Author: Eric Scheie

It is humbling that even at my age, I learn about “new” things that astound me, but which are in fact traditional and not new. Earlier it made me feel like an ignoramus to learn about a Catalan religious tradition going back to the 18th century which would seem downright disrespectful to Christianity, but which…

Most of us (specifically 77%) will have to pay more: The budget deal passed by the U.S. Senate today would raise taxes on 77.1 percent of U.S. households, mostly because of the expiration of a payroll tax cut, according to preliminary estimates from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington. More than 80 percent of…

Treason? Or treason? UPDATE: (12:05) Now that it’s the next year I can’t make any more sense of the above than I could last year, but in any case… … a very HAPPY NEW YEAR to all! (Perhaps things will be less crazy as time goes on, but perhaps not.)

In his latest endorsement of gun control measures, President Obama said  one thing that is absolutely true: “I’ve been very clear that an assault-rifle ban, banning these high capacity clips, background checks, that there are a set of issues that I have historically supported and will continue to support,” the president said. I see the above…

As it’s that time of the year (a time I would rather not explain in explicit detail), I’ve been feeling haunted lately. Feeling haunted is a not altogether unpleasant experience, although it it is a little like nostalgia on steroids. Nostalgia is to haunting as pot is to heroin. Or as beer is to Everclear.…

Here’s a trailer to a movie that (according to IMDb) I cannot see because it isn’t anywhere in my area: A pity I can’t see it, because the Forbes review called it “The Most Important Drug War Film You’ll Ever See.” It’s a film about the human consequences of execrable War on Drugs and there…

While I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, I’m furious over Facebook’s latest outrage. Via the ever-vigilant Bill Quick, I learned that Facebook has banned the following accurate historical quote from Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi: (NaturalNews) The reports are absolutely true. Facebook suspended the Natural News account earlier today after we posted an historical quote from…

Just as I thought the chorus of blaming anyone and anything but the shooter for the Connecticut school shooting was beginning to wind down, along comes Michael Moore with one of the most idiotic claims yet. He sees racism as being at the root of the problem. No, seriously. According to Moore’s “logic,” the shooting…

Reading this pissed me off. If you’re angry, for the benefit of your health, you need to let it all out, according to a new study that revealed that being hot-tempered and expressing your anger could be a key to enjoying a long and healthy life. Researchers Marcus Mund and Kristin Mitte at the University…

I’m sure it will sound trite, but I wish this country could become post-racial. I don’t discuss race much, but I wish there were no such thing, or at least people were not conscious of it. In theory at least, this country is not racial. But in practice, it has become relegated to being a…

‘Tis the night before Christmas. And all through the house, there’s a creature who’s stirring, ’cause she thinks I’m a louse! I refer to Coco, of course, whom I earlier tried to drag into the spirit of Christmas present against her will. Yes, she squirmed to get away and I held her tightly! Shockingly, I…

That’s how those we call “the authorities” plan to look for deranged gunmen. Am I alone in seeing an obvious problem? It strikes me as painfully obvious that any “cyber-searches of language that mass-casualty shooters have used in e-mails and Internet postings” are going to yield up people who are simply quoting or discussing the language…

While researching my inability to get IMDb.com to open, I learned about a fascinating million-dollar-lawsuit that initially made me laugh out loud because it is so obviously frivolous. In 2011 IMDb was sued by an unknown actress for more than US$1 million due to IMDb revealing her age (40). The actress claims that revealing her age…

I have what is probably a simple question for any geek readers who might be reading or lurking. WTF is up with IMDb.com? It has long been one of my regularly visited sites, but in the past couple of weeks it has become all but unreachable. This morning I was just fed up, so I…

And Happy Non-End of the World! I have to say that as a pagan I would have been deeply offended if the world had ended on or near the Winter Solstice. But it hasn’t so I’m not. Enjoy. Wish I could share the IPA I brewed.  

New Yorker columnist Adam Gopnik is a staunch gun control advocate who not only claims gun control will work, but blames those who disagree with him (gun owners and presumably all Americans who oppose gun control) for the shooting in Connecticut. He accuses people like me of belonging to the “child-killing lobby,” and of being…

Damn, I’ve been so busy I almost forgot about the end of the world. I could have saved money on Christmas. What the hell is wrong with me anyway? Why do I always forget important dates? I mean, it’s not as if these ends-of-the-worlds are unimportant. I went to a huge party to watch the…

Across the political spectrum, and across the country, people want answers.  They say they want to know why Adam Lanza shot all of those children. And even though the incident is over and the shooter is dead, they say they want something done.  Then when they don’t get the answers they want, they supply their…

What the hell is going on? Is there some new sort of war against Christmas? I mean, just as I was getting ready to kick back and maybe relax and enjoy the season for a bit, it seems that an all out war against the Second Amendment is being declared. I’m not sure I’m in…

Last Wednesday (while not looking for anything in particular), I stumbled onto a YouTube video showing a very cute animal eating a grape: My immediate impulse was to want one of these cute animals, and I wondered how Coco would feel about having one join her family. The slow loris is at the lowest rung…