Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

“Law enforcement always follows the drugs, because that leads to drug thugs no one cares about,” according to one former Federal official familiar with the case. “Following the money, which is much more effective, is discouraged, because it leads to the suits—bankers, politicians, law enforcement types—people with social and political clout.” Daniel Hopsicker at Mad…

Yeah!

Pat Buchanan in one of his rare useful observations says that the European experiment is cracking up. He does not mean binging on cocaine. But the most startling news on the nationalist front last week came in Venice and the Veneto region, where 89 percent of a large turnout in a non-binding referendum voted to…

This is the way the schools are being run today: (KMOV) – A mother trying to pick her special needs son up from school winds up in handcuffs and puts the school on lockdown. The furious mother came to News 4 claiming the school handled things all wrong. The incident took place at Walnut Groves…

While Jimmy Carter is hardly known for his sense or insights, I was surprised earlier to see him say something that made sense. He claims that he uses snail mail to avoid NSA surveillance: Washington (AFP) – Former US president Jimmy Carter has admitted he uses snail mail to evade monitoring by the National Security…

As M. Simon recently advised me that his new goal involves the Arduino market, I thought a post was in order about these little devices, which are propagating a mini-revolution of sorts. They are incredibly cool, and smaller than a mobile phone, yet capable of doing just about whatever you want them to do. In…

To see a child helping a disturbed child with a serious problem and preventing him from killing or seriously injuring himself kind of renews my faith in humanity. You might think that a child who did this would be praised to the skies, if not rewarded. But you would be wrong. Instead of being rewarded…

“Our criminal justice system has become a crime.” So writes Glenn Reynolds in USA Today. Here’s how it’s supposed to work: Upon evidence that a crime has been committed — Professor Plum, found dead in the conservatory with a lead pipe on the floor next to him, say — the police commence an investigation. When…

The uninhibited Colombian president did not allow the flow of nature to interrupt the flow of his speech. Why don’t such things ever happen in the U.S.? And on the public health front, yesterday’s comedy is today’s science!

This amazing tale of ritual sex and cannibalism beats most of the horror stories floating around today. Except it took place in 1961, and the victim was Michael Rockefeller, son of Nelson Rockefeller. A Harvard scholar, he had traveled to an isolated part of New Guinea to study primitive art, and ended up ritually butchered and…

A lot of people think that the War on Sudafed is simply an inconvenience for Sudafed purchasers. Similar to the way they’ve become accustomed to being delayed and searched at airports, Americans just shrug their shoulders and let the pharmacy employees enter their drivers license information into government databases, so that illicit meth lab operators…

Pointman has a new post up on how he sabotages the Green Movement (Heil Gaia) by agreeing with them in an over the top way. It is hilarious. A typical stunt by him (a her when with the Greenies) is calling for Nuremberg trials for deniers followed by hangings. “My adepts stand upright; their head…

Some nice psychoceramics. (Yes, as I explore this technology, I’m becoming more and more of a crackpot.)

This video is charmingly titled “Bloom Box: The Alternative Energy that Terrifies Obama”: I don’t know how much of the Bloom Box technology is real and how much is hype, but what I do know is that if it does pan out, environmentalists will hate it. The idea of affordable, cleaner, off the grid energy…

Here’s something that should surprise no one. A recent poll indicates that a majority of Americans think Putin is a stronger leader than Obama: Maybe it is the photos of him posing shirtless on horseback, or his military push into Ukraine, but Americans in a new poll believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is a much…

Saying “I TOLD YOU SO!” is not a very emotionally rewarding experience for me. But a Reason piece confirmed one of my longstanding peeves. “Psycho Door-Kicking Cop Embodies Strong Argument Against Gun Registration” Gun rights circles are buzzing over Facebook gloating by a Branford, Connecticut, police officer over the power the state’s new gun (and…

I’m beginning to wonder how the drug warriors can sleep at night. Ah. I forgot. Honor dies where interest lies. Or the American version: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” – Upton Sinclair This fits in with what Eric had to say…

For the past two days, it really seemed like Spring was here. Temperatures rose to the 50s, and the huge mountains of show were busily melting away. For the first time in months, I could walk without having to balance myself on the ice. Today is a different story. It’s pretty much certain Wednesday’s storm…

Writing in WorldNetDaily (where else?) American crackpot Scott Lively blames problems in the Ukraine on the homos: “…the greatest point of conflict between the U.S. and Russia is the question of homosexuality,” he posited, adding, “I believe even the conflict in Ukraine is being driven to a large extent by this issue, at least on…

A friend sent me a link to an interesting article about an old, long-demonized drug: “First LSD Study in 40 Years Shows Promising Medical Uses“ According to the study, the drug helps ease the anxiety of terminally ill people. Picking up where the medical community left off in the ’60s, scientists recently investigated the effects…