"Kick the Bucket List"

Gabriel Malor at "Ace of Spades" put this ABC News story up:

Judge Dorothy McCarter issued the ruling late Friday in the case of a Billings man with terminal cancer, who had sued the state with four physicians that treat terminally ill patients and a nonprofit patients' rights group.
"The Montana constitutional rights of individual privacy and human dignity, taken together, encompass the right of a competent terminally (ill) patient to die with dignity," McCarter said in the ruling.

It also said that those patients had the right to obtain self-administered medications to hasten death if they find their suffering to be unbearable, and that physicians can prescribe such medication without fear of prosecution.

"The patient's right to die with dignity includes protection of the patient's physician from liability under the state's homicide statutes," the judge wrote.

As expected, reader responses cover both ends of the spectrum. I guess they should...if you think about it. It's a very charged topic that requires a basic determination as to what is important to the individual. Some believe all life is precious regardless of the quality...understandable. Some believe that an individual has the right to dictate the quality of life...also understandable.

Of course, it gets a little dingy when the concept of another individual assisting is thrown into the works. This is especially shakey when the individual has taken an "ethical" oath to the contrary. However, that's not why I decided to link onto Gabriel's post. My motive was much more self-oriented.

Should I have the misfortune of being diagnosed with a terminal disease with no hope of recovery and the complete deterioration of my dignity in the short-term, I'd create my own "Bucket List" and live the remainder of my life according to my terms. The twist being that I'd want to make my final days count. So...here we go:
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10. Purchase a full page advertisement in the New York Times pointing out that their newspaper is a piece of leftist agenda driven crap that embarrasses the dead fish in which its wrapped when passers-by can read the mast head (yes they can refuse...but the truly clever can pay the street corner vendor a couple bucks to throw an insert into each one they sell).

9. Spend an entire day snatching cell phones out of the hands of those individuals who can't seem to talk and walk in a straight line at the same time.

8. Call the publicists for Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson with a prepared sob story about how my days are numbered, and I wanted to profess in front of the media how my only request is that I get to meet each one. When the moment arrives, I'll turn to the news cameras and state rather clearly..."I have only weeks to live and I wouldn't touch either one of them with a ten foot poll...and anyone who believes anything they have to say is important is a complete moron. They didn't graduate from high school for Pete's sake."

7. Get four of those suction cup things that glass retailers have for carrying large glass sheets and affix myself to the inside ceiling of the subway car. I'd hire someone to take photos that I could send to the Metropolitan Transit Authority with a tag of ..."Bet you haven't considered this...have you?"

6. Take a red-eye to Nigeria...find the simpleton who keeps sending out those fraudulent 419 emails, and steal his laptop.

5. Send a "letter to the editor" to every newspaper listed HERE indicating very strong support of "profiling" in defense against terrorism, and sign each letter "Susan Herman, President of the ACLU."

4. Pick out ten to fifteen small towns throughout the United States and put up signs in front of the municipal building in the middle of the night that state, "SOON TO BE THE HOME OF A NEW WAL-MART."

3. Tape a fake eviction notice on the front entrance to the United Nations Building in New York.

2. Sucker punch the guy at the window of the DMV.

1. Travel to Afghanistan...walk into a meeting of known Taliban leaders and proceed to show them how a real suicide vest (made in the good ole' USA) works.