Author: Eric Scheie

Quick question. Can anyone tell me why e-cigarettes are so much worse than marijuana? I mean other than “BECAUSE THEY ARE”? Not to be judgmental or anything (as I don’t believe in substance regulation), but I’d just like to know…

Just received an interesting email from a friend: We don’t even have an election yet, but (and as M. Simon reminded me) it looks as if it’s heating up. Considering the substantial New York Times coverage of the email scandal, I’d say Hillary’s enemies are hardly limited to Republicans. But regardless of who her enemies…

President Obama recently made some disingenuous remarks that shed light on the thinking of those who think prohibitory laws actually work. During an event in South Carolina, President Obama told students that he was disappointed that Congress refused to pass gun restrictions after the Sandy Hook elementary massacre. […] He explained that he was still trying to…

Earlier today I watched Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech about the danger of Iranian nukes. Not only did I agree with him, but I think the Obama administration is engaged in Neville Chamberlain style appeasement. I don’t watch the news all that much, but I sometimes like to contrast Fox and CNN coverage. Fox is…

I read a long and depressing Atlantic article about the Islamic State which offers an interesting glimpse into their mindset. Example: In September, Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s chief spokesman, called on Muslims in Western countries such as France and Canada to find an infidel and “smash his head with a rock,” poison…

I am having a huge amount of trouble making sense of a Black History Month call by Vice President Biden (or was it Obama?) for “doing something” that’s “worthy of emancipation”: Vice President Biden used Tuesday remarks at a Black History Month event to call for action addressing “the 1 percent” and income inequality. “A…

A story about a recent home invasion here in Michigan illustrates what the ruling classes want the rest of us to do when burglars invade our homes: Her husband was working when the woman saw two male suspects knocking on the front door of her home in the 800 block of West VW Avenue around…

I don’t think it’s a good idea to question public officials on their religious beliefs, including the president’s. I’m not defending him or his record, but if he says he’s a Christian, what’s the point of inquiring further? What Obama said: I am a Christian. So, I have a deep faith. So I draw from…

Nice closed system explained here: Racism has become an all-purpose explanation for bad black outcomes, be they social or economic. If you disagree and are white, you’re a bigot. If you disagree and are black, you’re a sell-out. Jason Riley (the guy who said that) is black, which means he is a sell-out, as are any…

M. Simon’s post about Vietnam reminded me what it was like to be a college student during that period. Many young men whose parents could not afford college (or whose grades weren’t good enough) were drafted and sent to war. Why? Because there was a war,  and because there was a draft, that’s why. It…

Lots of people have memory issues, and there are many things I have forgotten. That’s the nature of memory loss. What’s more interesting is the current debate (among scientists, no less) about a different kind of memory failure: the creation of false memories: While some are accusing Brian Williams of deliberately lying about his account…

That’s what they’re doing, the goal being to transform a graph showing downward temperatures into a graph showing upward temperatures. The process is called “adjusting the data.” And (surprise!) the math has issues: The statistical methods used in the paper are so bad as to merit use in a class on how not to do…

The savage entity which calls itself the Islamic State is behaving as if it has entered an awful contest over which horrific torture-murder is the “best.” For these sick bastards, mere beheading with a knife is not enough; they enjoy stoning people to death, amputations of arms and legs, raping and enslaving women, throwing homosexuals…

In two posts now, I have discussed the growing problem of coyote-wolf hybrids. Unlike coyotes, and unlike wolves, these animals are unafraid of man. And they are capable of doing serious damage. Quite recently, they have attacked two horses, one of which was a police horse, the other of which had to be put down.…

As a believer in personal autonomy (provided others are not harmed), I’m all for the right to commit suicide, whether unassisted or assisted. But this worries me: When a “right to die” becomes settled law, soon the right translates into a duty. That was the message sent by Oregon, which legalized assisted suicide in 1994,…

Racial fatigue? Really? It’s hard to imagine anyone in the United States actually being tired of race, but whatever.

Researching my ancestry recently, I discovered my grandfather’s draft card. I wasn’t looking for anything more than the names and birth dates of his parents, but I happened to notice the lower left hand corner, which instructed as follows: If person is of African descent, tear off this corner I had not known about that…

After so many years demonstrating that Prohibition does not work, you might think that the government people would have learned that by now. But no. Like Communism, Prohibitionism us one of those stubbornly insane memes that seems here to stay. Its proponents echo the endless mistake and an endless tired rant: Trust us! This time,…

A local rec center has multiple TV monitors with multiple channels, so that people can exercise or relax while watching their preferred channel. Sound fair? Not if certain activists get their way: A couple’s objections to Fox News broadcasts at the Meri Lou Murray Recreation Center in Ann Arbor has Washtenaw County officials considering a…

The Mayor of Rotterdam has renewed what little faith I still had: The Moroccan-born mayor of Rotterdam has said Muslim immigrants who do not appreciate the way of life in Western civilisations can ‘f*** off’. Ahmed Aboutaleb, who arrived in the Netherlands aged 15, spoke out in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris…