Author: Eric Scheie

For some time, I’ve been puzzled over a growing, annoying trend. Increasingly, I get asked for my ID to buy alcohol. I’m 58, have gray hair, and no one on this planet who has even a quarter of a brain would imagine for a moment that I might — even possibly — be under 21.…

The anti-gun bigots are hardly making me want to move back to California: Gun control advocates in Sacramento are putting a new twist on an old NRA slogan: “Guns don’t kill people — bullets kill people.” Democratic lawmakers are pushing like never before to regulate or tax ammunition sales. They say the logic is simple: A…

While I’ve been too busy to plan an April Fool’s Day joke for the blog, I think the following headline as about as good a joke as any I’ve seen: Obama Proclaims April the Month to Teach Young People ‘How to Budget Responsibly’ Who says the man hasn’t got a sense of humor?

I can think of a lot of arguments against gay marriage, but a new one emerged today. In a horrifying shocker of a news item, Georgia’s GOP Chair has warned that heterosexuals might take advantage of same sex marriage if it is legalized! A top Republican in Georgia has sounded an ominous warning that legalization…

M. Simon emailed me about an Oklahoma bill which would allow cities to ban pit bulls. State Sen. Patrick Anderson, Enid, is behind the bill. He says he sponsored the effort after leaders in the Kay County city of Blackwell urged him to do so. “You hear about dog attacks on occasion, so I’m sure there…

That’s what this piece advocates: Libertarians are frequently viewed as either old, white guys who like to complain about taxes and big bureaucracies or a bunch of college kids who wax philosophic in their dorms rooms, quoting Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek but not doing much else. Both generations are pigeon-holed, all too often, as…

Exhausted as I am right now, I am trying to catch up with the blog, and I enjoyed Sarah’s post about marriage. Earlier, I read a collection  of biblical quotes that Bruce Bawer put up on Facebook titled “Traditional Biblical marriage”: “Lamech [Noah’s father] married two women, one named Adah, the other Zillah.” (Genesis 4)…

Anyone heard of Old Angus Scotch? I like to think I am familiar with the different brands, but I never have. Salvador Dali did an ad for the stuff back in 1951, so I’m curious. Might be out of business. In other surreal news of the surreal, my frog ate a squirrel.

Especially if the doctor is a urologist. I’m talking about urine-controlled video games, which are soon to be debuted in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley IronPigs will debut the “Urinal Gaming System” in its men’s bathrooms—the custom urinals feature a “pee controlled” video screen that will entertain fans as they use the restroom. The system is…

Jim Carrey apparently thinks we shouldn’t have guns, and is willing to use the power of his “pulpit” to say so. Carrey performed double duty in the video, as both Heston and the twangy lead singer of the band performing the catchy “Cold Dead Hand.” (The title is an allusion to Heston’s rifle-toting 2000 NRA…

M. Simon’s post about cannibalism got me in the mood to cannibalize. Especially Brett’s comment: I say anyone who indulges in alcohol has no business criticizing anyone else’ vices. A salient but overlooked reason for the chaos of American society is that we have become a nation of drunks, not least among the governing classes. Very,…

Ichthyosarcotoxism. I’m ashamed to say that’s a new word for me, but I just read about it in a fascinating Scientific American discussion. While the main article was about sheep’s head fish (which have remarkably human-like teeth), the author is clearly more interested in fish that can get a person high: …the Salema porgy, also…

Not my words, but Ann Coulter’s. She call libertarians pussies for demanding pot legalization while (according to Coulter) downplaying their views on employment discrimination, and she also says they are guilty of groupthink (which she claims is destroying libertarian pussies): I hate groupthink. And the libertarians have it every bit as much as the college…

Bill Quick has been wondering what the world would be like if humans interacted more like dogs. In particular he offers Rachel Lucas’s insight about her dog: Primo and his friends care only about the language and enjoyment of butt odors. As a dog owner for almost all of my life, I can certainly confirm that…

If this article is any indication, support for gay marriage seems to be reaching bandwagon status. It is risky for any Democrat to oppose it, and there’s even a movement towards change among Republicans: Even the Republican making headlines on gay marriage this month, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, is taking a stand that is less…

Yoko Ono recently tweeted the following image: I realize that lefties love milestone type arguments, but I think it is highly manipulative to claim that guns killed the people who were clearly killed by human forces operating independently from whatever guns they used. At the very least, shouldn’t it be acknowledged that at least “two-thirds of…

Not every day do I see Drudge milking art history, but the proof is in the pudding. Here’s Drudge today: And here’s Michelangelo, around 1540: I think the resemblance is obvious, even if the punishment isn’t.    

The ongoing horror story about the confiscation of the savings of ordinary people led M. Simon to ask a question more people ought to be asking. Some one has to pay for the welfare state. Will the US be next? Unless something is done fast, eventually we will. This is a classic illustration of Margaret…

Speaking of crackpots, New York Mayor David Bloomberg is almost as nuts as Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps. Momentarily slowed down by the courts for his attempt to ban large soft drinks, he is now trying to make it illegal for cigarettes to be visible in places where they are legally for sale: A new…

For a variety of reasons, this report that “God Hates Fags”/Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps may be gay is deeply troubling. A former member of the Westboro Baptist Church who recently published a book about leaving the hate-mongering group has also revealed that founder Fred Phelps’s anti-gay ideology may have spawned from a gay…