Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

There is a meme going around facebook, an innocuous little question of “What was the last female writer you read, and the book?” It’s very popular and being echoed all over.  It’s also a good example of how people think when they get rats in their head. “But, Sarah,” you say, “why would you object…

I often wonder whether Onion-style satire is infiltrating reality when I read about incidents like the one Bill Quick SteveF Steve  linked earlier. At the University of Connecticut, a team logo featuring a Husky dog is being seriously criticized on the ground that it promotes “rape culture”: In an open letter to UC President Susan Herbst, self-described feminist student…

Drudge links a headline about Iter Fusion’s apparent breakthrough: If Iter demonstrates that it is possible to build commercially-viable fusion reactors then it could become the experiment that saved the world in a century threatened by climate change and an expected three-fold increase in global energy demand. While I would of course defer to M.…

I use TinyCAD and FreePCB and ViewMate Gerber reader to design PCBs. All free for the purposes I use them. What part of my work actually shows up as GDP (at least in the development stage)? The boards I get made by OSH Park plus the parts I buy from Mouser and Digikey. But I…

The conspiracy theorists are owed an apology. You can read all about it at: Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever. Money (heh) quote: But the biggest shock came out of a federal courtroom at the end of March – though if you follow these matters closely, it may not have been so shocking…

A lady with MS who was taking marijuana for her condition has had her kids taken away. She lives in Idaho and was part of an activist family. Idaho is not a medical marijuana state. Here is more of the story. While Lindsey and Sarah were vacationing, along with Lindsey’s husband Josh (the director of…

Sent to me by a fellow member of the ATeam (which I will explain much later).

There is something about Ben Affleck that I have found annoying, and I really hadn’t stopped to think about it until his recent public vow of temporary poverty: The Oscar-winning director recently signed on to participate in the Global Poverty Project’s Live Below the Line, a campaign that challenges average (and above-average) people to live…

For some time now, I have complained about Drudge’s habit of regularly linking notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Infowars-dot-com. I don’t know whether it is a good sign or not, but today I see that Drudge has linked a story which expresses some skepticism about Jones. Jones — whose site has peddled conspiracy theories…

M. Simon forwarded me an email containing the following remarks from Richard Feldman, President of the Independent Firearm Owners Association (IFoA): “We know that 35% to 45% or more of gun-violence is directly related to the black market in drug trafficking. Now is the time to open an adult discussion on this vital and inextricably…

Tim Blair notices this Waleed Aly cornucopia of nonsense, complete with a refreshingly honest graphical admission the media can’t wait for a Tea Party member to finally do something violent. It’s a target-rich environment, but this bit jumped out at me: It’s not just that we don’t value Iraqi lives as much as American ones (although…

This headline from yesterday’s Detroit Free Press says it all. No motive at all! There! Isn’t that clear?

Well here’s some interesting news. It turns out that the Boston Marath0n jihadists may have (gasp!) violated gun control laws: CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts police official say the brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon before having shootouts with authorities didn’t have gun permits. And to think the NRA crackpots say gun control does…

In Sarah’s recent post The Tangle of Privilege, she discusses the difficulty of being yourself in a culture where you don’t fit in. It doesn’t matter if it is your culture. That brought to mind a piece I just wrote for ECN How to manage creative types (with a minimum of fuss). My original title…

A few days ago I ran into an interesting paper on omega 3 fatty acids, endocannabinoids and crime. I had been meaning to blog it and so here it is. Recent findings suggest that some criminal and aggressive behaviors are closely correlated with low serum omega-3 levels, which are linked to lower levels of altruism,…

I’ve written before on the state of racism in America saying that of course it exists – it will exist so long as America is populated by human beings – but it’s not racism as defined by law (or news, or entertainment) nor even some kind of thing that can be identified and mitigated by…

Now that the second Boston jihadist has been caught, I have a lingering question. Is it possible that the Boston Marathon bombing represents the birth of an American Al Qaeda? If it does, then the arguments over whether this is “home grown” terrorism seem silly.  And if it does not, is that because it is only…

Really? The man who said that was dead Boston jihadist Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who seems to have believed that the word “values” means those values which agree with his own. The man was a teetotaling religious and sexual prude and accomplished athlete who was obviously very proud of himself. He looked down on Americans, and no doubt considered…

Eric Holder is weighing the pros and cons about what to do about States that legalize marijuana. He says he is thinking of the children. And organized crime. Well one of his supporters believes the best way to send messages to children is with armed men. “Your department could choose to attempt to overturn those…

He doesn’t seem to know much history, either.  Racism wasn’t so much a Southern trait as a Democrat trait, and it doesn’t require any particular contortions to understand turn-of-the-century progressivism was synonymous with racism. So I posted a couple comments pointing out the Democrat strategy has always been to garner as many votes as they…