DARWIN AWARDS 2013
 
 Cleaning up the gene pool

 Hard to believe, but another year has passed. Once again, it's time
 for the Darwin Award Nominees. The Darwin's are awarded every
 year to the persons in the prior year who died in the most stupid manner, thereby
 removing themselves from the gene pool.
 
 This year's eight 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: [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.
 (For whatever reason, residents of Southern states always seem to
 figure prominently among the Darwin nominees.)
 
 
 Nominee No. 3: [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 Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto
 Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the
 strength of the building's windows to visiting law students. Hoy
 previously has conducted demonstrations of window strength according
 to police reports. Peter Lawson, managing partner of the firm Holden Day,
 told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the best and
 brightest" members of the 200-man association.
 
 Nominee No. 4: [Bloomberg News Service]: A terrible diet and a room
 with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed
 by his own gas emissions. There was no mark on his body, and 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 nearly 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. 5: [The 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 attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire
 and was electrocuted. (South Carolina entrants are always perennial favorites.)
 
 Nominee No. 6: [The Indianapolis Star]: A cigarette lighter may have
 triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, IN. A Jay County man, using a
 cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle loader, 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 at about 11:30 PM. 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. 7: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]: A man cleaning a bird
 feeder 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
 D'Arcy Honer of the Peel Regional Police. "It appears that the chair
 moved, and he went over the balcony," Honer said.

 Nominee No. 8: [Arkansas Democrat Gazette]: Two local men
 were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near
 Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday. 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, were returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging trip on an
 overcast Sunday night when Poole's pickup 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. Upon inserting the bullet the headlights
 again began to operate properly, and the two men proceeded
 on eastbound toward the White River Bridge. After travelling
 approximately 20 miles, and just before crossing the river, the bullet
 apparently overheated, discharged, and struck Poole in the testicles. 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 extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles, which
 will never operate as intended. 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 10 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??? (Though Poole and Wallis did not die
 as a result of their misadventure as normally required by Darwin Award
 Official Rules, it can be argued that Poole DID, in fact, effectively
 remove himself from the gene pool.)