According to its Web site, “The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it.”

Among this year’s awards:

• The man who thought it would be fun to use a pressurized hose for an inappropriate purpose
• A ski lift operator who did pull-ups on a piece of moving equipment
• The building demolition worker who hadn’t considered his own fate while tearing down a structure around him, and
• The man who found out the hardest way that body piercings and electronic control testers don’t mix.

You can read these and more 2008 Darwin Award winners (losers?) here.

A drunk construction worker jumped off the 36th floor of a building in Lower Manhattan into protective netting one floor below.

He wasn’t injured, but the unidentified worker was fired immediately, according to the Downtown Express. No word on why he jumped.

As the worker made his way up the building, his boss told him to put on a harness. The worker yelled back that he didn’t need one.

Police may charge the worker with reckless endangerment.

The incident happened at the W Hotel construction site. The building previously located at the construction site was damaged and contaminated during the 9/11 attacks and had to be demolished.

Trent Sack suffered multiple arm, leg and vertebra fractures while using a propane torch to thaw ice from inside a mechanical foot at a BNI coal mine in Center, ND.

The torch went out, and gas leaked. The gas exploded after Sack moved the opening cover of the mechanical foot aside and oxygen rushed in, according to the Bismarck Tribune. No fire resulted from the explosion.

The company reported the incident to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, which conducted an investigation. No word on whether the company will be fined.

It’s fired an employee of almost 30 years who was found with an open can of beer while driving a snowplow.

Police stopped the 57-year-old worker after receiving a call from a passerby.

Officers found an open can of beer in the plow, according to CBC News.

The driver passed a breathalyzer test, however the officers issued him a ticket for $438 for possessing open alcohol in a motor vehicle.

The city suspended the worker with pay. Then the downtown borough council of Ville-Marie voted unanimously to fire the employee.

The city has fired other municipal workers for drinking while using city equipment over the years.

In 2003, a worker was fired for driving his snowplow through a red light and hitting another vehicle.

The union and the borough are negotiating the terms of the man’s dismissal.

The makers of the Whizzinator have pleaded guilty in federal court to two conspiracy counts, putting an official end to their product.

The company owned by George Wills and Robert Catalano, Puck Technology, sold the device that helped men pass drug tests.

The Whizzinator is a prosthetic penis that comes with a heating element and fake urine. It was sold from 2005 through this year.

Federal prosecutors claim the product helped people circumvent federal workplace drug-testing programs. They cited customer testimonials on the company’s Web site, including one in which an employee bragged about using the device to pass a drug test required by Department of Transportation regulations.

The men will be sentenced in February and face up to eight years in prison and a $500,000 fine each.

The Whizzinator entered public consciousness three years ago when former Vikings running back Onterrio Smith was caught with one in an airport.

The device made news a second time when a couple asked a convenience store clerk in McKeesport, PA, to heat one in a store microwave so the fake urine would attain body temperature. The store clerk called police. The woman, who wanted the fake urine to pass a pre-employment drug test, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and agreed to pay to replace the store’s microwave.

OSHA regulations prohibit use of microwaves to heat food once bodily fluids have been in them.

But that’s exactly what Australian forklift driver Matthew Ward did.

Ward set up a video camera at work to record his exploits, which included some wheelies, burnouts and crashing into a stack of concrete pipes.

He must’ve been proud of his forklift maneuvers because he posted them on YouTube.

Word spread, and his employer, a Melbourne-area company that makes pipes, turned him over to police and fired him.

A court has fined him the equivalent of about U.S. $800. He lost his license to drive forklifts.

He pleaded guilty to a single count of failing to take care of his own health and safety. He also has to take a week-long occupational safety course and perform 50 hours of community service.

Oh, and his YouTube video? It’s been pulled

If a similar incident happened in the U.S., an employer could go after him for damage to the pipes he drove into. But the possibility of fining a worker for such safety infractions and requiring him to attend safety courses doesn’t exist in the U.S.

Do you think it should? Let us know in the Comments Box below.