Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

A while back I did a post on how Pat Robertson had changed his stance on pot (at least for a while). And I quote: …something else we’ve got to recognize. We’re locking up people that take a couple of puffs of marijuana and the next thing they know they’ve got 10 years. They’ve got…

There are two things I love about Sarah Palin. One is that she’s the overall best chance that small government libertarians and constitutionalists have of getting someone of a libertarianish bent into the nation’s highest office, and the second is that I love the way she drives the left wild, and causes them to seriously…

My friend Physicist Oliver K. Manuel has a paper out explaining that the sun is not an ordinary star that “burns” strictly Hydrogen, but a neutron star with a Hydrogen mantle. The paper is rather technical but I can give you the flavor of it with an excerpt from the Conclusion. Dynamic competition between gravitational…

I have just been notified by my friends at Talk Polywell of a break through in the biologic generation of liquid fuels. The Globe and Mail reports on the breakthrough (although my friends at Talk Polywell think the report is garbled by a not entirely science literate reporter). In September, a privately held and highly…

Aaron was a great defender of gun rights. He was a totally stand up guy. I explained to him how the Drug War was a danger to gun rights and after some discussion he changed his position. He will be sorely missed. Memorial Page JPFO Home Page Books By Aaron Zelman Cross Posted at Power…

My congressman, John Dingell, is one of the oldest and richest members of the House; he’s so old that his Washington career literally began under FDR. Now 84, Dingell intends to seek re-election, and he is taking advantage of the tragic shooting of Gabrielle Giffords by claiming he and his wife received death threats “in”…

I have an interesting report on political slush funds in the Vatican Bank from a source whose reputation I’m not aware of. Anyone know how credible this report is? Slush fund accounts of major US politicians identified and seized at Vatican Bank (Rome). Connection established with Daniel Dal Bosco RICO indictment, which cites Giancarlo Bruno,…

The more I think about M. Simon’s previous post, and this Ann Althouse comment discussion, the more I am having some serious hypothetical worries about my future. The reason for my concern is the growing insistence by a large number of people that the so-called “Short Form” — the standard issue birth certificate which most…

Brought to mind by a post on Why Palin Hatred? This unhinged hatred of Palin comes mostly from women. That is an awkward observation for us to offer, because a man risks sounding sexist or unchivalrous when he makes unflattering generalizations about women. Noted sociologist Chris Rock (in the video above) clarifies the whole social…

According to a post Glenn linked, a study of action movie villains from the 1980s to today revealed that the most frequent and persistent overall characteristic of Hollywood bad guys is that they work for the government: I tracked ten of the best-loved action stars over the past 30 years: Clint Eastwood, Tom Cruise, Bruce…

No. Not the media over the shootings in Arizona. They lost Obama’s birth certificate. Maybe lost it is the wrong term. “Can’t find it” is more like it. Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie suggested in an interview published today that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist within the vital records maintained…

For different reasons, both M. Simon and Sarah have made me want to sound off about something that has long annoyed me.  Magical thinking. Seeing things that aren’t. Making connections that are not there. In movies, the Michael Moore approach. (Bush swings golf club. Truckload of dead Iraqi babies. Voila! Connection made!)  I hate the…

CNN is trying to avoid inflammatory rhetoric: CNN’s John King: “Before we go to break, I want to make a quick point. We were having a discussion about the Chicago mayoral race. My friend Andy Shaw used the term ‘in the crosshairs’ in talking about the candidates. We’re trying, we’re trying to get away from…

My doctor in California — an internist I have been seeing since the 1970s — is a real doctor. By that I mean he has a private practice and is not beholden to some faceless institution which treats doctors like apparatchiks and their patients as little more inventory in a public policy study. His records…

Bob Ramsey who has some interesting links on this page suggested I have a look at a book excerpt which explains why supply interdiction in the Drug War is an impossible task. Not just difficult. Not just expensive. Impossible. It is an excerpt from a book published in 1991: Undoing Drugs: Beyond Legalization So let…

According to his friends, Jared Loughner hated Bush, and he believed in the 9/11 Truther conspiracy theories. Assuming the man’s mind was capable of a political classification (a big assumption, IMO), that would have tended to place him on the left at the time. Because Bush was president and the official government position was that…

Does pot make some people smarter? I have no studies proving that. I do have an anecdote SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The late astronomer and author, Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996) was a secret but avid marijuana smoker, crediting it with inspiring essays and scientific insight, according to Sagan’s biographer. Using the pseudonym “Mr. X”,…

What’s up all of a sudden with certain Republicans these days?  I mean, I might have expected Democrats to be pushing gun control, but coming on the heels of Peter King’s inanity, stuff like this is getting ridiculous: Lugar pushes to renew assault weapons banSen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) this weekend called on Congress to reinstate…