Tuesday Coffee
Tuesday Coffee
Good morning Tuesday! Where does the time go? And why does it have to go so fast? This is the last Tuesday of September…for those into numbers, there are 96 days left until the end of the year. Today is day 269 of 2017 and we are well into the 39th week. Worse still, with Trump showing clear signs of being insane, we might not get to January 1,2018 in one piece…
Coffee Humour
Coffee and Cancer
Good news and bad news! First the good news: apparently the World Health Organization (WHO) recently took coffee off the list of foods and substances that can possibly cause cancer. They did this in June of this year.
To be honest, I did NOT even know that coffee was on the list in the first place! With all of the ‘scare’ studies being flaunted in MSM, it must have slipped my radar. Not only is coffee off the list, but it is now being cited as being a possible prevention substance against cancer(!). You go figure that one out…and why did they have to wait so long before doing so?
Now for the bad news.
Apparently coffee is not off the hook yet. It has to do with a naturally occurring substance – acrylamide – that is produced when ever you brown, roast or what ever bread, coffee, meat and dozens of other things.
The glucose and some of the amino acids combine to form acrylamide, which is on the cancer causing lists of some watch dog organizations. It was only recently discovered. Now a number of more vocal health watch dog organizations want labels put on coffee, bread, meat, etc. Many think that they are being too alarmist, as the quantities of acrylamide produced in these foods is extremely low.
Arguments Pro and Con
Now many fear that this might get out of hand and many of the foods that we eat – and are organic – will have labels on them even though these foods are beneficial to our health. There are, however, many who argue that any risk – no matter how small – must be labelled as such for the population’s knowledge and well being.
Personally, I don’t have a position yet. But at the same time, I don’t want to be targetted by born-again health fanatics who wake up one morning and realize for the first time that LIFE is risky. We all know it is…walking across the street has inherent risks. Driving a bicycle to the local store to buy a lottery ticket has as much chance of you being killed enroute as is of winning the damn lottery! Get over it!
Understanding Risk
David Spiegelhalter is a world famous Cambridge researcher / statistician and professor on understanding public risk. He thinks that much of what appears in MSM is hogwash when it comes to health scares and he argues in favour of a sensible balance living your life not going out of your way to avoid risk taking:
Chess, Hou Yifan and Statistics
I kind of have mixed feelings about writing about this topic, but I think someone has to speak out against Hou Yifan’s recent treatment in English tournaments. It all began in Gibraltar 2017 when Hou Yifan made worldwide headlines protesting what she then considered deliberately unfair pairings:
And now at the Isle of Man tournament, Hou Yifan is once again finding herself being forced into playing only against women. And no one is taking any personal responsibility. Saying it is just the pairings does not crack it any more.
You don’t need to be a statistician to know that in 14 tournament games (10 in Gibraltar and 4 in IOM), getting 11 women players is something like your chances of being able to hold your breath on a trip to the moon and back and surviving.
To be continued….