Author: Eric Scheie

And blogging may be light to nonexistent for a few days. Fortunately, that might not stop the intrepid M. Simon. Here’s one for the road:

As we all know, if you didn’t like Obama, it was because you are racist. And now, if you don’t like Hillary, it is because you are sexist: Desperate to stop a second Clinton presidency in 2016, it’s a sure bet many in the GOP will reprise the ugly attacks they used on her 22…

All is calm… All is bright! MORE: I couldn’t resist sharing this:

Hey, speaking of Biblical interpretations, regardless of whether or not December 25 is in fact the anniversary of the date Jesus was born, Merry Christmas everyone!

The word “sodomy” is in quotes because Sodom is a place, and “sodomy” is a Medieval term which eventually became a legal term. So I use it loosely, and sarcastically. What’s interesting is what happened in Lot’s family during the post-Sodom period. From Genesis 19: 19:30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt…

I think Cathy Young gets it right. …on freedom of speech, hypocrisy and double standards are rampant across the political spectrum… While it is true that most of what people defend fervently as “free speech” is precisely that (meaning speech that is protected by the First Amendment), in practice whether it is defended depends on…

I found a security cap lock to a liquor bottle lying in the street, and I decided to take it apart to see how it worked. I was surprised to find what looked like a solenoid inside, which was the heart of the lock mechanism. [I was wrong about it being a solenoid; see below.…

I bought some interesting coffee the other day, which turned out to be pretty good. It’s called “Cafe Rio,” and here’s the package: While I had assumed it was Brazilian coffee because of the name, the words on the label are  French and Arabic only. No Spanish, no Portuguese, and of course no English. This…

While I haven’t watched his show, I finally managed to watch a YouTube video of Phil Robertson. He strikes me as a bit of a religious fanatic. Hardly someone I would identify with or follow. But I don’t see how calling him a bigot is going to change his mind about anything. Then there’s the…

Because, in the eyes of too many people across the spectrum, it comes down to the following dichotomy. Either or, folks! EITHER OR! Must I choose? Why? Because activists on both “sides” want me to? Sorry, but that’s not enough.

An actress named Jennifer Lawrence has upset people on the Internet by making the following statement (with which, btw, I do not agree): I just think it should be illegal to call somebody fat on TV. I mean, if we’re regulating cigarettes and sex and cuss words because of the effect it has on our…

As you may have read, under Obamcare, the government is forcing people to go on Medicaid whether they want to or not. The Sept. 26 letter from my mother’s insurer promised that the more expensive plan “conforms with the new health care law”—by covering maternity needs, newborn wellness and pediatric dental care. My mother asked:…

James Taranto takes issue with the idea that boys and young men (in contrast with girls and women), are failing to behave “rationally.” Boys and young men are no less rational, or capable of adapting to incentives, than girls and young women are. They are, in fact, adapting very well to the incentives for female…

Don’t miss this excellent piece on the drug war. A practical argument and not a moral harangue: Let me start by setting one issue aside. This is the fundamental moral argument. You might think drugs ought to be legalized because there is a principled moral case against prohibition. It’s not hard to imagine such arguments.…

I took this picture (of the vortex, natch) last night before I washed it down the drain. That’s a closeup of this if we zoom out: Which if further zoomed out, looks like an iris. Coco thinks this is gross, and she wants me to stop.

Liberals love to belittle complaints about government tyranny. Predictably, they say that those who are annoyed by tyranny are being “petty” — as if giving up freedom is the sort of thing to be expected in the modern progressive world, and if you don’t like it, you are backward and in need of consciousness raising.…

With news headlines like these, who needs reality? James Bond is an ‘impotent drunk’ Yes, and teams of anti-alcohol “scientists” obsessively analyzed all the Bond books and films to prove it. Seriously, just look at the graph they created: I guess the world is lucky that scientific busybodies never analyzed Winston Churchill and pronounced him…

Er, maybe I’ve got things reversed. But I do have a question. Why are veterinarians more sympathetic to their animal patients than doctors are to their human patients? When poor old Puff developed back problems in his old age, the vets couldn’t have been nicer. They (I moved around so I had several) just wanted…

Earlier on Facebook I linked what I thought would be a mildly interesting article: “Fire-ant colony + molten aluminum = incredible art.” The idea is that if you pour molten aluminum down into the ant colony and then dig out the casting, you will have an interesting art piece. Which you would, and which I,…

Reading a recent column by Peggy Noonan, I had a feeling of suffocating familiarity: For four years I have been told, by those who’ve worked in the administration and those who’ve visited it as volunteers or contractors, that the Obama White House isn’t organized. It’s just full of chatter. Meetings don’t begin on time, there’s…