Author: Eric Scheie

For the Fourth of July, I drove to Marion, Ohio, to visit President Warren G. Harding’s home and museum. It is amazingly well put together, and they have almost all of the stuff that was there when he and his wife Florence (“Flossie“) lived there. Here’s the house from the rear, and you can see…

Interesting factoid. In some places, sea birds trump fireworks on the Fourth of July: An Oregon town has reportedly canceled its annual fireworks show out of concern the Fourth of July pyrotechnics will scare sea birds roosting nearby. Town officials in Depoe Bay have announced the cancellation of the annual pre-Independence Day fireworks show on…

Not exactly to my astonishment, earlier I learned that Anderson Cooper was gay confirmed he was gay. How many millions of women are now clutching the curtains in shock and disappointment I do not know. Does that mean he’s going to run for President? I also learned that Justice Roberts was motivated by politics to,…

Quick question. Is energy a commodity or is it morality? The reason I’m asking is because of the increasing mindset that what you do with energy is not your business — even if you pay for it just as you might pay for anything else. Why are they allowed to get away with this? Because…

A frequent argument advanced by public policy experts with degrees from the best Ivy League universities is that we (the little people they want to boss around) should be made to use public transportation — minus air-conditioning, of course. I think the public policy elitists should be made to use public transportation themselves. Detroit’s bedbug-infested…

Speaking of banning things, I recently learned about a planned crackdown on grunting: A plan to crack down on ultra-loud grunting in women’s tennis has been “unanimously green-lighted” by the WTA players’ council, representatives from all four majors and the International Tennis Federation, according to USA Today. “It’s time for us to drive excessive grunting…

Last night I sent a link to M. Simon about how the Supreme Court has systematically destroyed the Fourth Amendment. What shocks me the most is that only a few libertarian cranks on the right and the ACLU on the left care. Under the noxious “emergency” doctrine (which gives any evildoer anywhere in the world the…

If you thought banning peanuts in schools was bad (or lunches brought from home) get a load of this. Teachers sat and watched young girls become severely sunburned because the school (like most schools) bans suntan oil. Under the same philosophy behind the peanut ban some infinitesimal percentage of people are allergic to suntan  oil,…

My Dell Precision 530 was once a great computer costing thousands. Now it’s an old clunker — good mainly for landfill. The funny thing about this machine is that I have watched it deteriorate to the point where I was blaming everything for its increasing slowness. There are a lot of complaints about RAM issues…

There are few things I hate more than getting home after 11:00 p.m. dead tired and wanting to relax but without having written a blog post. (Having an 8:00 a.m. commitment does not help either.) Under such circumstances, there are few things I love more than seeing a wonderful post from Sarah at a time…

Will a Faraday Cage effectively prevent a “Smart Meter” from gathering detailed hourly data about the power consumption of the occupants of a house? Any ideas? I ask because I know a lot of people who are distrustful of smart meter technology and want to protect themselves. If you put copper mesh around your smart…

I’m puzzled by the first sentence in this news report: SEATTLE (CBS Seattle) — Believing if you are on a “highway to hell” could impact whether or not if you commit a crime. Putting aside the highway to hell issue, what does “whether or not if” mean? We need to define our terms. Reading the…

It is very predictable that if you give radical gay activists (some of whom are self indulgent and self absorbed) an opportunity to pose  in front of portraits of demonized presidents, they will gladly oblige. The result is this: Nothing surprising about it in the least. They hate Ronald Reagan with a passion: Strauss, who…

Via Glenn Reynolds, I learned that “a new study reveals that what type of dog you have can say a lot about your personality.” Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse than people judging you by your shoes, another study finds that the type of dog you have can also elicit harsh judgment. Thanks…

Disgusted as I am by politics (these days I’m more inclined to write about the birds), you would think I would be more prepared for the type of sleaze I stumbled onto this morning. I guess there is still something in me that causes my usual disgust to rise to the level of genuine outrage.…

In addition to the Chickadees who are now raising babies a foot away from my back door, a very busy pair of House Wrens has been — for the second year in a row — occupying the birdhouse I attached to the backyard garage. Last year a commenter had the nerve to snark that A-frame…

Unbelievable as it may seem to people who take their freedom for granted, the bans on sweet drinks are becoming a reality, and the trend is rapidly spreading. WHEREAS: High intake of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages increases the risk of obesity and diabetes; and WHEREAS: New York City has a plan to limit the…

The problem of “SWAT-ting” (phony 911 calls to trigger groundless raids on political enemies) is continuing, and bloggers are being warned to contact local law enforcement before writing posts about controversial topics: Akbar and others are urging troops of conservative bloggers to protect themselves by contacting their local law enforcement before they post about a “controversial”…

I realize it’s a recurrent question (here and elsewhere) and I have long objected to the ambiguity which results from the invocation of “nature,” but this latest is a real gem: Moral lesson? Nature is whatever Google or anyone invoking  nature wants you to do. And whatever they don’t want you to do is unnatural. I…

Another day, another unconstitutional power grab. Lawmakers are working to block an unprecedented power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Water Act (CWA) and control land alongside ditches, gullies and other ephemeral spots by claiming the sources are part of navigable waterways. These temporary water sources are often created by rain…