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WANTED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER (actual AP headline)

Linda Burnett, 23, a resident of San Diego, was visiting her inlaws, and while there, she went to a nearby supermarket to pick up some groceries. Several people noticed her sitting in her car with the windows rolled up and with her eyes closed, with both hands behind the back of her head. One customer who had been at the store for a while became concerned and walked over to the car. He noticed that Linda's eyes were now open, and she looked very strange. He asked her if she was okay, and Linda replied that she'd been shot in the back of the head, and had been holding her brains in for over an hour.

The long awaited 1999 Darwin "Natural Selection" Awards have been released! These awards are given each year to bestow upon (the remains of) that individual, who through single-minded self-sacrifice, has done the most to remove undesirable elements from the human gene pool.

Ladies And Gentlemen... (drum roll... and envelope please)... We proudly present the 1999 "Natural Selection" awards:

5th runner-up: Goes to a San Anselmo, California man who died when he hit a lift tower at the Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on a foam pad. The 22-year old David Hubal was pronounced dead at Central Mammoth Hospital. The accident occurred about 3 a.m., the Mono County Sheriff's…

Man Killed Repairing Truck - April 1, 1995

Kalamazoo Gazette -- James Burns, 34, of Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police described as a "farm-type dump truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could asthe source of a troubling noise. Burns's clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."

SIX DIE TRYING TO SAVE CHICKEN - August 1, 1995

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Six people drowned yesterday while trying to rescue a chicken that had fallen into a well in southern Egypt. An 18-year-old farmer was the first to descend into the 60-foot well. He drowned, apparently after an undercurrent in the water pulled him down, police said. His sister and two brothers, none of whom could swim well, went in one by one to help him, but also drowned. Two elderly farmers then came to help, but they apparently were pulled down by the same undercurrent. The bodies of the six were later pulled out of the well in the village of Nazlat Imara, 240 miles south of Cairo. The chicken was also pulled out. It…

Saddam Hussein's stockpile is deadly. The smoke from his biological weapons could mix with sulfur from his chemical weapons and create an atmospheric condition known as Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Board of Education has OK'd a plan to equip school police cars with guns. The plan works on a tier system: Police at elementary schools will carry supersoakers, junior high patrols will carry paint guns, and shotguns will be used at high schools.

A severly disturbed geography teacher killed six people who did not know the capital of Scotland. Police say he's still on the loose and remind everyone that the capital of Scotland is Edinburgh. (Carlin)

Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.

A man in Johannesberg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the face, seriously wounding him, while the two practiced shooting beer cans off each other's head.

A company trying to continue its five-year perfect safety record showed its workers a film aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles on the job. According to Industrial Machinery News, the film's depiction of gory industrial accidents was so graphic that twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush to leave the screening room. Thirteen others fainted, and one man required seven stitches…

A man walked in to a Topeka, Kansas Kwik Shop, and asked for all the money in the cash drawer. Apparently, the take was too small, so he tied up the store clerk and worked the counter himself for three hours until police showed up and grabbed him.

In Ohio, an unidentified man in his late twenties walked into a police station with a 9-inch wire protruding from his forehead and calmly asked officers to give him an X-ray to help him find his brain, which he claimed had been stolen. Police were shocked to learn that the man had drilled a 6-inch deep hole in his skull with a Black & Decker power drill and had stuck the wire in to try and find the missing brain.

AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual leadership". He received a $26 million severance package. Perhaps it's not Walter who's lacking intelligence.

Police in Oakland, California spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them, shouting please to come out and give himself up.

An Illinois man pretending to have a gun kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines. The kidnapper then proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts.

Tennessee: A man successfully broke into a bank after hours and stole the bank's video camera, while the camera was remotely recording. (That is, the videotape recorder was located elsewhere in the bank, so he didn't get the videotape of himself stealing the camera).

Louisiana: A man walked into a 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? Fifteen dollars. [If someone points a gun at you and gives you…

Any time you feel dumb, don't worry. Check out the following excerpts from a "Wall Street Journal" article by Jim Carlton. Lots of people are dumber than you.

1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the many calls asking where the "Any" key is.
2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.
3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes. After trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it…

Two men were digging a ditch on a very hot day. One said to the other:

- Why are we down in this hole digging a ditch when our boss is standing up there in the shade of a tree?

- I don't know - responded the other.

- I'll ask him.

So he climbed out of the hole and went to his boss:

- Why are we digging in the hot sun and you're standing in the shade?

- Intelligence - the boss said.

- What do you mean, 'intelligence'?

The boss said:

- Well, I'll show you. I'll put my hand on this tree and I want you to hit it with your fist as hard as you can.

In a west Texas town, employees in a medium-sized warehouse noticed the smell of gas. 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 scene of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles away. Nothing was…

Not much was given to me on this unlucky fellow, but he qualifies nonetheless. You see, there was a gentleman from Korea who was killed by his cell phone ... more or less. He was doing the usual "walking and talking" when he walked into a tree and managed to somehow break his neck. Keep that in mind the next time you decide to drive and dial at the same time.

A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. Big deal you may say, but there's a twist here that makes him a candidate. It seems he and a friend were playing catch with a rattlesnake. The friend (a future Darwin Awards candidate himself) was hospitalized.

A lawyer and two buddies were fishing on Caddo Lake in Texas when a lightning storm hit. Most of the other boats immediately headed for the shore, but not our friend the lawyer. Alone on the rear of his aluminum bass boat with his buddies, this individual stood up, spread his arms wide and shouted: "HERE I AM LORD, LET ME HAVE IT!" Needless to say, God delivered. The other two passengers on the boat survived the lightning strike with minor burns.

Three young men in Oklahoma were enjoying the coming Fourth of July holiday and wanted to test fire some fireworks. The only real problem was, their launch pad and seating arrangements were atop a several hundred thousand gallon fuel distillation storage tank. Oddly enough, fumes were ignited, producing a fireball seen for miles. They were launched several hundred feet into the air and found dead some 250 yards from their respective seats.

A 22-year-old Reston man was found dead yesterday after he tried to use accessory straps (the stretchy little ropes with hooks on each end) to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle, police said. Fairfax County police said Eric A. 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." Police say the apparent cause of death was…

Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.

My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco. She asked the individual behind the counter for "minimal lettuce." He said he was sorry, but they only had iceberg.

I was sitting in my science class, when the teacher commented that the next day would be the shortest day of the year. My lab partner became visibly excited, cheering and clapping. I explained to her that the amount of daylight changes, not the actual amount of time. Needless to say, she was very disappointed.

My neighbor works in the operations department in the central office of a large bank. Employees in the field call him when they have problems with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of the branch banks who had this question: "I've got smoke coming from the back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?"

I live in a semi-rural area. We recently had a new neighbor call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the Deer Crossing sign on our road. The reason: Many deer were being hit by cars and he no longer wanted them to cross there.

An actual tip from page 16 of the Hewlett Packard Environmental, Health & Safety Handbook for Employees: "Blink your eyelids periodically to lubricate your eyes."

After interviewing a particularly short-spoken job candidate, I described the person to my boss as rather monosyllabic. My boss said, "Really? Where is Monosyllabia?". Thinking that he was just kidding, I played along and said that it was just south of Elbonia. He replied, "Oh, you mean over by Croatia?"

I was signing the receipt for my credit card purchase when the clerk noticed that I had never signed my name on the back of the credit card. She informed me that she could not complete the transaction unless the card was signed. When I asked why, she explained that it was necessary to compare the signature on the credit card with the signature I just signed on the receipt. So I signed the credit card in front of her. She carefully compared that signature to the one I signed on the receipt. As luck would have it, they matched.