Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

The news from the Japanese reactor incident is not getting better. Why should it? The spew of radiation is still going on. The International Atomic Energy Agency has told Japan that radiation levels recorded at a village near a stricken nuclear reactor are over recommended levels, a senior IAEA official said on Wednesday. The IAEA…

Education Week reprints an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer titled “Violence targets Teachers, Staff.” It is appalling, and I remember when I lived in Philadelphia I used to blog about the mind-numbing array of articles about school violence. Not only has nothing changed, but the situation seems to have only gotten worse: Veteran Philadelphia school…

In a vaguely half-interested manner, I clicked on a link to a WSJ writeup titled “Dispatches From the War on Drugs” by Mary Anastasia O’Grady. I had expected to see the usual accounts of SWAT team raids on drug dealers holed up in public housing, but instead the article read like an account from a…

We have news from a newspaper. In this case The Guardian – UK, which has some bad news about the Fukushima reactor accidents. Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have…

I’m really curious about this point made by commenter jmo3 at Megan’s place. Many countries do provide more generous benefits but they do it through substantially higher taxes on almost everyone. As just one example Denmark provides quite generous benefits – they also have a 200% on cars such that a stripped Corolla starts at…

My friend Frank in a comment at Worst Case Scenario, reminded me of something I had been saying implicitly and not explicitly when it comes to the nuclear accident at Fukushima. …the fact that ever changing events are driving the clean-up effort not allowing any kind of containment plan to emerge as of now, this…

I have been trying to figure out whether Donald Trump is a genius or a moron. Something about the amount of money the man has made coupled with his ability to manipulate the media, though, incline me to think he’s more of the former than the latter.  And speaking purely as a rhetorician, I have…

At Dr. Helen’s blog  I found yet another reminder (as if I needed one) of what I especially loathe about the left. The other night they declared lights out night in California, and Amy Alkon defied it. It’s turn out the lights night in the daffy state of California — from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.…

The news has been entirely too bleak lately. Still, controversy gets eyeballs. So I’d like to present a little controversy that does not have earthshaking implications: Breasts and the people who feed on them. ==== Yeah the video was gratuitous. And there are more of them here. I especially liked the cradle hold. A very…

Finally, some good news! At least, a rumor of good news, which is the next best thing. It appears that my favorite beer — Yuengling — might just be inching closer to Michigan. Of all the things I miss about Pennsylvania, Yuengling is at the top of the list. For reasons that are not entirely…

I don’t know whether to title this post “Why I am Not a  Conservative” or “Why I Shouldn’t Call Myself a Conservative,” or even “Why I CANNOT Call myself a Conservative,” but Iowa Congressman Steve King (the driving force behind the recent Conservative Principles Conference) has made a strong case that conservatism means social conservativism,…

On Sunday (27 March) I said in Tests Have Been Ordered, that if they were detecting Iodine 131 that they were also detecting any plutonium in the area. And if there was Iodine 131 there was plutonium. They knew. What I said was “we are checking” means “we will announce”. Well here is the announcement.…

In a long post in which I was trying to be serious, I discussed (again) Kay Hymowitz’s Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys. During the several discussions […] I kept seeing references to male slobs: “why men don’t marry, why college women get guys showing up in a dirty…

Yeah. I know. I’m a damned alarmist and hysteric when it comes to the Japanese reactor difficulties. It seems I’m not the only one. Michio Kaku describes how things could go if they go bad wrong. …the worst case scenario is quite different. If radiation levels continue to rise, then at some point the workers…

I don’t know whether I should still allow myself to rant on my blog, but earlier today I was driving on a fairly major through street, which is clearly marked “ONE WAY.” Not only does it have the requisite signs posted, but it is so obviously one way that only an absolute idiot would fail…

In keeping with the theme that the Japanese running the reactor rescue are lying, I bring you this bit of news: Making things much worse is that, apparently for the first time, TEPCO has ordered tests for highly toxic and extremely lethal plutonium on the site: If they have been testing for other contamination they…

As I have said before, I sometimes have a problem where it comes to blogging about bad news. This can lead to problems, such as avoiding depressing topics entirely. Or writing about topics some would consider frivolous, like the weather, or comparisons between medical marijuana and radiation tourism.  Another option is to find humor in…

I know you are not going to believe this but the above is an image of Radical Islam. Pretty radical for Islam isn’t it? Well at least it is very radical for her father. …the daughter of firebrand cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, Yasmin Fostok might be expected to share his fanatical beliefs. But the radical…

Via the itinerant Bill Ardolino, who spent time in both Iraq and Afghanistan (and whose book will hopefully be out soon), Bill Kristol says give war a chance:  We’re at war. We need to succeed in that war. By all means, be generous with the constructive criticism. (For example, it seems ridiculous for the United States…

This morning I read about what might be a major new investment opportunity — with opportunities for growth poised to become bigger than Viagra: There is a noticeable aroma wafting around the medical marijuana industry. It’s the smell of money — with a strong hint of entrepreneurial opportunity. Medical marijuana is now a $1.7 billion…