Baloney. Dishonest baloney at that.

So says Christopher Monckton:

As a contributor to the IPCC’s 2007 report, I share the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Yet I and many of my peers in the British House of Lords – through our hereditary element the most independent-minded of lawmakers – profoundly disagree on fundamental scientific grounds with both the IPCC and my co-laureate’s alarmist movie An Inconvenient Truth, which won this year’s Oscar for Best Sci-Fi Comedy Horror.

Read it and weep, Al.

Went to NYC today to see Jersey Boys. For me, it was the third time. Yep, it’s that good. This was a bus trip run by a veterans post in the next town. Of course, when the bus arrived back at the vets’ post, it was cocktail time. I got to taste yet a new vodka, called Zyr. Quite excellent, I must say.

It was a good day, but now I’m draggin’ ass.

Update: I have fixed the repetitive phrases, lack of a title and the wrong link. The guy who told me about Zyr vodka warned me about how it can sneak up on ya. Obviously, he was right.

A week or so ago, I attended a party at a fancy catering place. The evening included cocktails, dinner and music being played by a local group that obviously plays these kinds of parties regularly. I listened. They were quite good.

Some of the licks the bass player was playing caught my attention, so I focused on him a bit. The first thing I noticed was that he was a lefty. That’s not all that unusual; Paul McCartney, a pretty famous bass player, was a lefty.

The next thing I noticed was that that the bass player wasn’t playing a bass made for lefties, but rather he was playing a right-hand bass, but turned upside down. Although I didn’t recall ever having seen a bass guitar player do that, I have seen left handed guitar players do that quite often. They simply flip the guitar over and restring it (i.e. reverse the strings) for left-hand playing, as can be seen in the case of Jimi Hendrix here.

OK, so I was thinking that this bass player was doing a Jimi Hendrix thing with the bass, but the problem was that his fingers were in the wrong places to be making the sounds I was hearing. WTF?

I looked closer, and I’ll be damned. He was playing the bass upside down, with the STRINGS upside down too. He simply flipped a righty bass upside down and played it that way as a lefty.

Watching him play (and he was damned good) was twisting my mind in all sorts of directions.

I felt I had to share this amazing thing with someone. I saw a colleague standing at the bar, and here’s about how it went:

Me: Hey, did you check out that bass player?

Him: (looks at bass player) Yeah, what about him?

Me: Well, for openers, he’s a lefty.

Him:

Me:

Him: How about those Giants?

Undaunted, I sought out another person with whom to share my amazement at what I was seeing and hearing.

Me: Hey, did you check out that bass player?

Him: Which one is he?

Me: He’s the guy on the left.

Him: (looks at bass player) Yeah, do you know him or something?

Me: No, I don’t know him, but did you notice that he’s a lefty?

Him: How can you tell?

Me: (Trying to think of way to answer the question without using words like “fret board” or “headstock”). Well, look at the guitar player next to him.

Him: The guy playing the red guitar?

Me: Yeah, that guy — the guy on the right. You see how his guitar is pointing to the left?

Him: Oh, yeah. So he’s a lefty?

Me: No. He’s a righty. Look at the bass player — the guy on the left. His guitar is pointing to the right.

Him: So, the guy on the left is a righty?

Me: No, he’s a lefty.

Him: His guitar is pointing to the right and he’s a lefty? I don’t get it.

Me:

Him:

Me: How about those Giants?

This kind of shit happens to me a lot.

I worked late. I’m tired. I’m wired. And, I’m more than a little torqued off with the political landscape.

I’ve decided what I will do on Tuesday. I figure there ought to be at least one candidate in November who believes in capitalism and the proper role of the federal government. I hope that of the dozen republicans in this state at least seven of them feel the same way.

Socialism is simply not my bag.

Simi Valley, California.
Senator John McCain, the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, stunned his supporters today with his announcement that he is dropping out of the presidential race for “purely personal reasons.” He thanked his supporters and urged that they get behind Senator Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency.

The Arizona Senator stated, “My friends, today I am asking you to give your full support to the candidacy of Senator Hillary Clinton. She and I are of the same view when it comes to the important issues of our time, such as taxation of the rich and the plight of the undocumented workers in the United States. With respect to the war in Iraq, my friends, please remember that Senator Clinton originally supported the war, and I am confident that she will come around after the election. She will make a wonderful president.”

Yes, sports fans, it has been more than four years since PRS has hosted Celebrity Boxing, so I think it is time for another evening of high-profile slugfests, which, as in the past, feature the matchup and the guaranteed outcome.

The Match
Senator Chris “I’m Grey and OK” Dodd vs. Senator Joe “Plugs” Biden

The Result
In a curious match, where both parties agreed to talk at each other rather than actually fight, Senator Biden wins the decision, largely because he plagiarized the patter of Cassius Clay Muhammad Ali.

The Match
Dick “12 Gauge” Cheney vs. Nancy “Scalpel” Pelosi

The Result
The match is halted by the ring physician when seconds after the sound of the opening bell, Pelosi sneezed and her face split in two.

The Match
Mitt “GQ” Romney vs. John “Cheeks” McCain

The Result
Romney wins by a knockout when, in the second round, he hit McCain in the jaw with a bag of money sending McCain down for the count. After the bout, McCain filed a formal complaint with the Boxing Commissioner claiming that that Romney “bought” the victory. In an ironic twist, the Commissioner ruled that, while Romney violated the rules, he should be granted amnesty as a matter of compassion.

The Match
Barack “Yo Mama” Obama vs. Hillary “She Devil” Clinton

The Result
Midway through the fifth round, Obama falls to the canvas. The referee counts him out. Only after his corner men were unable to revive him, did they discover that he had succumbed to a fatal knife wound in his back. The D.C. Coroner ruled the death a suicide.

Yesterday Mrs. Parkway, daughter, son-in-law and I crossed the Hudson River to spend some time in the Big Apple and to use the show tickets that were gifted to us by daughter and son-in-law. Seeing as how I hate to drive into New York and Mrs. Parkway would sooner face a firing squad than drive into New York, Son-in-Law did the honors.

Rather than send you into Snoozeville with a meandering narrative, here are the high points:

Dinner at Becco. The restaurant was established by “Lidia” of television and cook book fame. Reservations a must. Very good food. Bring lots of money, unless you’re having the spaghetti special and a Coke.

After Dinner Drinks at Firebird. Whoa! It’s a serious Russian Restaurant, but we weren’t there for the food. I insisted that we go there (based on the recommendation of a colleague), because they serve more than one hundred kinds of vodka. … mercy

The signature drink is the honey vodka, a concoction made on the premises using a secret recipe of honey and multiple spices. It is served in a frozen, tiny flute, and it is most excellent. As good as the honey vodka is, I would not recommend planning to get shitfaced drinking it, because it (and all the other vodkas on the menu) go for twelve dollars a rattle. Yes, that’s twelve bucks for something like an ounce and a half of booze. Oh, and should you want that vodka turned into a martini (i.e. a dash of vermouth, shaken or stirred), you can add another fiver, making it a seventeen dollar drink.

The Show. We saw Mary Poppins, a Mrs. Parkway fave. Here’s the goofy thing. Having never seen the movie, I figure I was the only person in the audience who had no idea what the heck the story was about. Worked out pretty well for me, I’d say. The singing and dancing were spectacular, as was Mary’s “flying” all over the stage. It was a fun show, and I recommend it to anyone coming into New York with children.

The Parking. I figure that Johnny Sack must have the parking gig sewn up in New York, because the ransom for four or five hours of parking on a Sunday night was a mere $29.00.

Hey, it’s the Theater District, yo.

Here’s how the “Great White Way” looks when you hold your cell phone camera over your head and shoot a picture.

Read this, and try to suppress your gag reflex.

I have often said that if an average citizen had a background like hers, he/she wouldn’t be considered trustworthy enough to be hired as a supermarket cashier. Neither would Bill.

It is difficult to imagine anything more frightening than a former New Jersey Hudson County political boss being a heartbeat away from the presidency. Then again, the president whose heartbeat would keep him in the second chair is equally as frightening.

Click.