Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Tall Dave (as he is known in Polywell Fusion circles) wrote a bit on Israel: The Jewish Burden of the Israeli Paradigm. Here is the video that can be found at the link he posted.

Reason Magazine is where I got the video. They have this to say: Fichtner points out, three public policy trajectories converging. The medical marijuana movement is gaining momentum. People are increasingly wakening up to the fact that drug prohibition creates more public health problems than it solves. And, in the same way that the Great…

Via Michael Totten (for my money, the best journalist in the world), an absolutely fascinating essay from Yoram Hazony on how Israel is viewed by Europeans, with references to Kuhn. Israelis and friends of Israel can reasonably be divided on the question of whether this withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, or the parallel withdrawal from…

This is possibly the second-biggest climate science news of the past ten years: some statisticians did a full rework of Mann’s infamous hockey stick papers, and he results were… not pretty. We find that the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature. … On the one hand, we…

All talk of rights to the contrary notwithstanding, I think that building a Hamas-sympathetic mosque near Ground Zero is a bad idea. That does not mean I favor religious discrimination, nor does it mean that I don’t think mosques should be allowed in America. But I think there is a time place and manner issue…

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser: he could not hate the Ground Zero mosque so, did he not love Muslims more. Mr. President this is not about religious freedom. It is about the importance of the World Trade Center site to the psyche of the American People. It is about a blatant attack on our sovereignty by…

There’s some confusion about how many years of Social Security someone who reaches SS retirement age will actually receive. While life expectancy is only in the high 70s, that includes a lot of people who die in infancy or before reaching retirement age. Life expectancy at 65 in 2005 was about 18 years. It appears…

Back in the old days, our ancestors used to be awakened by the sounds of roosters crowing. Today’s equivalent is the much more annoying construction/delivery/workplace vehicle backup alarm. Unlike roosters, though, the backup alarm noises do not settle down. All day long there’s a relentless chorus of artificial BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! I find it grating…

It seems that Israel is stocking up [pdf] on gasoline and jet fuel. WASHINGTON, August 5, 2010 – The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress today of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Israel of unleaded gasoline, JP-8 aviation fuel and diesel fuel for an estimated cost of $2 billion. The Government of Israel has…

What is the common thread between liberals and conservatives today? They are believers in the power of the state to do good. Or in the short hand form statists. Or in the common vernacular fascists. All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. Benito Mussolini I have always been an enemy…

I just learned that Right Wing News is the first sponsor of HomoCon 2010: Today, I want to make an announcement: Right Wing News is the first sponsor of Homocon. We’re going to be supporting the event, promoting it, and encouraging Republicans in New York to attend. Thanks to GOProud for giving us the opportunity…

In response to my article The Karl Rove Plan about the potential Democrat Plan to use legalization initiatives to get out the vote a commenter has given me a heads up. Fritz said… Yep. And I am planning to throw some money at the “Just Say Now” campaign that firedoglake is pushing. Here in WA…

I realize that with all of the pressing problems in the world this is a goofy thing to be doing, but when I saw Glenn Reynolds’ “FUN WITH Google AutoComplete” link I just had to play. Play with hate, of course. I wanted to know who hates what, what hates who, what hates what, and…

Paul Krugman has always been a hack on fiscal policy, but at this point, I’m becoming concerned about his mental health. First there was the bizarre exchange with Paul Ryan in which he made numerous factual mistakes, now this: But neither of these potential problems is a clear and present danger. Social Security has been…

It looks like the Democrats may take a page from Karl Rove’s playbook in the 2012 election. So what did Rove do? Turning out an extra few percent can be the difference between winning and losing in swing states, a reality Karl Rove exploited in 2004 by papering the nation with anti-gay marriage initiatives. Swell.…

Michael Tanner has a few things to say about big government “Conservatives”. Let me start off with a headline: Memo to Republicans: It’s Big Government, Stupid! Then how about some meat: Despite their repeated threats to stay home if Republicans deviated from a commitment to conservative social issues, it wasn’t the Religious Right that deserted…

One of the more comical aspects of the mess in California is that despite the state’s terrible financial crisis, legislators continue to busy themselves with utter nonsense — such as defrocking the official state rock. When I wrote a post about the idiotic campaign, I had not seen Ron Bailey’s Reason piece, which after noting…

This really says it all. Do Muslims have a constitutional right to build a mosque or Islamic center there? Sure, and under our Constitution one could hold a Japanese Pride Parade down the streets of Nanking. But no one should confuse either notion with any semblance of decency, especially coming from an imam with undisclosed…

This is one I published at Power and Control in September of 2007. I think it deserves a wider audience. Update: it appears that this was published at Classical Values in September of 2007 also. Normally I keep track of these things by adding a “Cross Posted at Classical Values” to my Power and Control…

You can download a free legal copy of Plan 9 From Outer Space at Moving Image Archive. They have quite a few downloads available including the hilarious His Girl Friday which shows the popular press in quite an unflattering light. They seem no different from the press of today except that today there are citizen…