India's Romeo and Juliet tragedy

Amreen, a Moslem girl, and Lokesh, a Hindu boy met and fell in love. Her father raised milk cows and sold milk as the family business. Lokesh was a regular customer. The young people ran away together, were legally married, then made their fatal mistake. They came home again.

Their angry families and the elders of their community pressured the newlyweds to spare all from any further embarrassment by offering them a choice: divorce or suicide.

Amreen and Lokesh killed themselves rather than be separated. Local police are investigating and promise charges will be brought against any responsible for pressuring the young lovers into taking their own lives.

The village chief says Amreen and Lokesh would have been better off if they had stayed away.

Read more about this tragedy here.

I, for one, will never understand how you can raise a child, love that child for all the years of their life, nurture that young life, wish for all happiness and good things of Life for that child then demand that child commit suicide.

800 Britons on waiting list for Swiss suicide clinic

Record numbers of Britons who are suffering from terminal illnesses are queueing up for assisted suicide at the controversial Swiss clinic Dignitas, the Observer can reveal.

Almost 800 have taken the first step to taking their lives by becoming members of Dignitas, and 34 men and women, who feel their suffering has become unbearable, are ready to travel to Zurich and take a lethal drug overdose.

The tenfold increase in the number of Britons who have joined Dignitas since 2002 will raise questions about the law that bans assisted suicide in Britain.

On Tuesday, 46-year-old Debbie Purdy, who suffers from progressive multiple sclerosis, will go to the House of Lords, the UK's highest court, asking it to determine whether her husband Omar Puente will be prosecuted if he helps her to travel abroad to die.

[...]

The disclosures will reopen the highly charged debate about euthanasia. This week, an influential group of peers, led by two former ministers in Tony Blair's cabinet, will seek to end what they see as the outdated and inhumane situation in which relatives or friends risk up to 14 years in prison if they travel with a loved one undertaking assisted dying overseas.

The peers - led by Lord Falconer, a former lord chancellor, and Baroness Jay, a former leader of the House of Lords - will table an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill in an attempt to lift the threat of prosecution from people in England and Wales who want to support someone in their final moments.

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The Darwin Awards

Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.

Here are a few examples from 2008:

(13 January 2008, Florida) Wearing only swim trunks and sneakers, a 37-year-old man raced his motorcycle toward the Manasota Key drawbridge. As the bridge began to open, it was clear that he intended to "shoot the gap."

Bridge designers had anticipated such lunacy and invented the crossing
guard. The closing gates swept him off his Suzuki, over the side of the bridge, into the water, and out of the gene pool.

By a twist of fate the motorcycle continued up the ramp and made it across to the other side.

And another:

Snowmobiles and alcohol are a dangerous mix. Then came the rabbit.

After a day spent partying and racing snowmobiles in the wilderness, a group of snowmobilers were headed back to their cabin, when up popped a jackrabbit! They gave chase. Several collisions were narrowly averted, and so all the snowmobiles backed off... except one.

This snowmobiler kept his eye on the quarry and rapidly closed in. The
rabbit darted aside to save itself. The snowmobiler closed in again. The rabbit ran toward the road, where there was less snow. Trying to ram his rabbit before it crossed the road, the man accelerated to Mach 1.

But the rabbit had other ideas. It darted into the culvert beneath the
road. Witnesses stated that the snowmobiler never even braked. There was a metallic crunch as the accelerating vehicle rammed into the culvert, followed by a blast that shattered the snowmobile into a thousand bits.

This brand of snowmobile had a fuel tank mounted in front. The culvert
admitted the tip of the snowmobile, then cut into the cowling, spilling fuel over the hot engine. The body of the snowmobiler was blown twenty feet back into the field.

The rabbit's whereabouts was unknown.

And one more:

( 8 March 2008, Florida) Just because you see it online does not mean it's a good idea. Cameron, 18, was joyriding in a shopping cart as he held onto a moving SUV. An eyewitness said, "It's irresponsible behavior, but what do you expect from kids?" The car and the cart went over a speed bump and the cart overturned, ejecting its occupant, who was not wearing the little seat belt. Cameron was pronounced dead at the scene.

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