Dead Pool 4th September 2016
Unsurprisingly, nobody listed Gene Wilder. Often is the case that well loved celebrities never make the list. Remember, if you want to win it, you have to be unscrupulous and harsh.
Look Who You Could Have Had:
- Mr. Fuji, 82, American professional wrestler and manager (WWF).
- Darrell Ward, 52, American reality television personality (Ice Road Truckers), plane crash.
- Gene Wilder, 83, American actor (The Producers, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Young Frankenstein), screenwriter and author, complications of Alzheimer’s disease.
- Doris McLemore, 89, American teacher, last fluent speaker of the Wichita language.
- Joe Sutter, 95, American aeronautical engineer, chief designer of the Boeing 747.
- Jon Polito, 65, American actor (Miller’s Crossing, The Rocketeer, Homicide: Life on the Street), cancer.
- Islam Karimov, 78, Uzbekistani politician, President (since 1990), stroke.
In Other News
We were going to lead this week with the Uzbek President/Dictator, Islam Karimov, having a stroke. Alas he died. So that put a big spanner in the works for us at Death Towers, but we’ll lead with the story anyway.
It does leave central Asia’s most populous country in a state of turmoil and political uncertainty. The Uzbek government did not confirm the reports at first but played funeral music on state channels. Later on Friday the government eventually released a statement saying the 78-year-old president had died. Karimov has no official successor. The most likely candidate to replace him appears to be Uzbekistan’s long-time prime minister, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. There is little prospect that the country of 31 million will democratise, after a quarter of a century characterised by repression, the boiling of prisoners and unflinching authoritarian rule. Even by the standards of the region, Karimov treated manifestations of dissent harshly. The upheaval has sparked much uncertainty for the Karimov family, his daughter, Gulnara Karimova, was for a long time considered a potential successor to her father and was a highly public figure has disappeared. Perhaps we should be looking at listing a few Uzbek elites in the near future.
Jeremy Vine almost got run over by an irate woman in a car as he was cycling home. The lady involved in the alleged road-rage incident has said his “dangerous” cycling provoked her foul-mouthed response. Vine shared the footage of the alleged road rage incident with his Facebook and Twitter followers on Tuesday. The 51-year-old filmed the “horrible moment” on a helmet-mounted camera while cycling home in Kensington, London after hosting his show on Friday 26th August. Have a look at the video yourself and make up your own mind. One thing is for sure, don’t have a wobbly at a cyclist when they work for the BBC.
And finally, an emergency response was initiated at a school in Ohio after around 40 children ingested Bhut Jolokia peppers – one of the hottest species in existence. An unidentified student brought the peppers into Milton Union Middle School, West Milton, and apparently shared them among other students aged 11 to 14. Police and emergency responders were contacted on Friday after the students began to exhibit symptoms such as blotchy skin, hives, sweating, watering eyes and general discomfort. Five students had to be hospitalised. The students “took these peppers voluntarily”, according to a police investigation. “We all drank like 10 cartons of milk,” eighth grade student Cody Schmidt told the newspaper, adding that the pepper was “really hot”. The school’s superintendent, Brad Ritchey, said: “The response of emergency services was amazing, deputies and help from surrounding paramedics. Research conducted in 1980 found a 68 kilogram human would need to eat at least 1.3 kilograms of the hottest chillies in one sitting for the peppers to have a lethal effect.
On This Day
- 1666 – In London, England, the most destructive damage from the Great Fire occurs.
- 1882 – Thomas Edison flips the switch to the first commercial electrical power plant in history, lighting one square mile of lower Manhattan. This is considered by many as the day that began the electrical age.
- 1888 – George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak and receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.
- 1998 – Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.
Deaths
- 2001 – Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, American radio host and actor (b. 1962)
- 2006 – Steve Irwin, Australian zoologist and television host (b. 1962)
- 2014 – Joan Rivers, American comedian, television host, and author (b. 1933)
Last Week’s Birthdays
Paul Rubens (64), Daniel Stern (59), Shania Twain (51), Jack Black (47), Jason Priestley (47), LeAnne Rimes (34), Florence Welch (30), Elliott Gould (78), Rebecca DeMornay (57), John McCain (80), Michael Chiklis (53), Cameron Diaz (44), Warren Buffett (86), Van Morrison (71), Richard Gere (67), Chris Tucker (45), Lily Tomlin (77), Barry Gibb (70), Gloria Estefan (59), Keanu Reeves (51), Salma Hayek (50), Jimmy Connors (64), Lennox Lewis (51) and Charlie Sheen (51).
The Last Word
Now I can cross the Shifting Sands. – L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz.
- Note: Baum was referring to the Shifting Sands, the impassable desert surrounding the Land of Oz.
Next week peeps!
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