RUSH: The Department of Homeland security yesterday “took to its Twitter account to offer ‘tips’ on how to deal with the winter weather.” Not only do football players not know that they can suffer injuries and get hurt, concussions, sprain their ankles, blow out a hamstring, maybe an ACL, a PCL, an MCL — all kinds of bad things that they didn’t know — now the Department of Homeland Security is offering us tips on how to deal with winter weather, because we otherwise wouldn’t know.

The Big Sis, Janet Napolitano put out the tip sheet it and it says, “During winter storms and extreme cold stay inside during the storm.” When the storm isn’t going on, you can go out. But during the storm, okay, snow, little white flakes that you see out there, maybe sleet, same thing as snow, except it’s ice pellets, makes the streets and sidewalks slippery. Could be fog. When that happens, you are to stay inside. If you don’t stay inside, if you go outside while it’s snowing or sleeting, the next thing it says here is, “Walk carefully on snow and icy walkways.” Genuine Twitter tip sheet from the Department of Homeland Security.

After you’ve been told to stay indoors during the storm, or to walk carefully on snowy icy walkways if you go out during the snowstorm, you’re to next avoid overexertion when you shovel snow. And there’s a reason for that. Overexertion can bring on a heart attack and a heart attack can make you die. And, in fact, heart attacks brought on by overexertion are a major cause of death in the winter because people don’t stay inside like the government says.

So, if you are not going to stay indoors during the storm and if you’re going to go out and you’re walking carefully on the snowy icy walkways, and then if you decide to ignore the tip sheet here and shovel snow, stretch before you go outside. Do some stretching exercises. Isometrics up against the wall. But stretch out because this will lessen the possibility that you could get killed outside by virtue of having a heart attack because you’re overexerting.

And then above all, after all of that, next on the tip sheet, “Stay dry.” If you’re not going to stay indoors during the storm. If you’re going to walk carefully on the snow and ice, you’re not going to overexert, stay dry. When it’s snowing, it’s raining, this goes for a hurricane, too, if it’s windy out there, stay dry. Change wet clothing frequently. If you’re outside walking around on the ice, make sure you go back inside every five minutes and put on a new shirt or something so that you don’t lose your body heat. Wet clothing loses all of its insulating value and you can get a heart attack, if you get wet in the snow or the rain. So change clothes all the time. And there’s even more to this that we didn’t know…