Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

This morning, guest contributor Frank wrote a post about Andrew Sullivan. I just got this from Frank: You guys may be interested in this. I e-mail a link of the article to Sullivan with a note that he should read it and reflect. He e-mailed back 20 minute later with a one word response: weirdo…

Commenter John at The Soros Plan For The 2012 Election had this to say. Drug users aren’t in chronic pain, and drug use isn’t self-medication. That’s a cop-out. Which brought to mind a number of old articles I wrote on the subject. So I left a LOT of links in the comments. One of the…

1. Declare yourself on the side of  “the Enlightenment ethic of using science and reason to forge a better society” 2. Demand people stop using science and reason to examine your claims

In an interview of David Mamet the interviewer is discussing David’s reading habits when it comes to economics. As an aside the reviewer notes: Later in our conversation, I ask whether he had read any economics before and he says not—he typically gets absorbed in a collection of books relating to his current play for…

The temptation is to react to the latest outrage from Sullivan with epithets: misogynist, turncoat, propagandist, liberal. Some have taken him on in this way, while others like his former friend Jeffery Goldberg simply lament his drift to the left. Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, wrote a hard hitting assault on…

The good news just keeps coming! I just learned that figure skater Johnny Weir (whose past refusal to follow the cultural diktats of Gay Inc. I admired) has issued a fashion fatwa at Washington politicians. …He suggested that Washington kick off its flats. “I love a woman in a heel, and a gentleman in a…

Let me start out by saying that this is speculation of the rankest sort. I have nothing objective to go by. The best way to start this is to look at Resident ∅s chances given current conditions. Current economic conditions are terrible. The jobless rate is running from between 9% and 20% depending on how…

I found an interesting FDR quote while perusing NewsRealBlog. From Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.Excerpted from the chapter on FDR: “But the New Deal was a product of the impulses and ideas of its era. And those ideas and impulses are impossible…

Michael Barone has written the political obituary of Newt Gingrich, and considering Barone’s status as a political analyst, I think that makes it official. Gingrich is out! Considering my opinion of the man, I should be happy. So why am I not rejoicing? I guess it’s because I am less than thrilled by the prospect…

A friend emailed me a link to a fascinating article by Salim Mansur which succinctly argues that the reason for the absence of democracy among Arabs is cultural: The Arab League consists of 21 states and the Palestinian Authority. There is not one single democracy in this collection of Arab states, and the predominant reason…

I have been so busy with my backyard landscaping project that I have not had time to blog. After digging out the hole and putting in perforated pipe, next came six yards of egg rock (moved by hand in 97 degree heat!): Then soil and more soil: As you can see, it was only thanks…

It just keeps coming up. It came up again in a Hot Air thread. A commenter said: I can’t think of a person who identifies as a social Conservative who isn’t automatically a fiscal Conservative I can think of one. The former leader of that gang, Mike Huckabee. Compare and contrast his record with that…

In case you haven’t heard of it by now, a bunch of Sarah Palin e-mails that were available by a Freedom of Information Request have been released. The big deal with the e-mails? There was no big deal. WaPo’s also chasing a hot lead that Palin really is Trig’s mother. Matt Welch of Reason surfed…

The first mate and I were trying out a digital camera she had after getting a larger memory card for it. She wanted to try something a little risque – which is unusual for her. I usually have to use Jewish foreplay on her for things like that. I got her to tone it down…

  I am, of course, for progress. Progress, understood as what makes human life easier or even more pleasant. I have some doubts, though, about to what extent the place where I grew up has progressed or just become more unpleasant. I cannot remember this place – not from growing up here. Things have changed…

Margaret Keane It’s A Beautiful Day Cross Posted at Power and Control

Not much to say today as I have been digging in the yard. But I see that Huma Abedin — who became famous and I discussed repeatedly when she was Hillary Clinton’s “body person” — is in the news again. The news that Anthony Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, is pregnant had been known and agonized…

This is sort of an interesting article: Nylon was first introduced around 1939 and was rapidly in extremely high demand in the US, with up to 4 million pairs of stockings bought in one day. The riots occurred between August 1945 and March 1946, when Du Pont shifted its manufacturing from wartime material to nylon…

The producers of the Palin Campaign (not yet) bio film “The Undefeated,” plan to release an X-rated version. The director of “The Undefeated,” a glowing new film about Sarah Palin, said he plans to release an “X-rated” version of the film to better convey “vile” comments about her from sources including celebrities and obscure Twitter…

  It is well known I have a fear of flying, which I’m doing today – though the rest of week is “canned” posts from Portugal, since I’m not getting home till Saturday (my husband and I having decided we need a little time before I must deal with house and cats.) What I’ve probably…