Author: Eric Scheie

Apparently so. At least, according to the geniuses at the Washington Post. Noting that some of the First Lady’s critics have accused her of having a large posterior, the Post quotes experts who state that this reflects the racist history of disrespecting black women: …what is it with Michelle Obama’s critics and the fixation with…

For whatever reason, Drudge and Reason have very different ways of presenting the same story about a new congressional move to ratchet down the War on Drugs. Drudge puts it this way: Dems move to end prohibition… Which accurately reflects the Salon headline Drudge links: Dems move to change federal pot laws Reps. Earl Blumenauer and…

As a number of gun control advocates agree with the philosophy behind Jon Stewart’s remark that “when that constitution was written, people had muskets,” I thought it would be fun to apply the same thinking to the rest of our rights. When the Constitution was written, people had manually inked printing presses with type that…

The reaction of a lot of people to this report about a Big Brother “health” database is that it’s nothing to worry about as it’s not happening here: GPs are to be forced to hand over confidential records on all their patients’ drinking habits, waist sizes and illnesses. The files will be stored in a giant…

Nice video from the 60s. A real classic, which I think has a haunting quality.

Hey, I not only like dogs, I LOVE them. However, certain misguided animals are being used by their evil masters to destroy our constitutional rights: …even if you are neither a lawyer nor a super-libertarian, you might wonder 1) how often this sort of thing happens, 2) how it came to be that police can…

Thinking I would “upgrade” the quality of my television viewing, I decided to replace my old, “outmoded” 30 inch flat screen HD CRT, and I bought a new 42″ LED HDTV. When I turned it on I thought I was going crazy. The picture was bigger, but blurrier. A lot blurrier. Jerkier too. And the…

Obviously believing that the 4th Amendment does not apply to them, the DEA is demanding access to patients’ supposedly “private” medical records: The Drug Enforcement Administration is trying to access private prescription records of patients in Oregon without a warrant, despite a state law forbidding it from doing so. The ACLU and its Oregon affiliate…

When I saw this story linked by a Facebook friend — that in a few days it will be a federal crime to unlock your smartphone — I honestly thought it was a joke. Wrong. That’s right, starting this weekend it is illegal to unlock new phones to make them available on other carriers. I have deep…

I’m sick as a dog and running a 101.3 fever with chills, so I haven’t been up to my normal energy levels, nor am I feeling as rational as I might like. But earlier my attention was drawn again to the so-called “obesity epidemic.” Yeah, it’s in quotes because although I may think that voluntary…

I’d like to contrast two interesting statements about emotion. One is the above (from a left-wing policy wonk). The other is from a guy I respect, Glenn Reynolds: Resort to theatrical efforts at emotional blackmail is an admission that you have no intellectual arguments. True as that is, it certainly does not stop emotional blackmail,…

Now that Google is officially in bed with government gun grabbers, I’m perplexed about what to do. I don’t want to support the company, and I would like to do anything possible to let them know about it. However, they are a Goliath, and I do not even rise to the level of a David…

It’s a documented fact. No really. Kenner Police say a man died inside a beer cooler at a convenient store on Airline Drive overnight, but no one knew he was there until they found his very cold body this morning. Earlier I said that this sounded cool to me, but now I’m thinking about serious…

Isn’t it weird the way one thing leads to another? I mean, I clicked on Glenn Reynolds’ link to an article about extending life to 800 years (which can already be done with yeast), and then that led me to a piece about monster teddy bears. And as if that weren’t bad enough, the guy…

And while I never heard of such a thing before, I now know that (at least according to Wikipedia) there is a term called “Microrape”: Characterized by predatory non-physical prurient communications with the intent to penetrate the victim’s emotional security on the basis of heteronormative impositions. I’m just curious how one might penetrate someone’s emotional…

Funny thing that in a recent post about inane laws I would say that I “wish we could do something about the easy availability of foolish laws” only to see one of the silliest laws I have yet to see proposed: Rep. Mitch Greenlick, from Portland, is sponsoring a bill that makes cigarettes a Schedule III controlled substance,…

There’s a bit of a debate going on over whether not hurling personal insults at people constitutes letting liberals dictate the terms of debate. Having lived in leftie college towns for most of my life, I know what life under the liberal thought police is like; hence I deliberately ran for office as a Republican…

If studies show that what excites our desire – a naked body, a boiled lobster, a cigarette – are simultaneously what threatens to trigger our revulsion, then what are the implications to studies that show chronic grief activates pleasure areas of the brain?  

On Facebook, Radley Balko earlier linked a news item with a headline I consider downright dirty-looking: Police Invoke the Spirit of Butt-Chugging to Try to Derail Wine in Grocery Stores I really could have done without that, OK? But it’s not just one news item. It’s one they want repeated everywhere, and CNN has joined…

I hate this f**king weather! Winter is one thing, but there is something about waking up in the morning to see the temperature below zero that just takes whatever remaining wind I have out of my sails. I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything, yet I have to. My bones ache, and so…