Author: Eric Scheie

I got a disturbing email from a friend  who tells me my “prognostication skills are apparently fairly good,” and sends me a link to this analysis from Captain Ed, who confirms what I have been predicting too many times. “If Republicans want a proven substantive fighter who can out-debate Barack Obama, they may come to…

“Cain 26%, Romney 23%, Gingrich 14%” What can I say? For many months I have been doing my damnedest to sound the alarm about Gingrich, but obviously a blog like this is not the place to avert an impending train wreck.

Now that the angry left has moved from the Occupy phase to the Destroy phase, I can’t help feeling unpleasantly nostalgic: “Oakland Police responded to a late night call that protesters had broken into and occupied a downtown building and set several simultaneous fires,” the statement read. “The protesters began hurling rocks, explosives, bottles, and…

People are hurting people with machetes. So why is there no outcry for machete control? And correct me if I am mistaken, but what’s with the tendency to see such crime reports as some sort of ominous new sign of the times?

A friend sent me this cartoon from 1934. I guess it is supposed to speak for itself. I got a kick out of Trotsky’s agenda on the lower left. As to why it would be sent to me, I don’t know. Should I be thinking in terms of modern parallels?

That was my first reaction to Megan McArdle’s post about the Occupy Wall Street protesters that Glenn linked earlier. This is a revolt by some of the people who want to tell people what to do against the people who are actually hired for the job of telling people what to do. Forget for the…

I agree with Condoleezza Rice that it isn’t a good idea to play the race card. The race card sucks, whether it is played by Obama and the Democrats or by Cain and the Republicans. I may be naive, but I don’t want a president whose race matters. IMO, the best argument against Herman Cain…

And to think that I haven’t had time to carve a pumpkin. What’s the world coming to? I did, however, somehow find time to attend Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s University of Michigan speech. He did a good job with a hostile audience, and he is to be commended for his courage in facing them down. Naturally,…

Now that many young people have voluntarily surrendered what little remaining privacy they have to Facebook social media, it’s natural to make a move on the notion that there is any such thing as privacy in matters pertaining to lifestyle personal health: Tobacco users consume about 25 percent more healthcare services than non-tobacco users, says…

I wish it wasn’t, but it is. Substantive criticisms or discussions are boring. DISCLAIMER: Please note that I am not “weighing in” on the validity of any allegations. I guess I have to say that I am not, lest people think I am. Such is the nature of the, um, system. MORE: Tastes matter.  Just…

I don’t know why Halloween has to be celebrated tonight, but whatever. Just got back from Halloween partying, and no one “got” my costume.   Clearly, this guy had more fun. I had to get this post up lest I turn into one.

Last week I wrote a post about secret laws, under which the government can charge citizens with criminal offenses that are written in secret and never disseminated to the public. Yesterday I learned about a stunning Justice Department proposal to allow the government to deny the very existence of “sensitive” documents: The proposed rule directs…

All animals are created equal, right? So why would only the animals called “men” be endowed with “certain inalienable rights”? Doug Mataconis links a news item I heard about last night that has brought much laughter and derision: A federal court is being asked to grant constitutional rights to five killer whales who perform at…

I probably shouldn’t write about politics, but sometimes my paranoia gets the better of me and I succumb to temptation. Anyway, the more I talk with Republicans, the more I sense overall disgust and disappointment over the current field. Almost everyone has strong feelings against one or more of the candidates. This is not limited…

How many people are occupying Wall Street? Does anyone know? It would seem that somehow, somewhere there would be a reliable estimate of the crowd size, but I can’t seem to find an exact number anywhere. It is not a huge deal, but considering that the protesters claim to be 99% of the American people,…

While there are certainly other things going on in the world, this headline seems worth at least a passing complaint: Libya’s liberation: interim ruler unveils more radical than expected plans for Islamic law While I worried when I read reports about al Qaida acquiring Stinger missiles (“the better to shoot down your passenger planes, my…

M. Simon’s earlier post reminded me that morality is often not based on eternal and unchanging principles, but on whatever a majority happens to believe is immoral at a given place in time. I left this comment: No one who is sane believes drugs can actually be eliminated by laws. So, the goal is to…

The cancellation of Republican Speaker Eric Cantor’s planned lecture at the University of Pennsylvania fascinates me. Clearly, the man had as much of a First Amendment right to speak as to not speak. Just as the demonstrators who are now crowing victory for having intimidated him would have in theory had a First Amendment “right”…

One of the reasons I was so upset to read about the damnable TSA conducting warrantless searches anywhere they want is the way it’s just reported as “news” after it’s a done deal. Why wasn’t there a national debate? Why didn’t the voters have any say in the matter? Those who ask questions like “where…

While it sickens me to see this happening in the United States, the fact is that the federal government — in the form of the detested TSA — is no longer confining itself to airport security, but is now operating on the nation’s highways: PORTLAND, Tenn. – You’re probably used to seeing TSA’s signature blue…