GossipGabe

There will either be a coup or he leaves power when he dies. Yeah, I can't believe he'd just give up his post either. Except perhaps on his deathbed, to ensure that Grace would inherit his throne. I think he might be able to achieve that, but she would face a fierce power struggle once "the old man dies". After all, before she became First Lady she had only been Mugabe's secretary. I don't hold Robert Mugabe in high esteem but at least he had a proper education (BA degree), unlike his wife.

Well, probably not in the early stages, since he was unable to work and had to be nursed by his family. ______ Well he wasn`t known to be ill until a few weeks ago so a big miss but not an obvious one.Well, the ABC News report also stated that he was a heavy smoker, had a triple heart bypass surgery and a minor heart attack by 1994, so it could have been predicted... Well, kinda, Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was a much more obvious miss.

Well, people can live for a very long time as (practically) vegetables. Ariel Sharon was in a Permanent Vegetative State after a massive stroke from 2006 until his death in 2014. Terry Schiavo was in a PVS for 15 years (and could have lived even longer if her life support wasn't discontinued in 2005), Sunny von Bülow lived in a PVS for 28 years (until her death at 76). Basically, what you need is a feeding tube, some nurses and some luck. Of course, it would be harder to notice if the patient had other serious diseases (since they wouldn't be able to tell you about their symptoms), but they could go on for years. Just like Sharon, Zsa Zsa had at least two strokes a decade ago and she is old enough to suffer from several age-related illnesses that would adversely affect her cognitive capabilities (dementia, Alzheimer's). When she was a bit younger, she was always craving for attention and even now it'd seem likely that she'd occasionally give interviews. Of course, we know that von Anhalt had blocked visitors from her but now that he lost his conservatorship, he wouldn't be able to deny access to her if she was able to talk to people.

Well, Herman Wouk is Kouw Namreh if you read it backwards and it will be the same at 101. I guess you mean that his age will become a palindrome, that's true, but was also true 1 year ago at 99 or 12 years ago at 88. That's hardly anything special.

perhaps if he loses she will get hopping mad and shuffle off her mortal coil finally I don't think she can comprehend that much of the outside world anymore. Besides, poor old Roger (35) is past his prime while Novak Djokovic and Murray are still young (28) and Djoko is the hot favourite.

Most of the obituaries mentioned that they parted on amicable terms, played in a family film together etc. I don't think he is happy that she died although I might be wrong. But at the age of 98 and a half, he has good chances to reach 100.

Wow, this article is pure gold; it clearly indicates that she is even worse than her husband. A female version of Kim Jong-un, apparently. But didn't she have some form of cancer that was feared to be terminal? Was she cured or never really ill?

no*facepalm* No really, he's alive. If you guys are rooting for someone to die, why not just go for the evil guys (Mugabe, Castro), or at least those who are terminal or just zombies anyways (like Crowe or Gabor)? Who's 'rooting' for him to die? I think people miss the whole point of a dead pool. It's a game of prediction, not that of wishful thinking. Well, as I see it, until you make your dead pool team, it's a game of prediction. If you have assembled it, all you can do is hope that the candidates on your list expire but those on other people's list don't. That's only natural if you want to win, and why wouldn't you? Of course, everyone is aware of the social/cultural norms we are expected to adhere to, and that wishing that someone would die is regarded as a sinful thought so not many people would admit to actively rooting for their candidates. But Mugabe is an evil person, so I can wish for his death, can't I?

no*facepalm* No really, he's alive. If you guys are rooting for someone to die, why not just go for the evil guys (Mugabe, Castro), or at least those who are terminal or just zombies anyways (like Crowe or Gabor)?

It's good luck for him he was born in Wisconsin cos if he'd been in Europe with that nose when he was 20...... y'know. Sheesh. Please don't disrespect the deceased...I tried to dig up the Internet for information on Al Molinaro's religion, but couldn't find anything that would prove that he is a Jew (well, besides his nose and the fact that he played a Jewish cop on The Odd Couple). But one thing is for certain: his parents emigrated from Italy. So it'd be interesting to ask, what would have happened to poor Al if he had born in Italy to Jewish parents. Benito Mussolini, the Duce was Hitler's main European ally during WW2 and they did discriminate against Jews and put them into concentration camps. But it was also a religious country with a Pope that condemned anti-semitism, so til 1943 they stopped short of exterminating them or sending them to death camps (like the Germans did in the areas under their control). This only changed after the coup against Mussolini when the Germans had to invade northern Italy to prevent them from switching sides. But they didn't have enough time to finish the job and the majority of Italian Jews survived the Holocaust. And Al Murray's ancestors came from Calabria (southern Italy) that was occupied by the Allied forces before the coup, so he could have had even better chances than most other Italian Jews...

It might have been mentioned somewhere else but a simple name search yielded no results. Former Russian PM, Yevgeny Primakov at 85. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33290421 EDIT: it was indeed posted in a different thread, but the guest misspelled his name. I blame him.

I wouldn't trust this site if I were you. There are a few clues that makes me think this list might not be reliable. 1.) They can't even spell Barry Manilow's name properly. (I think it's not that hard to get it right, or is it?) 2.) They list Lady Godiva among the naturists. Most historians think the naked ride is just a legend...

Now was that a premonition? I almost wrote something nasty about you wasting everyone's time with a useless post, but in retrospect, I'm glad that I didn't. Well done there. And kudos to the committee as well. I wasn't really pleased with their list initially (esp. after noticing that they left Terry Pratchet and King Abdullah out when they were obvious misses) but this month was more than enough to win me over. And there are still some strong candidates (Martin Crowe, Billy Graham, ZsaZsa Gabor etc.) so it might even be a record year.

Why? Debut appearance I think they mean. Yeah, I spotted that. It's obviously a pun. A bad one, but fully intentional.

Seems funny to see a comment like this after he has been dead less than a week when last year we had to wait until late December for almost all of the obit write ups.....Other than this one, they've been rather speedy this year Well, I wasn't here last year, so I wouldn't know Either way, I'm not an expert, so maybe I'm wrong, but I don't reckon it's very hard to write an obit... so I expect them to be rather speedy. Well, to write a normal obit full of clichés, or just a dry description of who he was and what he did (copied from Wikipedia) is not hard but then people would complain that the obits became boring. In order to write a witty obit, you sometimes need a bit more time... Or just a kiss from a muse.

what does the moron think his doing just resign and let the next guy take over who is probably just as corruptI dunno, I may be a bit naïve, but I think the other candidates for presidency were likely less corrupt. One of them was Prince Ali bin Hussein from Jordan; a member of the royal family of Jordan (half brother of the current king). Even if Jordan is not a filthy rich country like Qatar or Saudi Arabia, I think he would have enough money already so he wouldn't be as corruptible. His agenda is a different question, he successfully lobbied for the hijab to be allowed at ladies' games. Very practical, isn't it? The other guy was Luis Figo from Portugal, a former superstar at Barcelona and Real Madrid (and a wealthy man as well). He doesn't need bribes to put food on his family , so he'd likely not risk his reputation by being corruptible. The last one was a Dutch guy that I don't really know much about. But he seemed like the kind of person who cares more about his agenda than his wealth.

The big summer of famous deaths? B.B.King, John Nash, Christopher Lee and other people who were very good at what they did, and many people consider them to be famous, but aren't REALLY famous because 90% of today's uneducated society has never heard of them. More people are likely to have heard of Lee, as he did feature prominently in the Star Wars and LOTR franchises I guess many people must've heard about Nash as well, as he was the protagonist of a blockbuster (The Beautiful Mind, grossing over $300M worldwide).

Wow, this guy is incredible. Gets himself elected despite a massive corruption scandal, steps down less than a week later and takes back his word less than two weeks later? Man, just make up your mind and f%*k off already. I guess the football federations of Europe and the Americas should just secede from FIFA and found a new international organization without these corrupt African and Asian countries still backing Blatter. These teams are only fillers in the World Cups anyways. (Their only major result was a 4th place from Korea in 2002, and they shouldn't be proud about that, since they had to cheat to get there...)

A bit of a surprise for me. Well, usually there's nothing surprising in a 93 y.o. man dying, but he was remarkably active even until recently (and even had plans for a new film). I have to admit I didn't watch much of his early stuff (like his Dracula films), but he was a very convincing villain. At least it gives me some faint hope with Mugabe. He too seems remarkably active for his age, but he too can be gone in a week. Can he?

So you think this was a fluke hit? Yeah, he died because his health was too robust so that he was able to move around and could be a victim of a car accident. If he had been frail and bedridden like Zsa Zsa, he might still have been alive. All the others? Not really... Sam Simon had terminal cancer and it was clear that the chemo can only buy him a few more months. Nimoy had COPD, which is also incurable; King was old and a diabetic. So all of them could be considered good picks. If you wanna criticize the committee, you might point out some glaring omissions like Pratchet (former DL candidate) or King Abdullah (clearly famous and gravely ill), but they can only list 50 names so idk.

There seems to be an extra space in your URL that made it kinda bogus (at least it generated a 404 error for me). Anyways, this stuff is funny. I always thought that this (generating public/media attention) was the whole point of von Anhalt's behaviour, the conservatorship and public feud with ZsaZsa's daughter and quite possibly the marriage itself. It's an interesting question whether they would (or even could) let her die now. I guess she no longer has the mental capacity to express whether or when she wants her doctors to let her go. And without an advance directive, there's no way to (legally) prove that she wouldn't wanna live like that anymore. So I wonder if anyone would dare to decide to stop keeping her alive. It's certainly risky...

You cite an article from two days ago that quotes the same official statement as gcreptile did on the 2nd of June. The only difference is - your article is in English (while his link was German.) Yeah, he is doing well, considering he had two serious operations in a month. But it doesn't mean that his health is particularly robust. He has survived a surgery, but we don't even know why he was operated on. It could be diverculitis or cancer, they wouldn't tell you either way. And at this age (and already frail) these things (diseases, surgeries etc.) add up pretty soon.

and by this I think we should be smart and use maths to figure out who will die next. Let's see no one has died in the 20 -11 area on the list and a girl hasn't died that means Maureen O'Hara is next Man, that's an absolute misuse of maths and probability theory, the "law of averages" doesn't exist, or at least not in the form reflected by your thinking. Of course, the fact that 4 men and 0 women died in the first 5 months of the year makes it slightly more likely than initially that a woman will be next. But since only 9 ladies made it to the list originally - as opposed to 41 gentlemen from which 37 are still living, the odds are still heavily against women.

Hmm, isn't it around 1 in 365? (Allowing for leaplings should make it a bit less, but since leap days occur less than once every four years, it should be closer to 1/365 than 1/366.) According to the Wikipedia article you just cited, the probability of n people all having different birthdays (if birthdays are assumed to be uniformly distributed among 365 days and leap days are ignored) is 365!/((365-n)!*365^n). In case of n=2, the formula simplifies to 364/365, which means that the opposite event, ie. you guys sharing a bday should be around 1/365. Which is intuitively rather straightforward. Your bday could be any of the 365 days in a year, and gcreptile's bday should be the very same day in order for it to coincide with yours.

I guess the source might be Eddie's own revelation, reported by The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/little-and-large-havent-spoken-for-a-long-time-1988413.html But hard evidence? Should they wiretap to check whether they really don't speak to each other? Maybe the fact that they didn't sue the Independent for libel can be regarded as indirect evidence.