Author: Eric Scheie

Via Glenn Reynolds, I just learned that the best diet might be to cut out carbohydrates and eat like a cougar. But not long ago, I also read about about a book postulating that eating lots of carbs is the way to be thin. Might that work for cougars? Has anyone tried caging them and…

This will seem like a self-indulgent and frivolous post, as I’m not one of those “here’s what I ate for breakfast” type bloggers, but I decided to write it anyway, because the technology involved has helped me, and I thought it might be of assistance to some of the readers. I like rice, and I…

Ryan Mauro has a very thoughtful discussion of a TV show I’d never heard of in an essay titled “A Sermon Inspired by The Real World: Washington, D.C. — A bisexual Christian on MTV’s reality show illustrates the true meaning of the faith.” I don’t normally associate MTV with bisexual Christians (whom I assume could…

This is an ominous development, and I don’t think it’s being widely reported: WASHINGTON – Ex-cons who converted to Islam in New York and other state prison systems have turned up in Yemen as Al Qaeda terror recruits, a new Senate report says. The focus on ex-cons was part of an intensified effort by Al…

I don’t know what qualifies Germany or Germans as the world’s experts on American politics, but that seems to be one of the dominant memes these days. In a piece titled “Obama Mia” in the Wall Street Journal, I read about a loopy German musical glorifying President Obama, and promoting the personality cult surrounding him:…

From Bill Clinton’s former White House special counsel Lanny J. Davis comes a good question: The question is, will we stop listening to the strident, purist base of our party who seem to prefer defeat to winning elections and no change at all if they don’t get all the change they want. As someone who…

Barnes and Noble keeps getting in trouble with people who want to boycott the store — not so much for selling the wrong books, but for improper placement of them. So I thought that in the interest of helping all parties laugh at themselves, I would try to come up with new and improved suggestions…

In what I consider an early sign of optimism over the Coakley-Brown election results, CNN’s commentators don’t look happy right now. They are talking about early signs showing a Republican victory, while a stressed-out looking Paul Begala carries on about how Ted Kennedy would have won big. (So does that mean that if Brown wins,…

I was a bit surprised to read that the City of Detroit is dumping raw sewage into nearby rivers and streams, because, well, that’s the sort of thing that’s not supposed to happen in advanced Western countries: Metro Detroit’s outdated sewage systems regularly violate the law by dumping raw and partially treated human waste into…

Before the race between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino had not been on my radar screen. Recently, though, his breathtakingly demagogic statements about the election forced me to pay attention. According to Menino, Massachusetts voters who support Scott Brown are doing so not because they want him to win (or because…

While I have briefly touched on the CPAC kerfluffle (Liberty University’s Matt Barber and the boycott of CPAC over a gay conservative group being a co-sponsor), I really didn’t get into the specifics — especially about the gay conservative group, GOProud. However, for those who are interested, John Hawkins’ interview with GOProud’s founder Christopher Barron…

Hugo Chavez has just reminded me why I shouldn’t be buying his gas (even though it’s cheaper and therefore tempting). CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez on Sunday accused the United States of using the earthquake in Haiti as a pretext to occupy the devastated Caribbean country and offered to send fuel from his…

Via Memeorandum, I learned about a new study by sociologists which sheds new light on a vexing question — why do many college professors lean so predominantly to the left? The answer seems disappointingly simple — liberal want to be professors, while conservatives don’t: The overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors has been explained by…

For reasons that are not entirely clear, I feel like writing about guilt today. Perhaps I should feel guilty for daring to write about guilt when we are supposed to be, um, celebrating. It’s a holiday, right? Holidays are for celebrating, right? So what sort of weirdo would feel guilty on the occasion of a…

I very much hope that this indictment of the Tea Party Movement is either exaggerated or untrue: The Nashville linup also would appear to rebut another commonly held argument that the Tea Party Movement’s independence is guaranteed by its fundamentally libertarian character, so incompatible with the GOP’s heavy reliance on cultural conservatives and foreign-policy neocons.…

A piece in the Wall Street Journal has made me feel the need to elaborate on an earlier post I wrote about Haiti. The irony is that according to the Journal, where it came to the recent quake, it paid to be poor: CITE SOLEIL, Haiti — For once, it paid off to be the…

I am delighted to announce that with any luck, we will have another co-blogger here at Classical Values, Sarah Hoyt. I’ll let Sarah speak for herself, but for now I’ll just point out that she is an accomplished, published writer, whose current book is Darkship Thieves. She has graced this blog as a reader and…

While I don’t shy away from writing about politics, crass political advocacy is just not my style. Which is why — despite the fact that I have donated to his campaign twice — I have refrained until now from writing posts about Scott Brown’s candidacy. I find the guy genuinely refreshing, and obviously the Massachusetts…

Yeah, I know. Today seems to be Conspiracy Theory Day at Classical Values… Anyway, I don’t know what to make of this, but our State Department has been playing some sort of head games — literally — with PhotoShopping. As Jos&eacute Guardia demonstrates, they have stolen the hairdo from the head of Spanish Communist Party…

I am no fan of Cass Sunstein, but when I read (via a link from M. Simon) that he advocates a government ban on conspiracy theories, I nearly blew a gasket. After all, the man is often said to be a serious contender for nomination to the Supreme Court. Here is what Sunstein is reported…