Author: Eric Scheie

“The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that it’s difficult to determine whether or not they are genuine.” – Abraham Lincoln Lincoln was right, damn it! And the prescience of the man is unbelievable, for when he said that, the Internet had not yet been invented by Al Gore! As to whether Lincoln actually…

Ah, the futility of the endless “War on Drugs.” The more it fails, the more it demands ramped up measures approximating genuine war. And naturally (as Simon and I have pointed out ad nauseam), the more the “warriors” try to clamp down on the drug flow one place, the more it spreads to others. The…

I have always liked the Marine Corps. The thing is, I never saw them as cops, so I find reports like this more than a little disturbing: CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) — The Marine Corps has created its first law enforcement battalions – a lean, specialized force of military police officers that it hopes can…

I have not commented on the Colorado Batman movie shooting because I don’t want to seem like a broken record. Every time a psycho acts out, activists and moralists of all stripes read in their favorite meme, and attribute the shooting to whatever they most hate. First, the Tea Party was blamed by irresponsible media…

I’ve been having a fascinating discussion over the views of a prominent religious conservative who claims to be a constitutional conservative, and at first glance, he would seem to have a high regard for the strict, originalist interpretation of the Constitution.   He believes Obamacare (and many federal laws and agencies)  to be unconstitutional, yet…

I have just received a truly amazing flashlight in the mail. It weighs next to nothing, and appears to be powered by virtually nothing (at least, nothing I can see). It’s as light as a feather and as bright as any flashlight I’ve had, M. Simon is the engineer-designer of this thing, and trust me,…

Drudge links an interesting study about being constantly online and the development of mental disorders: “Demands for availability originated not only from work and the social network, but also from the individual’s own ambitions or desires. This resulted in disturbances when busy or resting, the feeling of never being free, and difficulties separating work and…

This shit gets more and more tedious. What, precisely, is the question? Who should be in charge of our SWAT teams? Please God don’t let them vote.

I needed to find some high carbon steel to cut some shapes and one thing led to another. It turns out that old sawmill blades are a good source of high carbon steel, so I found one. Then it occurred to me that it wouldn’t do just to use the blade as source material; why not…

Quick question. What does “pro-abortion” mean? I’m asking because Condi Rice is being routinely skewered as “pro-abortion” by seasoned political analysts (some of whom I normally respect but will not name). My curiosity was aroused by this, and the only detailed explanation of her views I could find was a 2005 interview in which she…

As I asked a friend earlier, “Is this rape?” Notorious Pervert Suspected In Walmart Toe Suck Leaphart was arrested in February after approaching a female shopper at a Walmart in South Carolina and asking if he could kiss and smell her feet. Leaphart is pictured in the mug shot at right. After asking the teen…

Coco was most amused by this: A Kauai District judge found an attorney guilty Thursday of licking his client’s ear at his Lihue office. Lawrence McCreery, 64, was convicted of harassment by per-diem District Judge Frank Rothschild. On July 26, 2011, McCreery was discussing a 21-year-old woman’s child custody case when he touched her arm,…

Here’s what is probably the last Flanders Poppy of the season, struggling to bloom on a nearly dead plant amid its dead podbrothers who not long ago were once vibrant flowers. Yes, they’re a spring and not a summer flower and Memorial Day is long gone. To change the subject from hot petal to hot…

I took a picture of some Fourth of July debris lying on the ground earlier. On closer examination, it’s a very American bulldog, wearing a biker type bandanna covered with human skulls, with spiked collar, pierced nose and chin bandage, who is advertising a powerful 16 tube fireworks display (branded “NOT IN MY YARD”) inside a large…

The latest metal shape I programmed and cut probably reveals my mental shape. How nice it would be to program and cut a mental shape!

While setting up my umpteenth aquarium (yes, I have too many fish), I noticed an odd thing. I needed to buy sand for the substrate, and the consensus is that the best deal for the buck is pool filter sand. This is a high quality sand that does not need to be washed repeatedly as…

The biggest tax increase ever is disguised as “health care.” And the true cost of the war on drugs is being hidden by clever accounting tricks. They lie and we pay.    

One of the more annoying aspects of politics is the way ideologues impose conformity on people, so this remark caught my attention: The never-ending war between the left and the right seems to me like a couple of drunken college boys fighting over which one of their fraternities is cooler. Think about it: Once you…

Another day, another power outage. For no apparent reason (no storms, and it’s cooled down since yesterday), the power went out at around 8:50 p.m. I called DTE and was told that it would be off until tomorrow night. I called again an hour later and was told the same thing again. So were other…

Going through some old photos, I found one showing me with a man I met many years ago, and while I don’t believe in “name dropping,” the guy has been deceased for so long that I don’t see the harm in quoting something he said with which I wholeheartedly agree. (Hmm, to avoid the split…