Yay! Darwin Award winners revealed

Two bank robbers have been declared winners of the 2009 Darwin Awards after they blew themselves up while trying to crack open a cash machine.

The Belgian pair used so much explosive to get their hands on the money that they destroyed the whole bank building.

When police arrived at the scene, they found one of them with severe head injuries, and rushed him to hospital where he died shortly after arrival.

Investigators initially assumed that his accomplice had managed a getaway, but the second one's body was excavated from the debris twelve hours later.

Wendy Northcutt, the founder of the annual awards, declared them the 2009 winners of the Darwin Awards, given to those "doing the most to improve the human gene pool by removing themselves from it".

The bank robbers just edged ahead of their main rival Shawn Motero who was stuck in a traffic crawl in Florida when he needed to answer a call of nature.

With no toilet handy, he got out of the car before jumping over a concrete wall to find a more secluded spot.

Unfortunately, the 30-year-old had not realised he was on a bridge, and fell 65 feet to his death. Award organisers said it proved you should "look before you leak".

In third place was the first ever woman to be nominated for the award. Rosanne Tippett drove her moped into a flooded river, despite the warning signs.

She was rescued by police, but died after jumping back into the river in an attempt to recover the two-wheeler.

There's nothing like reading examples of human stupidity leading to death to cheer up one's day....

I don't file them, period. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. I just clip them.

Clipping tends to make peeling worse. Which doesn't stop me, of course.

Cash, the NailTek stuff will have the same issue as Nail Envy. Most strengtheners will, because they use formaldehyde for strengthening. Honestly, even the formaldehyde-free strengtheners seem to have a negative effect if you use them longer than short-term.

The biggest difference anything's made for me is using lotion and occasionally cuticle cream. A lot of people swear by biotin, though.

Is it Russian Navy? I love that color. I wear it on my toes a lot. DC is a conservative town, I can't get away with blue on my fingernails.

Possibly. I haven't found a good source of OPI nail polish in the area and online colors don't always give a true look at the real color.

My office is fairly conservative. I think I'm the only one who shows up with painted nails of any color, but what the heck. I wish I could do funky colors in my hair, but I think that would be a step beyond.

Clipping tends to make peeling worse.

So clipping is worse than filing? Darn.

I probably need to let my nails rest a few days in between removing and reapplying. I put Burt's Bees hand salve on every night, but that doesn't help when I'm wearing nail polish. Best nails I ever had was in Moldova - I guess mass quantities of unrefined sunflower oil, taken internally, are good for nails?

omg as the day goes on I am just getting more and more cranky. people! do not like!

From the NYT: Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push

Sullivan says:

The NYT has just discovered the Ugandan bill, inspired by key American Christianists, that will round up, jail and execute homosexuals. (Non-MSM readers would have been following this essential story for months on Box Turtle Bulletin). The multi-media page is superb. What's fascinating is that the rhetoric the Christianists use is the same in Africa as it is in America, but in Africa, the public consensus is so anti-gay already that the consequences of this demonization are felt much more immediately and brutally. Here's the American rhetoric:

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

If a movement is "evil" and trying to "defeat" all families, as evangelicals claim of gays (and Nazis and Communists said of gays), then of course some already predisposed against gays would believe it is essential to identify, round up, forcibly cure or execute this foul threat from within. And yet the Americans now claim they are shocked, shocked! by the results of their strategy. Maybe they are.

If so, they should have provided some smidgen of balance in their campaign to demonize a tiny minority of already persecuted people....

American Christianism In Africa

whoa...Rachel Maddow was ahead of the NYT. Go, Rachel.

Suzi, I think you are describing This one which I also bought. I really wanted an emerald green and ended up with this.

I only paint my toenails at this point, but I always paint them. My fingernails? Never. My nails are too weak and prone to chipping and peeling. I might clear coat them. Maybe I should use a super light color and see if that helps them not chip.

OK, if anyone knows someone who says stuff like, "We have the best health care in the world here in America," try sending this to them and see what they say: an infographic comparing health care costs per person to life expectancy

(line thickness indicates the number of doctor visits per year).

Is it Russian Navy? I love that color. I wear it on my toes a lot.

I have Russian Navy on my toes right now, AIFG.

Actually, IFAwful, because it's just the chipped remnants of a pedicure I had back before Thanksgiving. Now that my ankle's mostly healed I'll have to do something about that.