Author: Eric Scheie

Here’s Camille Paglia on Hillary Clinton: As a registered Democrat, I am praying for a credible presidential candidate to emerge from the younger tier of politicians in their late 40s. A governor with executive experience would be ideal. It’s time to put my baby-boom generation out to pasture! We’ve had our day and managed to muck…

Going through a tunnel on the Pennsylvania Turnpike earlier. I’m back, and exhausted. MORE: Not my video, but this was also nice to listen to in the car. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTO3h9CutTE So nice that it still resonates… And so was this:  

Seeing stuff like this just warms what cockles remain in my heart: White House Had Advance Notice on Heathrow Detention… Security seized encrypted computer files… ‘They said I would be put in jail if I didn’t cooperate’… Agents asked ‘about my entire life’… GUARDIAN: ‘A betrayal of trust and principle’… Britain forced newspaper to destroy…

Like many people, I have boxes and boxes of old pictures,  many of which are of irreplaceable sentimental value. While it is possible for me to scan them, I have long thought of scanning as being an inordinate, time-consuming pain in the ass. I have an old Umax Windows 98 era scanner which takes a…

I’m in Pennsylvania after an all day drive, and in no shape to write a damned thing! Not that a little thing like that should stop me, but still… I’m just too tired.

I live in a student neighborhood here in Ann Arbor and it is customary for people who are moving out and don’t need something to just leave it in the lawn extension (the grassy strip in front of a house between the sidewalk and the street). Yesterday, some student who was moving out left a…

Good question. That and more in a piece titled “Why Have Police In America Turned Into Such Ruthless Thugs?” It’s a very worrisome question I have struggled to understand, because when I was a kid, cops were cops, and many people saw them as friends of the law-abiding. No more: Once upon a time, the…

Another lie. Rod Coons and Florence Peace pay $403 a month for a family health plan that covers barely any medical care for either of them until he or she reaches $10,000 in claims in a given year. And that’s just the way they like it. “I’m only really interested in catastrophic coverage,” says Coons,…

While it will not matter to many people today except historians,via Glenn Reynolds I learned that new information is coming to light which demonstrates that the Watergate prosecutors — along with the sainted Judge Sirica himself — committed major ethical violations which denied the Watergate defendants their right to a fair trial. Sirica’s meetings with WSPF prosecutors…

As history shows, urban density is the sine qua non of the totalitarian state, because if people are packed together, they are much easier to monitor and control. Thus, it should surprise no one that there is a major, well-organized push coming from many directions to use all available tools to coerce people to live…

Thanks to a fake “protection” virus installed automatically by Firefox, I’m on my laptop while trying to save my regular computer. I not only did not install this virus, I didn’t install anything. Firefox did the dirty work of the virus authors — ostensibly a site called wips.com. I’m not alone. Other Firefox users are…

A legitimate American business that offered its customers email privacy has been destroyed by the government. It’s “crime”? Refusing to cooperate with the disgraceful and unconstitutional surveillance network which considers itself entitled to spy on all Americans. And if you think that’s bad, get this: they are not allowed to talk about it! That’s right.…

Here is a perfect example of what is wrong with this country: The U.S. Department of Commerce wants to crack down on the unauthorized streaming of video and audio content by reviving a provision of the Stop Online Piracy Act. In a report released last week, the Commerce Department’s Internet Policy Task Force called for…

Amazingly detailed video of what happens under your skin. Check out the capillary action: Mosquitoes, of course. You were expecting something else?  

You know you’re really living in a police state when NRO conservatives sound like libertarians. Here’s Mark Steyn: Too much law enforcement in America has lost all sense of proportion: If you need six armed officers to police a nonagenarian in an old folks’ home, seven armed officers to police a 20-year-old female you suspect…

A friend emailed me and asked what I thought of Oprah Winfrey’s new wig. Ever the spoilsport, I replied that I preferred Phil Spector’s wig: Not that I would wear such a thing to court (or deny that it was a wig), but I just think it’s more eye-catching than Oprah’s.

New discoveries about the activities of our criminal government continue, and today I learned that the NSA data — which we were told was only being gathered to fight terrorists — is routinely made available to the DEA for use in drug cases. WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information…

On Facebook I found a link to what was described as a “very interesting read” which “explains a lot of what’s going on.” I’ll say. According to the article (in an online journal called EU Times.net), the United States is in the middle of a coup, or a civil war. These terms are not used…

An article in today’s WSJ reminded me that academicians can’t wait to get their mitts on data. They want personal data about the most personal habits of millions of Americans, and in this example, their ostensible goal is to “help” people who in their opinion are “at risk”  of becoming addicted to gambling: Similar to…

If this report is any indication, it’s fascinating how much money people make for teaching people how to do things that they don’t seem all that competent to do. A Naperville Central High School driver education teacher facing drunken driving and theft charges is due in court this week, according to authorities. Jeffrey Peterson, 54,…