wird all­jähr­lich ver­lie­hen - Vor­aus­set­zung ist eine "gei­sti­ge Groß­tat" .... bedau­er­li­cher­wei­se ist der Preis­trä­ger nicht mehr in der Lage sich an die­sem Preis zu erfreu­en .... lesen Sie selbst:

Semi­fi­na­list #1
A young Cana­di­an man, sear­ching for a way of get­ting drunk chea­p­ly, becau­se he had no money with which to buy alco­hol, mixed gaso­li­ne with milk. Not sur­pri­sin­gly, this con­coc­tion made him ill, and he rus­hed to vomit into the fire­place in his hou­se. This resul­ting explo­si­on and fire bur­ned his hou­se down, kil­ling both him and his unfort­u­na­te sister.

Semi­fi­na­list #2
Three Bra­zi­li­an men were fly­ing in a light air­craft at low alti­tu­de when ano­ther pla­ne approa­ched. It appears that they deci­ded to moon the occu­pants of the other pla­ne, but lost con­trol of their own air­craft and cra­s­hed. They were all found dead in the wrecka­ge with their pants around their ankles (HARD to con­trol light air­planes when ever­yo­ne moves to one side).

Semi­fi­na­list #3
A 22-year-old Reston, VA man was found dead after he tried to use octo­pus straps to bun­gee jump off a 70-foot rail road trest­le. Fair­fax Coun­ty poli­ce said Eric 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,' Car­mi­cha­el said. Poli­ce say the appa­rent cau­se of death was 'Major trauma.'

Semi­fi­na­list #4
A man in Ala­ba­ma died from ratt­les­na­ke bites. It seems that he and a fri­end were play­ing a game of catch, using the ratt­les­na­ke as a ball. The fri­end -- no doubt a future Dar­win Awards can­di­da­te -- was hospitalized.

Semi­fi­na­list #5
Employees in a medi­um-sized warehou­se in west Texas noti­ced the smell of a gas leak. 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 sight of one of the tech­ni­ci­ans rea­ching into his pocket and retrie­ving an object that resem­bled a ciga­ret­te 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 found of the tech­ni­ci­ans, but the ligh­ter was vir­tual­ly untouch­ed by the explo­si­on. The tech­ni­ci­an suspec­ted of caus­ing the blast had never been thought of as ''bright'' by his peers.

Now, to the win­ner of this year's Dar­win Award
(award­ed, as always, posthumously):
The Ari­zo­na High­way Pat­rol came upon a pile of smol­de­ring metal embedded in the side of a cliff rising abo­ve the road at the apex of a cur­ve. The wrecka­ge resem­bled the site of an air­plane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was uniden­ti­fia­ble at the sce­ne. Poli­ce inve­sti­ga­tors final­ly pie­ced tog­e­ther the mystery. An ama­teur rocket sci­en­tist ... had somehow got­ten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assi­sted Take Off, actual­ly a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give hea­vy mili­ta­ry trans­port pla­nes an extra 'push' for taking off from short air­fields. He had dri­ven his Che­vy Impa­la out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He atta­ched the JATO unit to the car, jum­ped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO! The facts as best as could be deter­mi­ned are that the ope­ra­tor of the 1967 Impa­la hit the JATO igni­ti­on at a distance of appro­xi­m­ate­ly 3..0 miles from the crash site. This was estab­lished by the scor­ched and mel­ted asphalt at that location.
The JATO, if ope­ra­ting pro­per­ly, would have rea­ched maxi­mum thrust within 5 seconds, caus­ing the Che­vy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and con­ti­nuing at full power for an addi­tio­nal 20-25 seconds.
The dri­ver, and soon to be pilot, would have expe­ri­en­ced G-forces usual­ly reser­ved for dog fight­ing F-14 jocks under full afterbur­ners, caus­ing him to beco­me irrele­vant for the rema­in­der of the event. Howe­ver, the auto­mo­bi­le remain­ed on the straight high­way for about 2.5 miles (15−20 seconds) befo­re the dri­ver applied and com­ple­te­ly mel­ted the bra­kes, blo­wing the tires and lea­ving thick rub­ber marks on the road sur­face, then beco­ming air­bor­ne for an addi­tio­nal 1.4 miles and impac­ting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet lea­ving a blacke­ned cra­ter 3 feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not reco­vera­ble. Howe­ver, small frag­ments of bone, teeth and hair were extra­c­ted from the cra­ter, and fin­ger­nail and bone shards were remo­ved from a pie­ce of debris belie­ved to be a por­ti­on of the stee­ring wheel.

Epi­lo­gue:
It has been cal­cu­la­ted that this moron attai­ned a ground speed of appro­xi­m­ate­ly 420-mph, though much of his voya­ge was not actual­ly on the ground.
You couldn't make this stuff up, could you?
AND PEOPLE JUST LIKE THIS ARE ALL AROUND US TODAY
- AND THEY BREED & VOTE, TOO...

Mein Dank geht an John G., aus Kan­sas City, der mich in sol­chen 'Ange­le­gen­hei­ten' auf dem Lau­fen­den hält ....
 

Chi­na scheint nun auch dra­sti­sche Ein­schnit­te bei sei­nen Expor­ten zu erle­ben [Volu­me = Men­gen; Value = Wert]....

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