Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  A very nice find by Megan: It is a commonplace [notion] that since the 1970s, inequality in America has been growing rapidly–far more rapidly than our peers abroad.  Naturally, this has invited a lot of attempts to explain that growth, usually in terms of America’s tax policy, its culture, or some sort of capture of…

Eric has been all over conspiracy theories lately. Start here and follow the links. Well it got me to thinking (since I had verified much of the material of one so called conspiracist): What if fake conspiracy theories are manufactured (or enhanced) to cover the real conspiracies – because, you know, no one believes that…

Earlier I wasted about a half an hour watching a ridiculous program on the History Channel which made my criticism of Drudge yesterday seem petty. Called “Prophets of Doom,” it started out with Michael Ruppert — notorious conspiracy theorist who has lurched from Iran Contra conspiracies to 9/11 Trutherism to his latest — which is…

In a previous post on the Japanese reactor problems I noted. Hydrogen explosions indicate a very serious problem. There should be no hydrogen generated under normal conditions. Or abnormal conditions. The situation must be very abnormal. And the serious problem I feared appears to have happened. A breech of the fuel rods, the reactor vessel,…

Bill? That would be our former President Bill Clinton talking about oil. And what is he saying about oil? Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that delays in offshore oil and gas drilling permits are “ridiculous” at a time when the economy is still rebuilding, according to attendees at the IHS CERAWeek conference. Clinton spoke…

A must-read piece from Nick Gillespie, linked over at Instapundit and other fine establishments: Until we face up to the three large truths about the current moment outlined above, it’s hard to see how our country, our states, and our cities can move into better positions regarding their balance sheets. More importantly, it’s hard to…

For some time now, I have noticed Drudge‘s regular linking of notorious conspiracy monger Alex Jones. I have been too cynical to bother with complaining in blog posts, as I figure WTF, who cares, after all, etc. These things are all about traffic. “News” becomes relative when it comes to entertaining people and getting hits.…

Over the weekend I visited a stable where some friends keep a horse, and I happened to see the following sign posted on the wall: The sign references Michigan’s Equine Activity Liability Act (text here, PDF) — a 1994 law I’d never heard of before, which shouldn’t have had to be enacted were we living…

Ah yes. They do. It seems like the Palestinians have problems with Jews living in “their” territory. Five family members were found murdered in their residence in the West Bank Itamar settlement Friday overnight, after a suspected terrorist broke and entered the house and stabbed the five to death. Two children managed to escape and…

I have been following the nuclear plant “meltdown” story from Japan trying to figure out what happened. I’m a former Naval Nuke so I know a fair bit about Nuke plants and I must say that this has been my experience so far: I have been reading every news release on the incident since the…

And now for a post I really REALLY don’t want to write. M. Simon’s post about Katie Granju’s son Henry gave me the willies. Seriously, I was having blog nightmares last night. (That is the truth.) It’s like, our two approaches are so diametrically different that it’s almost a Yin/Yang situation. I am indirect, introverted,…

Megan takes note of Mark Kleiman’s weak defense of a weak President in the context of Bradley Manning’s treatment, and quotes an interesting vignette about Kissinger, which is worth reading. The moral? Not only does the president hear about threats we don’t, but he’s the guy who gets in trouble if any of these threats come off. Well, we’re…

I was at Mary’s Place Friday night listening to my son’s band Alpha Drop (he is the drummer) and got to talking to a sound man about this and that (mostly my experiences at WFMT from ’62 to ’63) and I mentioned I had just done a post on Ken Nordine. He suggested I look…

Eric has a nice post up on grief mongers and their lawyers. Each little grief enacted into our common law (by judges decisions on what claims are actionable) adds friction to the system. A kind of creeping arthritis. The grief is justified and now everyone suffers. But just a little from each. So it creeps…

In an update to yesterday’s post, I mentioned the the West Coast’s “brush” with earthquake-triggered ocean waves not big enough to be called a true Tsunami. While the damage was minor in comparison to Japan, the West Coast nevertheless suffered millions in damage, and a man trying to take photos of incoming waves was swept…

In the many years I have been online, I have only very rarely deliberately clicked “reply all” when repling to email which includes lists of people or groups. The problem is that I get a lot of email and sometimes I am in a hurry, and there’s an insidious newer form of group email which…

Today’s news about the gigantic earthquake in Japan is so huge that I could barely get the San Francisco Chronicle main page to open.There are Tsunami warnings for the entire Bay Area, and reports of jammed bridges which head East.  Whether a killer Tsunami will actually strike San Francisco is debatable, but if it happens,…

The news is somewhat old (1 Feb) but I don’t recall seeing it elsewhere. Las Vegas-based Righthaven LLC sues alleged copyright-infringing website operators and message-board posters in partnerships with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post. Since March, at least 229 lawsuits have been filed in a campaign the then-publisher of the Review-Journal said…

The voice is that of Ken Nordine whose voice was legendary in radio back in the day. The only similar voice I know of was the voice of Tom Donahue who I listened to on KSAN and KMPX in San Francisco. Here is a nice video about radio back in the day. The good stuff…

Today’s front page of the Free Press has a big headline — “Drugs, blood: Inside the world of dogfighting.” I don’t know why, but the online version of the same article had a different headline — “Detroit killings show dangerous world of dogfighting, police say.” The first paragraph makes abundantly clear the identity of the…