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2012 celebrity death lists
It's New Year's Eve here, and you know what that means. Lisa and I are busily putting together our 2012 celebrity death lists. Each casualty through the year will net (100-age) points. I won this year on the strength of Christopher Hitchens (38 points), Kim Jong-Il (31), and Seve Ballesteres (46). This year might be more difficult:
JASON'S DEATH LIST 2012
1) Harold Camping
2) Prince Philip
3) Zsa Zsa Gabor
4) Fidel Castro
5) Billy Graham
6) Frederik Pohl
7) Robin Gibb
8) Jerry Lewis
9) Roger Ebert
10) Matt Hardy
11) Joe Paterno
12) Margaret Thatcher
13) Artie Lange
14) Hosni Mubarek
15) Desmond Tutu
16) Ray Bradbury
17) Ruth Bader Ginsburg
18) Mary Tyler Moore
19) Aretha Franklin
20) Andy Griffith
LISA'S DEATH LIST 2012
1) Jerry Lewis
2) Anette Funicello
3) Olivia DeHavilland
4) Zsa Zsa Gabor
5) Nelson Mandella
6) Nancy Reagan
7) Ernest Borgnine
8) Kirk Douglas
9) Michael Douglas
10) Bob Barker
11) Hugh Hefner
12) Andy Griffeth
13) Dick Clark
14) Charlie Sheen
15) Larry King
16) Pope Benedict
17) Billy Graham
18) Margaret Thatcher
19) Joe Paterno
20) Prince Phillip
If you've got entries, hurry and get them done by midnight!
JASON'S DEATH LIST 2012
1) Harold Camping
2) Prince Philip
3) Zsa Zsa Gabor
4) Fidel Castro
5) Billy Graham
6) Frederik Pohl
7) Robin Gibb
8) Jerry Lewis
9) Roger Ebert
10) Matt Hardy
11) Joe Paterno
12) Margaret Thatcher
13) Artie Lange
14) Hosni Mubarek
15) Desmond Tutu
16) Ray Bradbury
17) Ruth Bader Ginsburg
18) Mary Tyler Moore
19) Aretha Franklin
20) Andy Griffith
LISA'S DEATH LIST 2012
1) Jerry Lewis
2) Anette Funicello
3) Olivia DeHavilland
4) Zsa Zsa Gabor
5) Nelson Mandella
6) Nancy Reagan
7) Ernest Borgnine
8) Kirk Douglas
9) Michael Douglas
10) Bob Barker
11) Hugh Hefner
12) Andy Griffeth
13) Dick Clark
14) Charlie Sheen
15) Larry King
16) Pope Benedict
17) Billy Graham
18) Margaret Thatcher
19) Joe Paterno
20) Prince Phillip
If you've got entries, hurry and get them done by midnight!
Comments
The world is gonna end guys. Come on.
I guess a person would need to know who's still alive in order to predict who will die. Are Mickey Rooney, Crystal Gayle, and Little Richard still alive? If they are, I vote for them.
Holy Crap. I'm in a bar and they have "New Year's Rockin' Eve" on the TV. The bozo they have doing the show looks EXACTLY like Dick Clark. Is he dead?
I reckon that once he's gone there with be something really weird in his will. I don't know what but he certainly has the means. He strikes me as the kind of guy who'd plan something elaborate and surprising to significantly influence something he cares about after he's gone.
Also, Hugo Chávez.
...right in childhood.
I know she really likes animals and does a lot of good for doggies and stuff. She is kinda PETA-y but I support animal rights. One of those people who has good points and bad points, I guess.
Now I went and looked on the Wikiwiki, and she is apparently also super racist against Muslims. She also got fined for writing that her country was being overrun with foreigners, which is crazy because if we didn't have free speech over here and people got fined in the same way, we would probably have raised enough to cover our national debt, but I digress.
Animal rights = PETA = "Animals deserve all the same rights humans do, shouldn't be eaten, shouldn't be kept as pets, etc., as that's all evil slavery, yadda yadda."
Animal welfare = "Animals don't deserve the same rights as humans because they are incapable of exercising the responsibilities of said rights. However, while it's okay to use them for food, clothing, companionship, etc., they should not be mistreated any more so than absolutely necessary."
I actually don't know if it is okay to use animals for clothing, food, and companionship. I do eat some meat and have some leather boots, and actually feel pretty conflicted about it when I start thinking really hard about it. At the same time, predator/prey relationships are a very natural part of the cycle, but very cruel to the individual. Companionship with pets is the thing that is VERY important to me, but I sometimes wonder even at that a little. (Although I would argue that some animals, like dogs, have evolved into a truly symbiotic relationship with the human species and it is completely natural for them to be by our sides.) I do like having bunnies around me, and I feel that while humans still have domesticated animals, we should coexist with them and treat them right.
But seriously, if humans entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but not other species? Animals are all different, and we need to examine our behavior in each and every case, rather than just a blanket viewpoint that animals are below humans so we can do whatever.
What about when we get chimerical animals that are part-human, not just in their genes, but in their mental functions? There are already lab mice with large amounts of human neural tissue, in one case bred specifically for an experiment to see if the brain would form itself in more human-like patterns. What do we do when we a get a rat that has human tendencies?
However, even if we are somewhat more "special," due to our sentience, I also feel it is a responsibility not to abuse our "special" position -- hence animals should be treated with respect, without excessive cruelty, and so on. I kind of like the idea of some portrayals of Native Americans (though I have no idea how accurate they are) thanking the spirits of the animals they just hunted for sacrificing their lives to provide humans with food and clothing. While I'm not arguing for a spiritual view such as that, we should try to be as humane as possible. If we're going to kill an animal for use as food, clothing etc., their suffering should be as limited as possible.
With respect to chimeral animals, again, it comes down to sentience. If any of those animals has been demonstrated to approach a human level of sentience, then they should be allowed some, if not all, of the same rights as humans, provided they aren't acting like the sociopathic humans I mentioned earlier.
I don't buy that sentience is limited to that narrow of a swath. What about crows? They have a sense of self, which has been demonstrated in behavioral experiments. We can't communicate with animals that well, so we always judge them by human standards. Up until the last century, we didn't even give them half the credit for intelligence that we do today.
Animals DO have a sense of right and wrong. Rats help out their friends in trouble and have demonstrated empathetic responses in studies. Have you ever seen a guilty dog? Dog freaking KNOWS it has gone against some learned code. I think that we don't understand enough about animals to say with certainty that we are truly different.
Now I'm not saying they can vote or anything, but name one human behavior trait that is not shared by at least one other species.
"Sentience" is a very mushy term. We make arbitrary distinctions as to where various lines are (self-awareness, empathy responses, self-recognization, tool use, problem solving, etc...), but they are just that: arbitrary. There is nothing fundamentally different between humans and any other animal save our accelerating rate of adaptation brought on by the exponential growth of "culture" and the transmission of memes through symbolic language.