Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Well I seem to be on a bluegrass kick these days. This one especially caught my eye. It features Earl Scruggs and a host of banjo players. I got intorduced to Flatt and Scruggs back in ’62-’63 by Sheldon Danielson who was the Chief Engineer at WFMT (home of the Midnight Special). He hired me…

Liberals love to belittle complaints about government tyranny. Predictably, they say that those who are annoyed by tyranny are being “petty” — as if giving up freedom is the sort of thing to be expected in the modern progressive world, and if you don’t like it, you are backward and in need of consciousness raising.…

OK. You are probably wondering how I found it (them?) – aside from looking. Well it was a commenter at Gay Patriot. I swear. You can’t make this stuff up. So how did gay patriots get involved with women’s chests (well tits actually)? No it is not a residual from being nursed as a child.…

I had a 5″ 33 1/3 version when I lived in Bezerkeley cira 1968. Angel Albert was a regular fixture in my living room back then. The 5″ (was it 6″?) 33 1/3 was the best version they released. That copy is long gone. The notes that go with this YouTube version are interesting. I’m…

One of Karl Pierson’s classmates said: In a profile on the shooter in the Denver Post which focused on his “strong political beliefs,” several of Pierson’s classmates offered their impressions of the shooter. One of the shooter’s classmates described him as a “very opinionated socialist.” Another piece described him as: Karl Halverson Pierson was a…

Commenter John Hemry suggested this version:

Now that we have your bank account number we are going to take your money. Shannon Bruner of Indianola logged on to her checking account Monday morning, and found she was almost 800 dollars in the negative. “The first thing I thought was, ‘I got screwed,’” she said. The Bruners enrolled for insurance on the…

And now we know who. White House Forces Obamacare Insurers To Cover Unpaid Patients At A Loss …what happened on Thursday, December 12 will stand as one of the most lawless acts yet committed by this administration. The White House—having canceled Americans’ old health plans, and having botched the system for enrolling people in new…

With news headlines like these, who needs reality? James Bond is an ‘impotent drunk’ Yes, and teams of anti-alcohol “scientists” obsessively analyzed all the Bond books and films to prove it. Seriously, just look at the graph they created: I guess the world is lucky that scientific busybodies never analyzed Winston Churchill and pronounced him…

We are having a discussion at Talk Polywell and as usual things are getting interesting. Commenter hanelyp says in part: As for the value of religion, a successful religion embraces memes that promote survival and expansion of the people. Religions embracing memes contrary to survival adapt or die. Protestant Christianity, so influential in the US…

Who knew that if you took enough money from people, they wouldn’t have any left? Amazing!

Er, maybe I’ve got things reversed. But I do have a question. Why are veterinarians more sympathetic to their animal patients than doctors are to their human patients? When poor old Puff developed back problems in his old age, the vets couldn’t have been nicer. They (I moved around so I had several) just wanted…

Earlier on Facebook I linked what I thought would be a mildly interesting article: “Fire-ant colony + molten aluminum = incredible art.” The idea is that if you pour molten aluminum down into the ant colony and then dig out the casting, you will have an interesting art piece. Which you would, and which I,…

Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong with America Discussed in this video is how Republicans are screwing the pooch with thier focus on social issues at the Federal level. Anybody remember the Terri Schiavo case?

Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com The show is “The Independents” – a libertarian show with Matt Welch of Reason Magazine Here is their look at ∅bamaCare(less) Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com

∅bamaCare(less): 365K sign-ups 5.9 million cancellations. That is about 5.5 million in negative territory. Update: 13 December 2013 1743z Commenter Neil had this to say: The “365K sign-ups” are people who established accounts at the website. Being generous, perhaps 10% of them actually signed up to purchase a plan. According to insurance companies, 10% of…

First a preface. Over at Talk Polywell we are discussing the rise of libertarianism in America. Actually more of a rebirth. In that context a discussion of a certain commenter on the board, Diogenes, came up. I refer to him as “D”. He is an atheist who tries to sell Christianity to the benighted masses.…

Reading a recent column by Peggy Noonan, I had a feeling of suffocating familiarity: For four years I have been told, by those who’ve worked in the administration and those who’ve visited it as volunteers or contractors, that the Obama White House isn’t organized. It’s just full of chatter. Meetings don’t begin on time, there’s…

The Republicans have made a budget deal. Some Republicans are not happy. A number of well-funded outside groups, notably the Club for Growth, Heritage Action and FreedomWorks, have blasted the plan as insufficiently conservative and vowed to punish Republican lawmakers who support it. These Republican groups have their donors to think about of course. But…

Also: More Josie Outlaw videos