Gary Fucking Bettman:  Diagnosed with terminal something by the three leading something diagnosticians in the history of medicine, Bettman counters, "I think what you mean to say is..." and then chokes on his own bilious vomit.

Bill Wirtz:  Oops!  The fucker's already croaked.

Scott Boras:  The "most powerful man in baseball" takes a fatal foul ball to the noggin off the bat of Alex Rodriguez while sitting in his luxury box in Anaheim stadium.  He might have got out of the way except he was simultaneously talking into three cell phones and emailing two other general managers on his Blackberry.  All of baseball management secretly rewards ARod with a large South Pacific island.

Don Shula:  With the New England Patriots on their own 3 yard line, down six points and with just two seconds left to play in this year's Super Bowl, Shula and other 1972 Miami Dolphins personnel are just popping the cork on a magnum of celebratory champagne when Brady hits Moss on a 97 yard slant that goes for the winning touchdown.  Larry Csonka, mouth agape in disbelief, fires the cork into Shula's eardrum and deep into his brain.  Shula languishes for 17 days in intensive care before succumbing to his injury, a new record on the ICU ward.

Roger Clemens:  In the midst of a press conference in which Clemens again states that he never used steroids in his baseball career, his pants catch fire and he disappears in the smoke.  He is later found deceased, hanging from a telephone wire.    

Is Ariel Sharon dead? I've not heard anything about that, and there's no mention of death on the Wiki page you linked. I also saw this article a few weeks ago that says he's still alive.

Britney Spears -- You just know one day the paramedics are going to find her face down in her XXXX-rated movie room with a floor littered with Jager bottles and Twinkie wrappers.

I like to shoot for the moon - I figure with things like this I'd rather either be wrong or be spectacularly right. This year we'll say:

• Barry Bonds: Dies when ass explodes after too many steroid injections.
• Paris Hilton: Killed by Buddhist nuns.
• Michael Vick: Beaten to death with a wet towel after being housed in a cell with serial killer John Wayne "The Dog Man" Wayne.
• Dick Cheney: Can't stand thought of leaving office, holes up in White House bathroom and refuses to leave, dies of starvation.

Mike Wallace (suicide)
Margaret Thatcher (complication from stroke)
Fidel Castro (cancer)
Peter O'Toole (natural causes)
Kirk Douglas (complication from stroke)

I don't play the deathpool game. It doesn't yet interest me. I am, however, quite pleased with the new TnT header!

Nice work!

----- I, for one, renounce our insect overlords!

Random Lists of :

A. Get your war on!:

1. Hamid Karzai (assassinated) 2. Nouri Al-Maliki (in a hospital bed) 3. Moqtada al-Sadr (eliminated by rivals) 4. Nawaz Sharif (like no one sees this coming) 5. Osama bin Laden (body found Oct 30, 2008)

B. Television Corpse Brides

1. Dick Clark (too obvious after last night) 2. Dick Cavett (in his sleep) 3. Geraldo Rivera (heli crash over combat) 4.  Betty White (heart attack/why do people think its mean to have Golden Girls in the deadpool?  And why does everyone assume that Rue Mclannahan is going to die first?) 5. Liza Minelli (fractured skull from a sunroof handle)

C. Still Alive really?

1. Gore Vidal (rage at recent Phillip Roth review) 2. J.D. Salinger (in complete silence) 3. Walter Cronkite (choking with rage watching what a steaming pile of shit CBS nightly news has become)  4. Larry King (murdered, crime unsolved, Nancy Grace suddenly on CNN 16 hours per day) 5. Paul Harvey (and now you know....the end of the story)

D: Cop-out due to laziness.

1. Fat Comedian 2. Rock Musician 3. Pro Athlete 4. World Leader 5. Elderly famous person

I had to double-check Billy Graham and Arthur C Clarke.  How can Arthur C Clarke still be alive?  I wasn't convinced he was alive the last time I saw him in person, how dare everyone else insist that he is?  Anyway, it feels a little like cheating and a little like vendetta to roll these people onto next year's list, so here are five new faces:

1. Osama Bin Laden, complications from renal failure.  This will be spun as a "victory" because, in absence of actually capturing him, we made it inconvenient to get dialysis.


2. Dick Cheney.  Officially of a heart attack, but that won't stop any speculations.


3. Pervez Musharraf.  Assassination.


4. Muhammad Ali.  Stroke.


5. Britney Spears.  Like I predicted for Jessica Simpson last year:  Car crash, with suicide impossible to rule out.

(is 3fingerspointback)

1.  Rosie O'Donnell:  car accident
   
2.  Mohammad Ali:  Parkinson's complications.
   
3.  Jimmy Kimmel:  suicide by stupidity (drunk driving)
   
4.  Courtney Love:  suicide by stupidity (drugs)
   
5.  JKRowling:  cancer, which she has known but hasn't told anyone about.

Victory is mine.

So for '08.

Alex Trebek - Heart attack.
Pervez Musharraf - assassination
Betty White - natural causes
Margaret Thatcher - natural causes
Zsa Zsa Gabor - complications from stroke.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

Earl Butz, Heart complications
Roz Wiener, Stroke
Fred Cox , complications from football career/head injury
Wang Yung-Chung heart attack.

and, finally, one serious one...
Stephen Hawking, Complications from ALS.