Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

If a bill introduced in the state legislature passes, Michigan will become the first state to have roadside drug testing: The legislation would authorize police to administer a roadside saliva test for illegal drug use, just as they do breath tests for alcohol, when they stop a driver suspected of being intoxicated. State Rep. Rick…

Seriously, are there any benighted semi-despots out there Tom Friedman doesn’t have a bromantic poli-crush on? Some eight years ago, in February 2002, I interviewed then-Crown Prince-now-King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at his horse farm outside Riyadh. I shared with him a column I had written — suggesting that the Arab League put forth a…

The anti-Tea Party left are having a field day over the discovery that a violently anti-gay bigot was heading a Montana Tea Party group. One of the favorite headlines is “Tea Party president jokes about murdering GLBTQ people.” (Right. As if this clown is the president of the Tea Party itself!) Then there’s “Montana Tea…

A newspaper report out of Connecticut paints a dire picture of heroin use in America. The destruction of the country by these evil drugs is nearly complete. We have zombie Armies roaming the streets whose only motivation is drugs and death. Painter also sees a misconception about heroin addiction, and the hysterical fears of a…

I’m a bit late to weigh in on the president’s complaint that he’s being talked about like a dog, but Glenn has a nice roundup of posts. The consensus is that the president plagiarized a Hendrix line, and that’s received a lot of attention — including from non-Hendrix-fan John Hinderaker. I like Hendrix, and there…

George Soros is one of those people I absolutely cannot stand. IMO, there is no wicked deed, no sort of foulness, of which I would deem him incapable. Yesterday, I wondered out loud whether someone like him might consider funding the elimination of humanity by mad scientists using killer organisms: …what would stop a rich…

Among many of life’s seemingly minor petty annoyances is the disparate treatment meted out by the City of Ann Arbor’s garbage collection unit. Whether they enforce the rules depends on trashiness of the residents, and their willingness to comply with the rules. Now, you might assume that they would be harder on the trashier and…

I thought I’d add a little to the dog treatment the Present is currently complaining about. Cross Posted at Power and Control

Quick question for anyone who understands Facebook better than I do. (Which is probably most people, as it still baffles me.) Earlier when I went to my Facebook homepage, I saw that someone using my name had posted the following phony endorsement — as me! Eric Scheie I thought this survey stuff was BULL** but…

In a piece in the Washington Examiner, Glenn Reynolds looks at a very scary doomsday scenario — mass annihilation of humanity by violent scientific nuts. Glenn notes that so far, radical environmentalists have only committed “regular” acts of terrorism, but worries about scientific nuts crossing the line: Holdren has since distanced himself from these views,…

Paul Krugman argues: What’s less well known is the extent to which the public drew the wrong conclusions from the recession that followed: far from calling for a resumption of New Deal programs, voters lost faith in fiscal expansion. Having just finished Amity Shlaes’ The Forgotten Man this weekend, I can say that while their…

John Derbyshire in a critique of the Glenn Beck Million Christian March (Well really Restoring Honor Rally – but…) mentions a few things about “conservatives” he doesn’t like (I agree with his list – mostly). This is one of my biggest pet peeves: the infantile narcissism of believing that all life’s ills have a remedy…

Isn’t this more or less an act of war?

I was somewhat saddened to read that a 160 year old Michigan tradition has ended — without my ever having seen it. I refer to the Michigan State Fair. Having recently fallen victim to Governor Jennifer Granholm’s budget cuts, it is to be no more: DETROIT – Rabbit breeder Rob Usakowski typically spends the week…

News reports about the beheading threat against Geert Wilders caused me to Google the man who called for the beheading, one Sheikh Feiz Muhammad. There’s an in-depth profile of him here. He’s considered the most dangerous sheikh in Australia: Here, we profile Feiz Muhammad (a.k.a. Feiz Mohammad, Sheik Feiz), an Australian citizen now residing in…

Via Dr. Helen, I am reminded of the obvious fact that the Alpha Male is dying in Hollywood: The masculine, alpha-male movie star – brought to life in films such as “Rambo,” “Die Hard,” and “Rocky” – is becoming extinct in Hollywood, according to actress Michelle Rodriguez. “The alpha man is dying in film, the…

In a comment some one was complaining about the tiny clique of Jewish libertarians. Tiny but influential. Take Alisa Rosenbaum for instance. A lot of people have.

Pat Caddell, Jimmy Carter’s pollster, says the Republicans will do well this November despite their unpopularity. On Monday, Gallup released a new weekly poll showing Republicans leading Democrats by an unprecedented ten-point margin, 51 to 41 percent, in congressional voting preferences — the largest gap in Gallup’s history of tracking the midterm generic ballot. “I…

Is Krugman-style Keynesianism dead? This sure sounds like a funeral for the kind of massive government spending the left’s premier Nobel prizewinner has been arguing for. (I’ve lately become increasingly skeptical of this quasi-superstitious notion shiny pieces of metal conferred by leftish Swedish officials really grant one particular perspicacity anyways.) Is the administration tuning him…

In the wake of the psychotic environmentalist gunman who took hostages at the Discovery Channel, a lot of people are wondering what it is with Al Gore and his vast power to do what the left so loves to accuse Rush Limbaugh of doing? As Glenn puts it sarcastically in his roundup, “Won’t Al Gore…