The Rules

Okay, so let's say you're young military men, or sorta-military men, in an exotic foreign locale. Now I'll tell you right now that patriotic young men in an exotic foreign locale, it's just sorta expected that they're gonna do some flag wavin', if ya know what I mean. Nobody ought to be surprised about that. Ya got young horny guys who got a pistol and a gun, at some point in time they're gonna put down that pistol and perk up that gun, if ya get my drift.

But man, there's some rules about that sorta thing, rules that aren't written down, but that have been around since George Washington's troops were tramping around Pennsylvania and New Jersey tryin' to keep away from the British. First of all, you do it sorta discrete. You don't do the flag-wavin' at your own motel, for cryin' out loud! Next, don't stiff the local talent. That's bad form ugly American territory and always trouble, especially when the local talent has the cops on the payroll. And finally, they know rule #2 too, meaning they're gonna charge you out the yazoo for their services. If you can't deal with that, Kleenex are a man's best friend. Just sayin'.

Youngsters today. Just no respect for time-honored rules and tradition. Harumph!

-- Badtux the Patriotic Penguin

Systems of tuning

Equal tempered: a scale where each note is an identical frequency ratio step from the previous one.

Syntonic tempered: the frequency ratio of each musical interval is a product of powers of an octave and a tempered perfect fifth.

Meantone tempered: A system of syntonic tuning with a flattened fifth.

Well tempered: An attempt to create a tuning scale where any chord can be transposed to a new key without "wolf" notes that cause disharmony to the ears.

Evil tempered: Banjo tuning.

That is all ;).

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Welcome to Pi Day

Given the attachment of Southern legislators to objective reality, I am awaiting the introduction of a bill in some Southern legislature to define pi legislatively as exactly 3.14. Because all those other digits after the 4 are just liberal lies intended to confuse our innocent little school children.

- Badtux the Snarkily Cynical Penguin

Surging Santorum in Alabama and Mississippi

Sorry, just had to type in that title, because we know all about Santorum, heh ;).

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

It's International Women's day!

Yes, that's right, 50% of the human race has a *whole day* all for itself!

A dude at work asked, "so when's International *MEN'S* Day?". And I replied, "That's the other 364 days a year." Just sayin' ;).

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Puppets and H8

So, a federal appeals court has upheld the overturn of California's Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage. Are puppets getting gay married yet? Has every straight couple divorced and married their family dog? Wait, wait, I got it... here's the sum total of everything that happens if gay marriage is legal:

Or maybe U.S. infantry soldiers will don pink Crocs and dance, dance, dance the night away. Oh wait...

Alrighty, then!

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Baffling Carolina

So we had Dopey Dwarf drop out of the dwarf-race, and now it's Grumpy Dwarf leading over Sleazy Dwarf in South Carolina? WTF?

Poor Sleazy just can't get a break. First we learn that Frothy, not Sleazy, won Iowa. Now Grumpy is poised to win South Carolina. Of course, the core problem is that while Sleazy is skeezy, he's also Mormon. Mormons tend to *not* be fat stupid ignorant devout welfare whores, thus can't be *real* conservatives, right? Right?!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

The French conspiracy

So Newt Gingrinch's SuperPAC is running ads in South Carolina blasting Romney because Romney can... speak French?

But hey, maybe the Grinch has a point. If not for France helping us out during the French Revolution, we'd have an actual real national anthem that can be sung by mere mortals, rather than the screech-inducing ode to fireworks that is our current national anthem, which trips up far too many pop tarts who attempt to scream it out at the beginning of football games. Not to mention that football would be played with round balls, kicked with your foot, rather than being some bizarre mashup of rugby, wrestling, and line-dancing. And if not for the French, we'd all speak English.

So thanks for nothing, France. Seriously.

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Thought for the day

If the GOP could get away with digging up embalmed Ronald Reagan and running him for President again, they would. Embalmed Ronald Reagan would probably appear more life-like than Mitt Romney anyhow (dude is almost as robotic as his wife, the killbot from Andromeda Galaxy).

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Victory!

We won in Iraq. Which is why our last troops in Iraq sneaked out to Kuwait at 2AM without telling anybody.

So victory is celebrated nowadays by sneaking out at night, not by a big celebration and victory parade as you exit triumphantly? Gosh, things sure have changed over the last 70 years!

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

If this is what victory looks like, what would defeat look like? Just askin!

A most FAHbulous candidate

Cut out a 'n' and turn it upside down to make a 'u' and paste it in place... and *that*, my friends, is a candidate that could shake up the GOP race. Heh.

- Badtux the Easily Amused Penguin

H/T

Trials are overrated

I mean, they sometimes result in people going free. When everybody knows that the police would *never* arrest an innocent person, and thus this results in dusky fellers walkin' the streets who ought to be in jail, not outside jail leering at our white womens and taunting us good God-fearin' white men with their long... err... trombones.

It just ain't right, ain't right I say! Which is why we need this law that says the military can lock up anybody, any time, without trial, even an American citizen, just by claiming that said citizen is a "terrorist". I mean, I feel terrorized by them dusky-skinned fellers, and by them young hippie folks with their drum circles and shit too, so why shouldn't we be able to lock one of'em up without trial anytime some white person somewhere feels threatened? I mean, it ain't as if they're real Americans, god-fearing white male Americans, after all!

Now, some fellers say, "well, they can pass this law, but the Supreme Court will just say it violates the Constitution and nullify it." You mean a Supreme Court packed with Republican-nominated judges? *SNORT!* All I gotta say is, are you fucking kiddin' me? Really? Alrighty, then!

-- Badtux the Republican Penguin

Please sign this petition

It will be read and acted on by White House staffers if we obtain sufficient signatures. Please, this is a very important issue, and if you truly care about your nation, you should sign it ASAP.

-- Badtux the Tongue-in-beak Penguin

A non-response response

Some notes: Rugged Ridge is an importer of Chinese-manufactured Jeep parts. Bushwacker is an American company that claims you should buy their product because they're made in America. So who gives better customer service? Well, let's see: > ________________________________________
> From: Badtux
> Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2011 10:52 PM
> To: Customer Care
> Subject: Replacement of a single damaged component
>
> I have a LJ and flat flares. I ran the passenger front flare into a tree
> while offroading and crumpled it. No big deal, it's a Jeep, I just
> straightened it back out and screwed it back on with a bigger washer
> where the screw pulled through the flare and all is well. Except now I
> want to sell this Jeep and that flare looks wrinkled. Is there any way I
> can buy just that piece (the flat C-shaped piece)? Your retailers don't
> stock components, just whole sets, so they're no help here...

On Oct 17, 2011, at 9:21 AM, Customer Care wrote:

> Hi Badtux, Thank you for contacting Bushwacker. You can purchase a front pair from your local retailer. This is much better then purchasing a complete set of 4 flares.
> The part should be 10055-07 >

> Sincerely, >

> (redacted)
> Customer Care
> Bushwacker, Inc.
>
> Due to the large volumes of email we receive, please reply to all with history and keep your responses at the top of the email.
>

To: Bushwacker Customer Care:

Hello, thank you for your non-responsive response. I remembered that I had three members of a set of Rugged Ridge 7" oversize flares in storage and purchased the missing flare (ironically the same one -- passenger front) from Rugged Ridge via their vendor Quadratec, and am replacing your flares with the Rugged Ridge flares. Again, thank you for your lack of service.

Sincerely,
Badtux

BTW, the fender flare came in today -- the day after I ordered it, drop-shipped from Rugged Ridge. Yeppers, appears that the Chinese have better customer service than the Americans. So I should support the American company... why?

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Thank you, Obama

President Obama today announced a plan to help young people who can't meet the payments on their student loans due to the shitty economy we have right now. Obama's plan lets these young people refinance their loans into a single loan at current interest rates.

Thank you, Obama. Now our young people, rather than having FIVE loans they have no hope in hell of paying back, will only have ONE loan they have no hope in hell of paying back. Hip hip hoooray!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Slave labor: The new cool

One county in Georgia has a solution for those outrageous salaries that firefighters are getting: Convict them of crimes, send them to prison, then assign them back to firehouses as prison laborers. Pure genius! If only the good colonels of the Old Confederacy had been so ingenious, they coulda kept slavery going in the South, like, forEVAH!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

(Who doesn't look good in stripes, thus is glad he's not in Georgia).

And in the news today....

• Francisco Franco is still dead.
• Chris Christie is still not running for President.
• Apple released details of the new iPhone 4S. The "S" stands for "Suck".

That is all.

-- Badtux the Snarky Newsflash Penguin

The search continues

The GOP punditry, having fallen out of love with Governor Goodhair after discovering that Rick Perry is dumber than a box of rocks and doesn't clean up well for the general public (as vs. Texans, who are a breed apart as they are all too apt to insist), is on the lookout for a new candidate. They've approached Governor Chris Christie (R-Asshole) and Christie gave them the New Jersey Salute, which looks an awful lot like the New York City Salute, except with more vigor (let us just say that if you deprived Christie of the middle finger on his right hand, you'd immediately halve his vocabulary :). Christie might be an asshole, bully, and just general right-wing self-entitled jerk, but he ain't a moron and he ain't crazy -- he don't want nothing to do with the current goat rodeo that is the GOP presidential race.

So who's the next person who's going to jump into the GOP race? Some pundits mutter about the Wasilla Grifter, but Sarah Dumb and Tall ain't *that* dumb either -- running for Preznit would interfere with her grifting. But never fear, Fixer over at Alternate Brain has come up with the perfect Republican candidate for President. He's over the hill, washed up, has a fan base of millions of grey haired wanna-be rebels, is crazier than a box full of cats in a carwash, and so dumb he'd probably drown in that carwash 'cause he'd forget to roll up his windows. That perfect candidate is, of course...

Ted Nugent

Of course.

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Thought for today

"I can never tell if the person playing the bagpipe is any good at it or not. I'm convinced nobody can, and all the bagpipe players out there are having big laugh about how bad they are and nobody knows it."

-- Pita

Bonus music: The Red Hot Chili Pipers.

Michelle Bachmann and the Message from God

Michelle Bachmann opened her crazy trap and opined that the recent East Coast earthquake and hurricane were a message from God.

Dear Michelle: If God is omnipotent enough to send an earthquake or a hurricane to "send a message", why can't He just send an email or an IM or even a Twitter tweet? What, the keys on these keyboards are too small for His big giant omnipotent God fingers or something? But... but He's GOD, right? He can just *create* him some little fingers to press the keys if he wants to, right? I mean, you're sayin' that He can create the world, and dwarfs, and everything else in it, but He can't even send a fucking TEXT MESSAGE?

Lame, dude. Just sayin'.

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin