Eric Scheske

"[I]t is common for it to be thought that the possession of an opinion on a subject, which is active, is deemed more important than having any information on that subject, which is passive." Theodore Dalrymple [http://www.skepticaldoctor.com/importance/]. Great observation, but isn't

H.I.F. "Three times more Americans gave up on America in 2013 than in 2012. As The WSJ reports, last year saw a record number of US taxpayer expatriations. While 'exceptionalism' and living the American Dream remain cornerstones of maintaining the US citizenry's view

Pope Francis is on the cover of the Rolling Stone this week. The MSM still loves him, while comparing BXVI to Freddy Krueger. Jim Davis breaks it down at Get Religion [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/getreligion/2014/02/francis-is-the-right-kind-of-pope-at-least-for-rolling-

Miscellany Dare I hope it? The Accuweather 15-day forecast says this terrible cold will stop this coming Wednesday, then temperatures will climb steadily for the following ten days . . . with temps in the upper forties from February 18 through February 22. At that point, we'll be a week

"There are 12 new events in this year's Winter Olympics, 12. The new events include women's ski jumping, luge-team relay, and finding a working toilet."

According to the LR blog [http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/buckleys-highfalutin-words/], this anecdote comes from a 1931 entry in Mencken's diary: > William Faulkner, the Southern author who has been visiting New York for six or eight weeks past, has gone home at last, leaving

From the Bottom Line Personal [http://www.bottomlinepublications.com/]: "Caffeine withdrawal is now a mental-health disorder," according to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders." But the urge to engage in sodomy isn't. Fine state of affairs at the APA.

My favorite essayist (Jewish or otherwise) asks a good question. In a review essay of a T.S. Eliot biography, Joseph Epstein writes: > But might it be allowed that one can write or say anti-Semitic things without being an anti-Semite? Eliot is guilty of the former, but

H.I.F. Drudge killed me with this morning's headline: "Let the Gaymes Begin." It's the link to this article [http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/04/rights-group-releases-video-of-lgbt-attacks-in-russia/?_php=true&_type=blogs&src=