Author: Eric Scheie

Via Glenn’s link to Snowflakes in Hell, I learned about a new gun control proposal they’re trying to sneak through. By “they” I don’t mean only the Obama administration, or Mayor Bloomberg, or the BATF. I also include the Washington Post, because of the sneaky way the proposal is described: To stem the flow of…

As there has been some debate recently over the possibility of gay soldiers engaging in sexual harassment of straight soldiers (which some would apparently define as being gay while showering with men who aren’t), I thought I would take a look at a frustrating issue that I have never quite been able to clarify to…

When Glenn linked my post about whether incest is banned in the military, he not only made my post look funnier that I had thought it was, he reminded me of an obvious irony: IF NOT, RESTORING ROTC TO COLUMBIA WILL JUST BE THAT MUCH EASIER: “Does anyone know whether the Code of Military Justice…

Quick question. Does anyone know whether the Code of Military Justice prohibits incest? William Saletan claims that it does, Technically, the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Manual for Courts-Martial prohibit sodomy, bigamy, adultery, “wrongful” cohabitation, and incest. Except the link he provides does not prohibit incest; it merely lists incest as an example…

A comment to an earlier post touches on an intractable problem which refuses to go away, and makes me feel as if I am in a permanent Catch 22. <i>I just have one question: why do you keep treating Sullivan as if he’s meaningful or even sane? One shouldn’t feed trolls nor like to the…

When I was checking myself out at the grocery store the other day, I saw a new sign on the keypad: WIC NOT ALLOWED IN SCO Hmmm…. For a couple of seconds, I felt bureaucratically challenged. Then I realized that “WIC” meant the welfare debit cards that always seem to slow things down for the…

As anyone who remembers “The Dating Game” knows, the way the game works is that a young female contestant gets to ask a series of questions to three young male contestants (aka “eligible bachelors”), then chooses the best man based on the answers. She cannot see them, of course. In this charming episode from 1972,…

Matthew Yglesias makes no secret of wanting Swedish style socialism for the United States, and says so. He also chides American progressives for not being more explicit about advocating socialism, and says gumption is required. …you need to have the gumption to take money away from people whose consumption has a low marginal value, and…

I’m not a credentialed historian, but I have read many, many books about Nazism and Communism over the years. So many that I have lost count. It is numbing to read about mass killing, especially the details. Most of the books I’ve accumulated are in boxes, but here are a few I took off the…

While I like to joke about Al Gore by comparing him to Jerry Falwell and calling him an “evangelist,” consider the eerie connection between Al Gore and Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps: Fred Phelps is a long time Democrat supporter and frequent Democrat candidate for various offices in Kansas. As recently as 1998 Phelps got…

While I might complain about the snow as I did earlier, Coco does not! In fact, she loves the snow, because it makes her favorite tire seem all the more enticing and magical.   As you can see, Coco is in no hurry to bring it to me, and when she does, she insists on…

This is the fourth day of arctic weather in the low teens and single digits, and I am getting sick of it. Like most Americans, I am in no mood for a scolding about Global Warming. Battling ice is no fun, and driving is dangerous because the streets that were plowed and look safe actually…

We should be glad we still have the First Amendment right to yodel, because in Austria they have lost it. No, seriously: It seems as though in Austria, the popular yodel is an insult to Muslims. An Austrian court has recently fined a citizen for yodeling while mowing his lawn, according to a report in…

As most readers know, I hate influence. Yet that is an absurd contradiction, one with which I struggle constantly. Avoiding influence is impossible, so I see it as one of those hopelessly unachievable goals — like goodness or perfection. In what is probably a contradictory act of damnable hypocrisy, I will quote a famous person…

An article in today’s Detroit Free Press confirms what many people on the right have been pointing out for years. What we call “the unemployment rate” is statistically misleading, for it includes only the “acute” phase of unemployed workers who are actively looking for work while drawing benefits, while omitting the large — and growing…

In an article at The Hill discussing Sarah Palin’s electability, I read something a bit unsettling: …there are other names closely associated with the Tea Party movement, of which Palin is a prominent member, who might run: Rep. Mike Pence (R) of Indiana, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R) and former Speaker of the House…

In the course of salting and scraping the sidewalk, I have been throwing road salt from a bucket. No big deal there. Just a plain five gallon bucket. But as Veeshir says, this blog is dedicated to overthinking things, and on the way up the stairs earlier I happened to notice something on the bucket…

It has come to my attention that this blog now has an entirely new way to embed hyperlinks. It strikes me as not only lazy, but possibly dishonest, because all I have to do is write a post (presumably on any subject), and the new software will identify certain key words, then automatically suggest links…

Ever since some asshole of a leftist professor I’d never heard of before was discovered to be screwing his 24-year old daughter, there has been a raging debate over incest in the blogosphere. (Hmmm… I don’t like the way that came out; I think I should say “debate in the blogosphere over incest.”) For a…

This blog is in the middle of an upgrade! Regular readers may have noticed difficulty leaving comments; last night it was impossible and now the comments are working, but the new spam catcher is mean and intolerant, so I have had to adjust the settings. (At least now I can leave test comments….) But there…