Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

I’ve got nothing to say today, but if there’s one thing I hate, it’s bloggers who write posts announcing that they have nothing to say, and then invite comments on the nothingness. Of course, if the goal is to solicit what M. Simon called “typical dim witted semi-on-topic blog comments,” (and Donna, that does not…

I’ve been following the arguments about burka bans, and much as I hate these coverings and what they represent (and think countries like Syria are smart to ban them), I think any ban on an article of clothing is not only impossible in the United States, but runs afoul of the First Amendment. I want…

A private company has just gotten a $50 million cash infusion for its fusion experiments. A private company in Foothill Ranch that is reportedly experimenting with nuclear fusion power has raised $50 million in funding, according to a report from Socaltech.com. Little more information was available Monday about the experiments at the company, Tri-Alpha Energy,…

The look on Mike Wallace’s face is priceless. Worth 55 seconds of your life. Definitely. H/T Joan of Argghh!. May I suggest you follow the link and read Joan’s take on this video and recent events. Cross Posted at Power and Control

Iran has some new friends in the uranium business. TEHRAN (AFP) – The top diplomats of Iran, Brazil and Turkey will discuss nuclear fuel supplies for Tehran in Istanbul on Sunday, in the first such gathering since the Islamic republic was slapped with new sanctions. Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was to meet his Brazilian…

I realize this will sound a bit crazy, but I like Shirley Sherrod. Not like in the sense of wanting to get all warm and cuddly with her, mind you, but like her in the sense that I like Cindy Sheehan, or anyone else who puts the lie to these awful ruling class people. I…

I shouldn’t be sitting here writing a blog post; I should be outside gardening or something. Besides, the latest research shows that sitting in a chair is hazardous to my health. Which means that by sitting in this “death chair” and writing this blog post, I am contributing not only to my own physical decline,…

Over at Watts Up With That they are discussing Al Gore’s marital and hotel difficulties in relation to a hockey stick graph that is most amusing. So I thought I’d add a few words to a most ribald discussion. It was all the fault of improperly labeled RAP music. Just ask Tipper. Tipper is definitely…

So, Obamacare had a provision saying insurance companies cannot refuse to sell insurance policies on children who are already sick. Much as they might stop selling fire insurance if required to cover people whose houses are already aflame, insurers have responded by no longer issuing any individual policies for children, with the result that more…

Speaking of morality (and priorities), I just love this illustration by Thomas Rowlandson: Human sexuality is OK,* but animal sexuality is eeeevil! The guy may have been born in 1756, but he was quite prescient in his anticipation of modern American morality. *Under certain conditions (an oath of fealty to the Democratic Party being the…

There has been a long, drawn out argument in a series of comments to some recent posts, and it’s unfortunate for me, because I’m not an especially comment-oriented person. But OTOH, I don’t want people to think that my not replying to comments means anything. Silence does not indicate agreement or disagreement; often it means…

Putting the criminal justice system in charge of treating drug addiction is literally attempting to do brain surgery with a billy club. Cross Posted at Power and Control

Shirley Sherrod says this about Andrew Breitbart: On Andrew Breitbart: I know I’ve gotten past black versus white. He’s probably the person who’s never gotten past it and never attempted to get past it. I think he would like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery. That’s where I think he would…

It’s not every day that I learn about local Ann Arbor politics from InstaPundit, but Glenn Reynolds linked this Michigan Capitol Confidential story about something all too typical. The debate in Ann Arbor, where firefighters are being laid off due to a multimillion dollar budget deficit, is over an $850,000 piece of art. That’s how…

A friend sent me a link to something I could not watch. It is 4 minutes and 23 second long video of a debate between two people I find annoying — Rachel Maddow and Bill O’Reilly — and I was only able to get 1 minute and 3 seconds through it when I just had…

In the course of perusing the relatively new research implicating “third-hand smoke” as yet another dangerous carcinogen, alarm bells went off in my paranoid brain, and as I hope my worries are misguided, I thought it merited a blog post. An article in the OC Register (“Should smoking be banned in apartments?”) — which linked…

The band is pretty raw. But I like their youth and enthusiasm. Here are the liner notes so to speak. Here is our cover version and arrangement of one of the all time greatest songs ever written, Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone”. It is such an incredible song in so many different ways; of…

After all their support, do they really deserve this?

I have to admire the enterprising nature of the homeless man who is said to have broken into an abandoned bar and opened it to the public: A Placer County man has been arrested after he broke into a shuttered bar, reopened the business and started selling drinks to unwitting customers, according to the Placer…

In response to the moral panic over CO2 production I was inspired to say a few words: Even if every one in the US committed mass suicide it would make very little difference to the global CO2 burden if we don’t get the Chinese aboard. If it weren’t for the carbon footprint I’d suggest a…