So, you may have noticed that I’ve been out of town again this week and contrary to Lethal Leprechaun’s explanation, it wasn’t for a pie break.  I was in Cleveland for a workshop on Radiation Emergency Awareness and Response.  This was put on by the Ohio FBI.  They did a pretty good job at keeping a somewhat dull topic interesting.  And they picked a GREAT place to have it.  The Renaissance Cleveland Hotel.  Here’s a picture of me in the, indoor swimming pool.  Beautiful.  Relaxing. 

There were also some beautiful fountains

Anyway, it was just a short trip and I’m back now.  If you’d like further explanation, you should check out the comments section.  If not, you’re missing half the fun.  And then you can feel free to jump in and make comments of your own and really join in on the fun.  It’s more enjoyable when it’s interactive.
Go to http://dragonlaffs.com and see for yourself!

Now,

Can you run that by me just one more time?

 

 

1. The word has seven letters…. 
2. Preceded God… 
3. Greater than God… 
4. More Evil than the devil… 
5. All poor people have it… 
6. Wealthy people need it…. 
7. If you eat it, you will die.

Did you figure it out?

Back when I was active-duty Air Force, many years ago, I loaded bombs on air planes (amongst other things) and one of the pieces of equipment I used was this MHU-83.  Well, my good buddy Todd found this animated one and I thought it was so cool and brought back such memories that I had to share it with you and publicly thank Todd for his kind consideration in sharing with me.

NOTHING has 7 letters. 
NOTHING preceded God. 
NOTHING is greater than God. 
NOTHING is more Evil than the devil. 
All poor people have NOTHING. 
Wealthy people need NOTHING. 
If you eat NOTHING, you will die..

 

 

If opposites truly attract, the correct strategy is to be a loser.

 

 

 

This is incredible…fantastic…and unbelievable, all wrapped up in one!  Remember, you have to be on the website to watch the videos…

Who the hell did I miss?

Finally!  I get retribution and satisfaction from my addiction!!!  Woo Hoo!!

Study finds coffee drinkers live longer, but no one’s sure why

MILWAUKEE — One of life’s simple pleasures just got sweeter. After years of waffling research on coffee and health, even some fear that java might raise the risk of heart disease, a big study finds the opposite: Coffee drinkers are a little more likely to live longer. Regular or decaf doesn’t matter.  I beg to differ.  It does bloody matter!  Decaf is just brown hot water!  Why would anyone drink that?

The study of 400,000 people is the largest on the issue, and the results should reassure coffee fans who think it’s a guilty pleasure that may do harm.  Guilty pleasure and the good it does far out weighs the guilt that might be associated with it.  I can’t function without my coffee in the morning and don’t think I should have to!

“Our study suggests that’s really not the case,” said lead researcher Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute. “There may actually be a modest benefit of coffee drinking.”  You betcha!

No one knows why. Coffee contains a thousand things that can affect health, from helpful antioxidants to tiny amounts of substances linked to cancer. The most widely studied ingredient, caffeine, didn’t play a role in the new study.  It’s the ingredient that makes the most difference!

Earlier studies weren’t wrong. Coffee can raise LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, and blood pressure at least short term, and those can raise heart-disease risk. NO!  Say it isn’t so!!!!

Even in the new study, it seemed coffee drinkers were more likely to die at any given time. But they also tended to smoke, drink more alcohol, eat more red meat and exercise less (You say that like it’s a bad thing!) than people who don’t drink coffee. Once that was taken into account, a clear pattern emerged: Each cup of coffee per day nudged up the chances of living longer. Damn Straight!

The study was done by the National Institutes of Health and AARP. The results are published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.

This doesn’t prove that coffee makes people live longer, only that the two seem related. Like most studies on diet and health, this one was based strictly on observations. So it can’t prove cause and effect.  Of course you would say that!  Because no one wants to admit that that something that’s considered a vice could be good for us!  What’s next?  Cheap cigars create stronger men?

But with so many people, more than a decade of follow-up and enough deaths to compare, “this is probably the best evidence we have” and are likely to get, said Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health. He had no role in this study but helped lead a previous one that also found coffee beneficial.  Alright Frank!  Keep up the good work!

The new study began in 1995 and involved AARP members ages 50 to 71 in California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Atlanta and Detroit. People who already had heart disease, a stroke or cancer weren’t included. Neither were folks at diet extremes — too many or too few calories per day.

The rest gave information on coffee-drinking only at the start of the study. “People are fairly consistent in their coffee drinking over their lifetime,” so the single measure shouldn’t be a big limitation, Freedman said.

Of 402,260 people, about 42,000 drank no coffee. About 15,000 drank six cups or more a day. Most had two or three.  I would be in that last category….but only if you changed it to pots…two or three pots a day.

By 2008, about 52,000 had died. Compared with those who drank no coffee, men who had two or three cups a day were 10 percent less likely to die at any age. For women, it was 13 percent.

Even a single cup a day seemed to lower risk a little: 6 percent in men and 5 percent in women. The strongest effect was in women who had four or five cups a day — a 16 percent lower risk of death.

But Freedman can’t say how much life coffee might buy.  I can answer that question.  Coffee, like pizza, lasagna, manicotti, certain steaks and one or two chili recipes, as well as Slurpees (from 7Eleven, not the generic Icees that are around everywhere) are considered “God’s Food”.  When you die and go to Heaven, there will only be a limited amount of food and drink available, just things that are worthy of being on God’s table.  Therefore, those same foods, on earth, will automatically give you a longer life.  See, it’s not that hard once you think of it in the correct light.

“I really can’t calculate that,” especially because smoking is a key factor that affects longevity at every age, he said.

Coffee drinkers were less likely to die from heart or respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, injuries, accidents or infections. No effect was seen on cancer-death risk, though.

About two-thirds of participants drank regular coffee, and the rest decaf. The type of coffee made no difference.

Hu had this advice for coffee lovers:

• Watch the sugar and cream. Extra calories and fat could negate any benefits from coffee.

• Drink filtered coffee rather than boiled. Filtering removes compounds that raise LDL, the bad cholesterol.

Researchers did not look at tea, soda or other beverages but plan to in future analyses. I think if they look, they’ll find that there are a few other beverages that belong on God’s table and therefore bestow longevity.  A few German and Irish beers, a sweet, white Mosel wine from St. Michaelsberg, Germany and that’s about all I can think of right now.  And see, that’s the whole point of God’s food.  By definition, you’d be able to think of  it right off.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little voyage into my insights.  I hope it was as much fun for you as it was for me.