prone to bizarre
fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered
for 3
days.

5. An
American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head
wounds
received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the
injuries,
the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close
he could
get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked
into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the
counter, and asked for
change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer,
the man pulled a gun and
asked for all the cash in the register, which
the clerk promptly
provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and
fled, leaving the
$20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he
got from the
drawer... $15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives
you money, is
a crime committed?)

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer
pretty badly. He decided that
he'd just throw a cinderblock through a
liquor store window, grab some
booze, and run. So he lifted the
cinderblock and heaved it over his
head at the window. The cinderblock
bounced back and hit the would-be
thief
on the head, knocking him
unconscious. The liquor store window was made
of Plexiglas. The whole
event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New
York convenience store, a man
grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk
called 911 immediately, and the
woman was able to give them a detailed
description of the snatcher.
Within minutes, the police apprehended the
snatcher. They put him in
the car and drove back to the store. The
thief was then taken out of the
car and told to stand there for a
positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes,
officer, that's her.
That's the lady I stole the purse from."

9. The Ann Arbor News
crime column reported that a man walked into a
Burger King in
Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, and
demanded cash. The
clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't
open the cash
register without a food order. When the man ordered onion
rings, the
clerk said they weren't available for breakf ast. The man,
frustrated,
walked away.

A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER!

10. When a
man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on
a Seattle
street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived
at the
scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home
near
spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to

trying
to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor
home's
sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to
press
charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever
had.
]