Tuesday, December 09, 2008

 

Don't Fwown, Snile!

A Good Sport

The rest of the world cannot understand how after bitter election campaigns, American politicians can return to reality. For instance, Sarah Palin has invited to her great state of Alaska the men who defeated her, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

She has provided a moose hunting trip for their enjoyment and has hired two other prominent men to assist them. Dick Cheney will instruct them in safe gun handling and Ted Kennedy will drive them back to their cabins in the evening.

What a gal! That Sarah is such a sport and thinks of everything.

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And the nominees this year's Darwin Awards were:

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.

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The New Student

It was the first day of school and a new Indian student named Chandrasekhar Subramanian entered the fourth grade. The teacher said, "Let's begin by reviewing some American History. Who said ‘Give me Liberty or give me Death?’"

She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Chandrasekhar, who had his hand up: “Patrick Henry, 1775,” he said.

“Very good! Who said ‘Government of the People, by the People, for the People, shall not perish from the Earth?’”

Again, no response except from Chandrasekhar. “Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, 1863.”

The teacher snapped at the class, “Class, you should be ashamed. Chandrasekhar, who is new to our country, knows more about its history than you do.”

She heard a loud whisper: “Screw the Indians.”

“Who said that?” she demanded.

Chandrasekhar put his hand up. “General Custer, 1862.”

At that point, a student in the back said, “I think I'm gonna puke.”

The teacher glares around and asks, “Alright, now who said that?”

Again, Chandrasekhar says, “George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991.”

Now with almost mob hysteria someone said, “You little jerk. If you say anything else, I'll kill you.”

Chandrasekhar frantically yells at the top of his voice, “Michael Jackson to the child witnesses testifying against him, 2004.”

The teacher fainted.

And as the class gathered around the teacher on the floor, someone said, “Oh crap, now we're screwed!”

And Chandrasekhar said quietly, “I think it was the Republican Party, November 4th, 2008."

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Making the Best of It

Young Chuck in Montana bought a horse from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the horse the next day. The next day he drove up and said, “Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the horse died.”

Chuck replied, “Well, then just give me my money back.”

The farmer said, “Can't do that. I went and spent it already.”

Chuck said, “Ok, then, just bring me the dead horse.”

The farmer asked, “What ya gonna do with him?”

Chuck said, “I'm going to raffle him off.”

The farmer said, “You can't raffle off a dead horse!”

Chuck said, “Sure I can; watch me. I just won't tell any body he's dead.”

A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, “What happened with that dead horse?”

Chuck said, “I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $998.”

The farmer said, “Didn't anyone complain?”

Chuck said, “Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.”

Chuck grew up and works now for the U. S. Government. He was the one who figured out how to "bail us out."

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