Author: Eric Scheie

I just finished carving my annual jack-o-lantern, just in the nick of time before the sun set. As to my costume, I couldn’t quite to get the thing properly zipped, so my face is stuck.   Ouch!

How would you feel if you had done nothing wrong, but because of someone else’s crime, you were stripped of accomplishments you had earned legitimately? I’d be plenty pissed off, and I would not rest until the situation was corrected. Like most other people, a certain percentage of teachers and professors engage in dreadful behavior…

Unless of course you are exempt from math. MORE: They knew.

A commenter to my last post pointed out a study which focuses on the divisions between libertarians and social conservatives, and I found this chart interesting: While it looks like there is a lot of divergence between Libertarians and the “Christian right,” the interesting thing is the way both are able to work with and…

In his discussion of the war between conservative and moderate Republicans David Freddoso (the editor of Conservative Intelligence) is squarely on the side of the conservatives. However, he warns about a new trend: A new trend becoming almost alarmingly mainstream among conservative activists is to find RINO-ism in every shadow. The football equivalent would be…

A lot of people have had fun ridiculing the Obamacare website, and I especially enjoyed Jon Stewart’s take on it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7InS-xW1LCI I have not visited the dysfunctional site, because I don’t want to, and (fortunately) don’t need to. As Megan McArdle pointed out, though, those who have finally gotten through and managed to sign on…

There are those who still think that we should be fighting the war on drugs. I wonder what they think about the war on privacy: Remember Lavabit and Silent Circle, the encrypted email providers that closed their doors because they faced government pressure to enable government snooping on their customers (Silent Circle still offers other…

Just got back from hearing Beethoven’s 33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli performed by Andras Schiff. It is a marvelously obsessive piece, which takes a fairly simple theme and expands, contracts, and spins it into something which seems to straddle the fence between music and what I suspect might have been Beethoven reflecting on…

In light of the highly emotional uproar over natural occurrences at Mt. Rushmore, I wonder what the WND crowd might make of the fact that all the American flags on the moon have turned white. (The same thing would have happened to the flags here, but never mind…)

Quick question. Can anyone tell me what in the world (or out of the world) this contraption is? It measures about 16″ and is labeled “Brookstone” on the back. When you plug it in, those four black things (cushions inserted into plastic collars) rotate at different times and at different rates. Above each rotating object,…

A blast from the past! Amazing to find a video of that place after all these (now 20) years. For years, my club’s space was the proud home of the House of Usher — “The Bay Area’s largest Gothic and Industrial Nightclub.” Is there anything that can’t be found on Youtube? (Of course, what was…

As a libertarian who happens to be a Republican (or might that be Republican who happens to be a libertarian?), I have long been sympathetic to the Tea Party principles, which are usually stated thusly: Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, and Free Markets Core agreement on the above can unite a broad coalition on the…

The Ku Klux Klan would love this: …race concordance — defined as shared racial or ethnic identities between clinicians and patients — is related to patient reports of satisfaction, participatory decision making, timeliness of treatment, and trust in the health system. The above comes from a 2009 report by the Center for American Progress (CAP) which…

Well, this is weird, I was trying to have a Facebook discussion on my own page, and the system will not allow me to say anything, so I thought I might as well put it here for lack of a better place. A friend asked this: As I understand it, thinking requires rationale whereas belief…

I’m a bit horrified to see a total political hack like former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe poised to win election to the United States Senate Virginia Governorship, but I guess that’s just the way things have to be. Hillary is stumping for McAuliffe, and his (her) opponent Cuccinelli seems to be doing his level best to…

While I always look for simple explanations of seemingly inexplicable problems, in the case of a recurrent problem I did just that, and it is beginning to appear that I was wrong. When I fill my gas tank, I have noticed that the little notches in the fuel pump handle that hold the lever in…

Earlier I saw something on Facebook that made me say, “Damned if logic isn’t frustrating sometimes!” I found this especially puzzling because I happen to have a group of very puzzled dinosaurs (who call themselves the “TriLateralCeratopsian Commission”) and they have been puzzling over a puzzle for over a week now. They don’t know what…

An article warning of an Obamacare provision for “forced” home visits by government agents got me pretty worked up earlier. I was hoping it was untrue or exaggerated, so I Googled some of the claims made, and was hardly reassured. Snopes labels the report “FALSE,” and claimed that the home visits would be made by…

A sloppy desk and no exercise, Makes a man creative, powerful, and wise. No, Ben Franklin never said that, although John Adams was said to be shocked by Franklin’s failure to practice what he preached. While no one would argue that a sloppy desk alone will not lead to success, it is undeniable that a…

The war on peanuts has gone too far. It has now spread even to college football stadiums: When the Northwestern Wildcats face off against the Minnesota Golden Gophers at Ryan Field in Evanston on Saturday, something will be missing: peanuts. Northwestern University is hosting its first peanut-free football game to give fans with allergies a…