Movie Review: Thank You for Smoking

How in the hell did one of the best comedies of the 21st century get relegated to art house movie theatres? Seriously, Thank You for Smoking is probably the best cast comedy I can think of in the last five years.

Gas to $4.50 by Memorial Day - Updated!

The winter blend is running almost $2.80 here in Tally. The summer blend is more expensive, and demand increases. I'm betting on $3.00 gas here in Tallahassee by Memorial Day. Expect to see $4.00 if there's more than one major hurricane in the Gulf this year. I wonder what the correlation line is between the price of gold per ounce and the average price per gallon of gas at the pump? I'll bet it's closer than the trend line between carbon oxides emissions and average global temperature. 'Course, no one argues that the price of gas drives up the price of gold.

UPDATE
Ok, so gas was at $2.95 today, $3 is a certainty, and I'm bold enough to go for $4.50 - It'll hit $6 if there's a hurricane hit b/t Panama City and Houston this summer.

Pujols Hits 1000...

with a HR against the hated Cubbies, and it was his 11th home run of APRIL!!!

11 HR in 16 games. At this point, more of his hits have landed outside the wall than inside. I wonder how many times that's happened to someone hitting .358 after 53 ABs. In fact, even if he went 3 for his next 7 (.428) and all stayed in, he'd still have an equal number of hits inside and outside the park after 60 ABs whilst improving his average to .366.

Of course, he's gonna start racking up the walks come mid-May or so. Still, at this pace - 1 HR per 5 ABs - and averaging 10 ABs every 3 games, he would hit SIX more HRs in APRIL!!! That's with 10% of the season in the bag.

Innnsane

How Apropos to the Current Hot Issue...

Today is the 170th anniversary of the defeat of Santa Anna by Sam Houston at San Jacinto. Remember Goliad! Remember The Alamo!

UPDATE - APROPOS OF NOTHING:
That Santa Anna is the same guy referred to as "The Napoleon of the West", which made even more sense after the Battle of San Jacinto seeing as Santa Anna and Napoleon could best Spaniards and the French, but had no luck against English speakers.

Chernobyl Bad for People, Good for Animals

Interesting BBC story about wildlife in the no-go zone around Chernobyl. Wildlife has been hugely resurgent in the area, especially in the last 5 years. To the point where birds are nesting on the sarcophagus! Of course, the animals are, according to the story, "too radioactive for humans to eat safely - but otherwise healthy." Excuse me? The wolf and lynx population seem to be growing just fine eating irradiated animals. It helps keep the e. coli incidence down.

Of course, you gotta have a moonbat quote in a BBC story, here it is:

"I have wondered if the small volumes of nuclear waste from power production should be stored in tropical forests and other habitats in need of a reliable guardian against their destruction by greedy developers"
-James Lovelock in a 2001 Daily Telegraph article

Sounds like a great idea, Jimbo! That way us evil, irradiated specists could finally hunt a couple of species to extinction without the Greenpeacers hanging around and protesting.

Moonbat Greens Counterattack

I guess too many of us evil Sapiens-loving, specist bastards said nice things about Mr. Patrick Moore's editorial in the Washington Post. BBC and ABC both have reports playing up Chernobyl to maximum effect.

In Case you're keeping score:
IAEA says: 56 Deaths from Chernobyl, perhaps as many as 4,000 directly attributable.
Greenpeace says: 60,000 early deaths in region, going to 140,000.

IAEA uses science measuring symptoms on a per person basis, Greenpeace uses statistics about probable cancer incidence as well as psychological problems to reach their number. So empircal science on the one hand, WAG on the other. No one who buys the Greenpeace report needs to be making fun of the ID crowd for using pseudo-scientific arguments to advance wishful thinking.

A Rarity

When a founder of Greenpeace and I agree on something, it must be right!

Mr. Patrick Moore writes in the Washington Post about the benefits of Nuclear Power for power production in the US. It is nice to see some intellectual integrity from the environmentalism camp on this issue. More works like this from the Greens and I might have to stop summarily dismissing them as specist traitors with nothing positive to bring to the table who want us to die young, malnourished, and painfully.

Thank you Mr. Moore.

Opening Day!

I'm not too into baseball. I mean, raised by a father who wants a solo bugle rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" played at his funeral. My beloved Cards mashed the Phils. I still think any season where Edmonds, Pujols, and Rolen play 125 games each and are healthy for the postseason will break all records for offensive production. We'll see. Actually, I'd take a wild card and all three healthy for the postseason.

It'll be interesting to see whether Pujols can go 16-44 (.363) and get his 1000th hit in 3000 at bats. If he stays healthy he should be at about 1200 hits, 240 HR, 750 R, 750 RBI. Which would put him right at his AVERAGE. The man's a machine. He's been good for 190+H/40HR/125R/120RBI every year since he got to the league! Heh. Only 20 more seasons like that and he'll be closing in on Pete Rose for hits. Gotta have a couple of 45+ HR years to get his name near the top of that list. We'll see. And don't even get me started on his lifetime OPS and the fact that he's +10 BB/SO in the average year.

Gotta love opening day stats: Pujols AVG 1.000, OPS 4.800, 2 AB, 3R, 4RBI, 2BB