Movie Review—Elvis and Nixon

Elvis & Nixon

by Peter J. O'Connell

Elvis and Nixon. Released: April 2016. Runtime: 86 mins. MPAA Rating: R for some language. 

The King and the President, who was “not a crook”--so he said--have both gone down in history as great recording artists—of different kinds. Unfortunately, a recording of their meeting in the Oval Office doesn't exist, but now a movie, Elvis and Nixon, attempts to fill that gap in the historical record—of America and absurdity.

Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock-'n'-Roll,” and Richard Nixon, Vice President for eight years and President for five-and-a-half, did meet in the Oval Office, but at a time before Nixon had his notorious taping equipment installed. Their meeting, however, was immortalized in an iconic photograph, the most requested reproduction of any item in the National Archives.

According to Elvis and Nixon, directed by Liza Johnson from a screenplay by Joey Sagal, Hamala Sagal and Cary Elwes, the idea for the meeting comes to Elvis (Michael Shannon) as he is watching multiple TV screens in his Graceland mansion during Christmas week 1970. The screens are showing scenes of political protest and the harm done to young people by drugs. Elvis is so disgusted by what he sees that he takes one of his ever-present guns and shoots out some of the screens. 

Presley was definitely familiar with drugs, to say the least, but apparently he did not consider them to be a problem for him, only for others, and he thought of himself as very patriotic. Therefore, he decided that he would go to Washington to meet the President, obtain a badge as “Federal Agent at Large,” and work undercover to combat drug abuse and anti-Americanism. He rounds up cronies—Jerry Schilling (Alex Pettyfer) and later Sonny West (Johnny Knoxville)--and heads for DC by way of LA. 

Arriving in DC, Elvis proceeds to the White House gate at about 6:30 a.m. and seeks a meeting with the President. Flabbergasted guards refuse to let him in but are persuaded to convey to Nixon's aides a letter that Elvis has written for the President. Elvis then goes for a snack at a luncheonette. The predominately black clientele there mock him as a bad Elvis impersonator and eye his rings and gold chains covetously. Elvis, however, gains their respect when he displays his guns. 

While Nixon's aides—Egil Krogh (Colin Hanks), Dwight Chapin (Evan Peters) and H.R. Haldeman (Tate Donovan)--debate what to do about Elvis' request, the superstar visits the head of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (Tracy Letts) and seeks to get that badge as Federal Agent at Large. The flustered Bureau head says that there is no such badge. Elvis, however, avers that he will get one from the President.

The White House aides conclude that a meeting of the President and Presley might help Nixon politically with Southerners, youth and women. A gruff Nixon (Kevin Spacey), cursing a blue streak, resists the idea but is eventually persuaded—after some prodding by his daughter, who wants an autographed photo of Elvis—to grant what is supposed to be just a brief “grip and grab” photo op.

Elvis is finally admitted to the Oval Office, after reluctantly giving up to security three of the guns that he always carries, but he is pleased that he is able to sneak through a derringer in his sock! He is also carrying a gun in a case as a present for the President, but has to give up the bullets for it. 

Surprisingly, Nixon and Presley hit it off in their meeting. Nixon shoos his aides from the Oval Office, and the get-together becomes lengthy. Initially deferential, Elvis soon begins treating the President as an equal—berating the Beatles with him, displaying some karate moves, and explaining how his experience in movies with makeup and costumes will allow him to go undercover in such groups as SDS and the Black Panthers. The meeting ends with that iconic photo and Nixon's order to J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI to provide Elvis with his much-desired badge as Federal Agent at Large.

The movie is a delight. Liza Johnson's calm and economical direction provides no unnecessary underlining of the inherent absurdity of the historical reality. Michael Shannon's perceptive performance as Elvis also delights by being economical, 

Amusingly, several times in the movie Shannon's Elvis is derided for being a bad Elvis impersonator. (One of those times is by an Elvis impersonator played by Joey Sagal, a co-screenwriter of the movie, who at one point was slated to play Elvis in the film himself!) Shannon's Elvis is a “bad impersonator” because Shannon knows that the Elvis of stage and screen, though a magnification of the off-stage/screen Elvis, is not the same as that Elvis. This understanding of character makes the familiar Elvis mannerisms and sayings, when they do from time to time occur, feel fresh and real. 

Kevin Spacey's performance is actually “showier” than Shannon's. Mr. President's tics and twitches, paranoia and profanity are in full flower. That, too, is appropriate, for Nixon among his aides could display more of his “real self” than on the public stage, though, as we know, “tricky Dick” inadvertently revealed much there too over the years.         

So—Elvis and Nixon, history and humor, see it!

STAYING ON THE CLOCK: For some, leaving workforce continues years after retiring

Gloria Adamson, 81, is seen in Boulder, Colo. Adamson said she never planned to be working this late in life. “I simply have to work, retirement isn’t even in the picture to tell you the truth,” she says. Adam Allington via AP

BOULDER, Colo. >> The transition from employment to retirement used to be marked by a date on a calendar, along with some sheet cake, and a maybe a gold watch. Those days are long gone for most workers in the United States.

Today, the journey toward complete withdrawal from the labor force can last many years. Economists refer to the transition period as “bridge employment.” As more and more Americans either choose, or are forced, into bridge employment, the expectation of what retirement actually means is rapidly changing.

“We shouldn’t even use the word ‘retirement’ any more. It obscures more than it enlightens,” says Boston College economist Joseph Quinn.

Quinn’s research has shown that for many seniors today, retirement is not a one-time event, but rather a process. He attributes it to a changing economic picture that encourages more seniors to choose work over leisure.

Bridge jobs, Quinn says, “tend to be lower pay and less likely to have pension and health benefits, but since many people are taking these jobs voluntarily, they obviously provide some advantages — most likely flexible hours, since more than half of the bridge jobs are part-time.”

According to data from the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study, roughly 6 out of 10 men and women of retirement age don’t plan to leave the labor force when they leave their full-time career jobs.

Factors leading to the appeal of bridge jobs include longer life expectancies and less physically demanding work, according to Quinn. His data also suggests the propensity to seek out bridge employment is highest at both ends of the wage spectrum, with blue-collar workers acting out of financial necessity, while wealthier workers think of it more as a lifestyle choice.

Laura Thompson drove a bus for 25 years in Detroit before retiring 16 years ago. “For a while I was completely retired,” says Thompson. “But eventually, I just felt like I still had it in me to do something, plus the extra income is nice, too.”

These days Thompson keeps busy by working part time as a chef at a local homeless shelter. She says the decision was less about necessity, and more about a desire to help out. Still, she says it isn’t uncommon for retired bus drivers to keep working.

“Our pensions have already been cut by the city,” Thompson says, “I mean, I could probably scrape by without working, but I don’t want to do that, not if I can help it.”

A somewhat open question is whether bridge jobs are truly bridges to retirement or just another job change, perhaps one of many, in a seemingly unending working career.

“I don’t want to be too Pollyannaish about bridge jobs because part of this is likely a reaction to the erosion of retirement security in the U.S.,” says Monique Morrissey, an economist with Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank with ties to organized labor.

Morrissey says older Americans are facing a gradual erosion of retirement benefits. Specifically, she points to the transition to 401(k)s over defined-benefit pensions, as well as the eventual increase in the retirement age up to 67, a move she says amounts to an “across-the-board cut in benefits.” Click here to continue reading.

If you want to live forever, move to this Italian town

Alan Maisel, a cardiologist and professor at the University of California at San Diego, had long believed a moderate diet, exercise and refraining from smoking were the keys to a long and healthy life. So the first time he went on vacation to Acciaroli — a small village on the southern end of Italy’s Amalfi Coast — in August 2012, he got a bit of a shock.

“I was at the beach, and I saw all these leathernecked, tanned people in their 90s and 100s who looked nine months pregnant and were smoking cigarettes,” the doctor tells The Post.

Intrigued, he began asking questions, and soon found out that the town was home to an extraordinary number of elders. The mayor bragged that they had more 100-year-old residents than any other place in the world.

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“Things didn’t seem to add up: [They were] smoking and fat, but so relaxed and unstressed … At first, I asked if it was the Mediterranean diet, but they do that all over Italy.”

Had Maisel stumbled upon the Fountain of Youth? Acciaroli has a population of only 2,000, yet the village boasts some 300 elders who have reached the age of 100 — and about 20 percent of those centenarians have reached 110. Furthermore, the area has low rates of Alzheimer’s and heart disease — despite a diet filled with cigarettes and wine.

Now Maisel and researchers at UC San Diego have teamed up with the Sapienza University of Rome to figure out why Acciaroli’s residents live so long.

“This place has never been studied before,” says Maisel. “It’s never been infiltrated or expatriated, so we’re planning on looking at their gene pool, doing blood tests, observing their habits — seeing what’s what.”

While the study just launched in March, Maisel has already gleaned some clues from the village’s elders and their way of life. One secret: “Everybody eats rosemary — they all grow it, they use it as a garnish, they use it in oils,” says Maisel. The herb, which home cooks use to garnish pastas and marinate seafood, has long been linked to preventing diseases such as Alzheimer’s and improving brain function and memory. It releases a chemical compound that’s shown to increase blood flow to the brain and head, boosting concentration.Please click here to continue reading

IRS unveils "dirty dozen" list of scams for 2016

Each year, the IRS releases a list of the "Dirty Dozen" tax scams to watch out for during tax season. This year's list, shown below, includes classic scams as well as some new twists.

1. Identity Theft - Tax time brings extra activity among thieves looking for Social Security numbers and other personal information that allows them to falsely claim refunds (not to mention running up bills and draining bank accounts). Be very protective of your personal information.

2. Phishing - The IRS does not e-mail you or direct you to websites regarding any bill without prior contact. Do not be fooled by e-mails encouraging you to click on links to a site in reference to your tax bill; the website may be a fake, designed to gain your personal information.

3. Phone Scams - Con artists sometimes impersonate IRS agents and threaten arrests, deportation, and other unpleasant outcomes unless a bill is paid immediately over the phone. No matter what horrible things you think about our tax system, the IRS does not do business this way. Never give out your personal information over the phone unless you initiated the call and are sure you are dealing with a real IRS agent.

4. Preparation Fraud - Some tax preparers bend the rules in order to get you the highest refund possible. Unfortunately, once you sign and file the return, you are responsible for any errors. If you choose to have others do your taxes, be sure to use a reputable tax preparer.

5. Offshore Tax Avoidance - The IRS is cracking down on hiding money offshore to avoid tax payments. If you find yourself in this position, use the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) to make things right -- or run the risk of severe penalties.

6. Inflated Refunds - Anyone who promises you a big refund without looking at your records first should be avoided. If it sounds too good to be true, guess what? It is.

7. Fake Charities - Before making your donation, check the IRS website to make sure that your donation is going to a qualified charitable organization. Look for knockoff organizations with names, websites, and logos that are similar to well-known legitimate organizations.

8. Padded Deductions/Credits - It's really simple -- do not claim larger deductions than you can justify through receipts or other paperwork. Similarly, make sure you meet eligibility requirements for any tax credits before attempting to claim them.

9. Excessive Business Credit Claims - The above advice goes for businesses as well. Do not claim credits like the research or fuel tax credit unless your business meets the qualifications for those credits.

10. Falsifying Income for Credits - Scam artists can suggest bending the income rules to qualify for tax credits that target lower-income taxpayers, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit. Do not give in to their claims. Never falsify income on a tax return for any reason, regardless of what anybody tells you.

11. Abusive Tax Shelters - By using complicated but authoritative-sounding language, tax scammers can fool people into thinking tax shelters are legitimate when they are not. Seek independent confirmation and outside advice on any scheme designed to limit or avoid taxes.

12. Frivolous Arguments - The IRS is too busy to waste time listening to your claims of being a sovereign nation and therefore enjoying immunity from taxes, or any similar outlandish claims on tax returns. Frivolous tax returns incur a $5,000 penalty, and failure to file penalties can end up being even worse.

The new Stamford Hospital opens in September

STAMFORD — When the new Stamford Hospital opens in September, patients will find large and luxurious single rooms with expansive views, high-tech cardiac care and an emergency department that will be the first in the region to boast specialized pediatric treatment.

The myriad changes that will transform patient care on every one of the 11 floors of the new $450 million hospital were on view during a tour Wednesday.

Construction is about 85 percent complete, and 400 workers were busy laying tile, threading wires 

Then comes rigorous training of staff to care for patients in a hospital that will be vastly bigger and more sophisticated than the one it’s replacing.

No detail was too small for consideration in the quest to improve patient safety, care or comfort, said Kathleen Silard, Stamford Hospital’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

From nursing stations that allow caregivers to keep a closer eye on vulnerable patients to no-slip showers in the bathrooms to state-of-the-art operating rooms with equipment suspended from the ceiling, every aspect of care was “reimagined.”

“A lot of attention was paid to making things very accessible to the staff, so we can increase the amount of time the staff is spending with the patients,” Silard said.

Doctors and nurses had a say in every stage of the process, even visiting mocked-up rooms in a warehouse to critique their design. “We also took a lot of staff with us to visit 15 hospitals across the country to see what new construction would look like,” she said. Please click here to continue reading.

Movie Review—Eye in the Sky

Eye in the Sky

by Peter J. O'Connell

Eye in the Sky. Released (USA): April 2016. Runtime: 102 mins. MPAA Rating: R for some violent images and language.

Terrorists gather in a house in the fetid, teeming slum of Everleigh. Although it is on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, Everleigh is largely inhabited by Somali refugees and is controlled by an Islamist militia. From Sussex, England, hardbitten Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) commands a mission to have Kenyan troops capture the extremists in the Everleigh house.

A drone controlled from Nevada by USAF pilot Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) provides surveillance of the terrorists' meeting site and the surrounding area. Other surveillance devices, including one in the shape of a bird and another in the shape of a flying insect, provide more intel, as does Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi), an Everleigh resident serving as an undercover agent for the anti-terrorist operation. 

The mission to capture the terrorists is changed to a mission to kill them with a drone-directed missile strike when it is discovered that the extremists have considerable explosives in their house and are preparing suicide bombers for what can be presumed to be an attack on a civilian target, similar to others that took place before in Kenya. 

The change of mission requires approval of a committee in London consisting of General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman) and assorted politicians and lawyers. The tangle of issues involved includes the balance between the benefits of foiling the terrorist plot and the negative publicity from the possible “collateral damage” of killing civilians in the area, particularly a young girl who has set up a stand in front of the target house in order to sell bread. The status of some of the plotters as U.K. or U.S. nationals is also a problem. 

Director Gavin Hood ratchets up tension to edge-of-the-seat levels as the debate on the issues proceeds in London while the terrorists' preparations continue in Kenya, and Powell grows impatient in Sussex while Watts develops qualms in Nevada. Innocents may die in Everleigh if there is a missile strike—or elsewhere in Kenya if there is not—and the clock is ticking.

The geographical range of the sites in the narrative grows as consultations take place with figures in Hawaii, D.C., Singapore and Beijing. The ideological range of the London debate reaches from the hardened pragmatism of General Benson to the sternly moralistic and legalistic approach of some of the lawyers concerned about abiding by the rules of engagement to the “cover your butt and pass the buck” attitude of some of the politicians. Director Hood provides spokespersons for each of the positions with time to make their points. But the course of events keeps posing new challenges to all of the characters, wherever located in this divided, yet technologically connected, world. And the technology involved is truly fascinating. 

Eventually, a decision is reached, and the grim consequences of it have to lived with—by those who do not die. As General Benson says: “Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.” The movie's last scene shows a drone in the sky and, perhaps, subliminally suggests that there is also another kind of “eye” up there watching what we mortals do—or don't do—as we struggle to deal with the moral and other dilemmas presented to us. 

Eye in the Sky is a superb film, one that achieves the rare feat of combining all the thrills of an action/suspense movie with the thought-provoking complexities of a challenging drama. The fine script (by Guy Hibbert), efficient direction and uniformly excellent performances, done in an ensemble manner, make those complexities accessible and moving for an audience.

“Footnotes” to the film: (1) Alan Rickman died since completing Eye. The much-admired actor first attracted the attention of American movie audiences as the terrorist leader in Die Hard (1988). (2) Barkhad Abdi was a Somali refugee working as a taxi driver in Minneapolis when he was chosen to play the role of a Somali pirate in Steven Spielberg's Captain Phillips (2013). Abdi received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his performance. (3) Director Gavin Hood plays a role himself in Eye—the commander of the character played by Aaron Paul.      

This 90-year-old has no plans to leave job she’s had for 70 years

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SAN FRANCISCO — Talk about a loyal employee: Elena Griffing has just celebrated her 70th year working for the same San Francisco Bay Area hospital, and she has no plans to retire anytime soon.

Sutter Health Alta Bates Summit Medical Center has marked Griffing’s milestone and her recent 90th birthday, spokeswoman Carolyn Kemp said. But for Griffing, who has held several different positions in her decades of employment, every day on the job is a celebration.

“I can’t wait to come to work every day, this is my hospital,” she said. “I enjoy anything I can do to be of service. Truly, it’s the patient that counts. If it’s helping someone, it’s my bag.”

She isn’t kidding.

If her employment longevity isn’t enough, consider this: She has taken only four days of sick leave in her 70 years of work. Please click here to continue reading.

Positive Thoughts About Aging Enhance Health And May Help Ward Off Alzheimer's

In a country where senility and incontinence have become tropes of aging, at least for Hollywood and Madison Avenue, it's no wonder many people are stressed about the prospect of aging out of a younger, livelier in-group as we all must someday.

A Yale researcher says people who embrace those negative stereotypes may be putting themselves at greater risk of developing one of the most dreaded age-related diseases — Alzheimer's.

A recently published research study led by the Yale School of Public Health demonstrates that people who hold negative beliefs about aging are more likely to have brain changes associated with Alzheimer's disease.

The study, however, also suggests that avoiding negative beliefs about aging, (such as thinking that all elderly people are decrepit), could potentially offer a way to reduce the rapidly rising rate of Alzheimer's disease, a devastating neurodegenerative disorder that causes dementia in more than 5 million people in the United States.

According to the World Health Organization, Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia and contributes to 60 to 70 percent of the 47.5 million cases of dementia that exist worldwide.

The study led by Becca Levy, associate professor of public health and of psychology, is the first to link the brain changes related to Alzheimer's disease to a cultural-based psychosocial risk factor and not simply biological aging. The findings were published online in December in the journal Psychology and Aging.

"We believe it is the stress generated by the negative beliefs about aging that individuals sometimes internalize from society that can result in pathological brain changes," said Levy. "Although the findings are concerning, it is encouraging to realize that these negative beliefs about aging can be mitigated and positive beliefs about aging can be reinforced, so that the adverse impact is not inevitable."

The researchers found that people in the study who held more negative beliefs about aging had a greater decline in the volume of the hippocampus, a part of the brain that is critical to long-term memory formation and connecting emotions and the senses, including sounds and scents, to memory.

The hippocampus is a name derived from the Greek words hippos, or horse, and kampos, which means sea monster, because of its resemblance to a sea horse. The hippocampus is one of the first areas of the brain to show damage related to Alzheimer's.

Yale's researchers also found significantly greater numbers of two other brain abnormalities commonly associated with Alzheimer's among those holding more negative beliefs about aging: protein clusters or amyloid plaques between brain cells and neurofibrillary protein tangles.

The problem for those of us holding negative beliefs about aging is that we will eventually see ourselves through that lens and will be none too happy about it. The worry and anxiety, aka stress, that we'll experience trying to slip past our negative beliefs about the inevitable will prove to be little more than a waste of mental energy.

"We know these are taken in at a young age and are reinforced over time," Levy said of the negative stereotypes that over time can become part of a negative self-image. Please click here to continue reading.

As bleak as the news is about negative beliefs about aging can be there is a simple way to improve the picture. It really all depends on how you look at it.

"Bolstering the positive can have a beneficial impact," said Levy whose scientific interest in aging began in Japan, an industrialized nation that according to the World Health Organization had the highest overall life-expectancy average in the world in 2013 of 84 years. The United States was ranked 34th at 79 years.

Movie Review—God's Not Dead 2

God's Not Dead 2

by Peter J. O'Connell

God's Not Dead 2. Released: April 2016. Runtime: 120 mins. MPAA Rating: PG for some thematic elements. 

In recent years the “culture wars” roiling the country have manifested themselves on the silver screen as well on other battlefields. Various moviemakers have brought forth “faith-based films” or exercises in “Christian cinema” to challenge the liberalism and secularism that have generally prevailed in Hollywood products since the 1960s.

Some of the faith-based and Christian works have addressed Biblical or “endtime” subjects. Others have advanced a generalized but positive view of spirituality. Some have directly confronted various contemporary threats to traditional beliefs. One such film was God's Not Dead (2014), which dealt with the response of a college student, a Christian, to an aggressively atheistic professor's attacks on religion. 

Now God's Not Dead 2, by the same director, Harold Cronk, presents a story of an Arkansas public high school teacher, a Christian, who ends up in much trouble because of a comment that she makes in class. The teacher is Grace Wesley (Melissa Joan Hart), a kind and gentle young woman who also cares for her wise old grandfather (played by Pat Boone). During a history discussion in her class at Martin Luther King, Jr., High, Grace answers a student's question about Dr. King's philosophy of nonviolent action by linking it to a principle enunciated by Jesus in the Gospels. 

Because religious specificity is prohibited by her school, Grace is reprimanded by the principal (Robin Givens). A secularist couple, whose daughter (Hayley Orrantia) is in Grace's class, complains to the school board, though the daughter herself likes Grace. The school board demands that Grace apologize for the remark or be fired. Grace, who feels that the remark is appropriate in a historical discussion, refuses and is fired. The issue ends up in court, with considerable media coverage and contending demonstrations outside the courthouse. (Who knew that Arkansas was such a hotbed of anti-Christian sentiment?)

In court Grace is represented by the young and handsome Tom Endler (Jesse Metcalfe) and the school board by the smirking Peter Kane (Ray Wise, a familiar face of movie and TV villainy). The trial scenes, as with most movie and TV trial scenes over the years, bear little resemblance to what transpires in actual courtrooms. 

One quite interesting aspect of these scenes, however, is the fact that the “expert witnesses” called to testify to the historicity of Biblical accounts of Jesus and his sayings actually are experts from the real world! They include the highly respected scholar Prof. Gary Habermas and James Warner Wallace, a noted former homicide detective, now a pastor and teacher, who applies the technique of “cold case” investigations to the Bible.

While Grace is undergoing her trial and travails, various subplots swirl about, some with little relationship to the main plot—perhaps because they are left over from the first God's Not Dead movie or link to a likely third one. The most important of the subplots involves a friendly, rumpled college chaplain (David A. R. White) and some clerical colleagues (including one played by the late great Fred Dalton Thompson), who face the choice of complying with or resisting a subpoena of their sermons.

The acting in God's Not Dead 2 is serviceable, though Hart's Grace often comes across as more just bland than particularly kind and gentle. The film, of course, is pitched to enspiriting a particular demographic—Christians, particularly evangelicals—that feels under attack in today's America. The movie does not aim to present a subtle and nuanced approach to the culture wars. Nor does it aspire to scale the heights of cinematic artistry or pioneer new film techniques. It is what it is, so just appreciate it for that and enjoy the dialogue with the characters on the screen that some audience members in the evangelical “call and response” tradition sometimes engage in. 

“Footnotes” to the film: (1) God's Not Dead 2 may be the first film to feature in its cast two quondam candidates for a major party's Presidential nomination—Republicans Fred Dalton Thompson and Mike Huckabee (the former Arkansas governor playing himself as a TV news interviewer). (2) It is well worth your while to sit through the closing credits of the movie, for they include a long list, with capsule summaries, of court cases dealing with the religious rights of students and teachers, In fact, it's worth your while to stay past the closing credits, for that is when you will get to see the very last scene of God's Not Dead 2—or, perhaps, the first scene of God's Not Dead 3.    

101 Greatest George Carlin Quotes

The man who once said “life is worth losing” is dead. But his quotes live on. In no particular order here are his 101 best…

1. I don’t have pet peeves — I have major psychotic f.....g hatreds!
2. Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
3. Swimming is not a sport. Swimming is a way to keep from drowning. That’s just common sense! 
4. A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.
5. Have you ever noticed that their stuff is sh.t and your sh.t is stuff? 
6. I wanna live. I don’t wanna die. That’s the whole meaning of life: Not dying! I figured that sh.t out by myself in the third grade.
7. I used to be Irish Catholic. Now I’m an American — you know, you grow.
8. You can’t fight City Hall, but you can goddamn sure blow it up.
9. If the Cincinnati Reds were really the first major league baseball team, who did they play?
10. Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy. 
11. If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
12. No one knows what’s next, but everybody does it.
13. There are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven you can’t say on television. What a ratio that is! 399,993 to 7. They must really be baaaad. They must be OUTRAGEOUS to be separated from a group that large. “All of you words over here, you seven….baaaad words.” That’s what they told us, right? …You know the seven, don’t ya? That you can’t say on TV? ....................................................
14. The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, “You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.”
15. The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.
16. Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it.
17. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money. 
18. Weather forecast for tonight: Dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.
19. If it requires a uniform, it’s a worthless endeavor.
20. If you live long enough, sooner or later everybody you know has cancer.
21. You know the good part about all those executions in Texas? Fewer Texans.
22. Soft rock music isn’t rock, and it ain’t music. It’s just soft.
23. Reminds me of something my third-grade teacher said to us. She said, “You show me a tropical fruit and I’ll show you a ............. from Guatemala.”
24. As soon as someone is identified as an unsung hero, he no longer is. 
25. If a movie is described as a romantic comedy, you can usually find me next door playing pinball. 
26. The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other in opposite directions. 
27. I knew a transsexual guy whose only ambition is to eat, drink, and be Mary. 
28. I put a dollar in a change machine. Nothing changed. 
29. If you’ve got a cat and a leg, you’ve got a happy cat. If you’ve got a cat and two legs, you’ve got a party.
30. You can prick your finger — just don’t finger your........ 
31. By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.
32. Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac Please click here to continue reading.

Researchers build software that can predict your lifespan

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CNN)Imagine if a computer could tell you how many days you had left. 

You might decide to live your life differently -- perhaps spending your money in other ways, or making your health a bigger priority.

Whether you're ready to find out or not, researchers from the University of East Anglia have started a project creating a software that -- among other things -- will be able to predict a person's lifespan.

The researchers argue that knowing when our time is up could be helpful for planning retirement funds, getting better advice from physicians and understanding how drugs treating chronic illness could affect one's lifespan.

They won't be able to provide an exact figure, but they plan to match people by age, sex, health and lifestyle to come up with an educated guess of how many years you have left to live.

Data from 3.4 million patients

"If we have a thousand people with roughly the same kind of conditions and lifestyles and so on, then on average they will live for so many years," Lead researcher Elena Kulinskaya told CNN.

It's a Big Data project, meaning it uses vast amounts of information -- in this case the medical records of 3.4 million British citizens.

"This is GP data, from people who come to see their GPs over many years -- it's routine primary care data," explains Kulinskaya, adding that, "It's absolutely anonymous."

"Big Data is great," says Dr Richard Siow, coordinator of Aging Research at King's College London, a consortium which brings together scholarship and research in aging, "Many companies are using it -- from pharmaceuticals to food distribution companies -- to try and get an overall trend.

"But to apply Big Data to an individual is unrealistic," he adds, "There are so many different variables... you may get overgeneralizations."

Better healthcare

However, Kulinskaya is confident the research could help patients and doctors make better educated decisions about healthcare -- for example by comparing life expectancies of people on different medications. click here to continue reading.