Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Massachusetts may be in the process of electing a Republican to take Ted Kennedy’s old seat. His name? Scott Brown. Our good friend Abbey in Cleveland called us last night and said, “You’re not going to believe this. So sit down”. She then went on to explain that she’s making her FIRST EVER political donation…

Yemeni’s top cleric Sheik Abdul-Majid al-Zindani — a man also said to be Osama bin Laden’s spiritual advisor — is not happy with the United States, which he thinks is planning a “foreign occupation” of Yemen: SAN’A, Yemen – Yemen’s most influential Islamic cleric, considered an al-Qaida-linked terrorist by the United States, warned Monday that…

Not as Governor Of Alaska. She is going to be a TV commentator on FOX News. Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, will return to her broadcast roots and take her conservative message to Fox News as a regular commentator, the cable channel announced Monday. “I am thrilled to be…

I guess the Catastrophic Global Warming scare is officially over. At least according to one IPCC scientist. The research has been carried out by eminent climate scientists, including Professor Mojib Latif. He is a leading member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He and his colleagues predicted the cooling trend in a 2008…

It didn’t take long for the people who want to rule us to say just that. I like Don Surber’s take: Global cooling proves global warming. Professor Mojib Latif, a leading member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the newspaper: “A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000…

While I’m a skeptic about alternative (or naturopathic) medicine, if I hear about a treatment for the more annoying symptoms of the common cold, I’m quite willing to check it out, especially if it’s harmless. And if it works, I spread the word. For example, I have long believed in the value of sage tea…

I finally found a picture of my favorite Communist, Comrade Kaprugina from Doctor Zhivago. When Zhivago returned from the war to discover that the Bolsheviks had taken over his family home and stuffed it with people (50 square meters for a family of five), he was promptly put in his place by Comrade Kaprugina, who,…

I’m pretty zonked out from an awful cold (and from the even awfuller cold meds) right now, so not only am I not up to blogging, I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be making much sense. Of course, I guess if I started spouting inanities, it would be hard to beat Harry Reid, who seems hell…

Remember global warming? Back in the day, because she was gullible enough to believe in it, Coco tried to do something to cool the planet But now that she’s moved to Ann Arbor, I’m afraid Coco has given up on global warming. Instead, she plays in the snow. Here we are on a frozen lake.…

You think I’m joking? I’m not. First let’s look at the shutdown. The heaviest snowfall to hit northern China in nearly six decades continued to snarl traffic yesterday, stranding thousands of passengers on railways and at airports. The unusually harsh winter weather also caused coal shortages, forcing some provinces to cut power supplies. And what…

And this death to skeptics is not just an artifact of history. We hear those calls even today. A public appeal has been issued by an influential U.S. website asking: “At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers.” The appeal appeared on Talking Points Memo, an often cited website that helps set…

I hate it when I voice paranoid suspicions which turn out to be accurate descriptions of official policy, but I guess I better get used to it. In a post titled “Egalitarianism For Asses” on December 27, I worried that there might be “growing tacit acceptance of an absurd proposition” — that it is better…

Here’s an oldie but a goodie: It’s a PhotoShop from 2006, but I can’t remember who did it. Whatever the context, it seems appropriate now.

Last week, M. Simon emailed me a link to a piece in the East Bay Express about Berkeley High School’s decision to cut science labs. The article confirmed what Simon told me in the email: the reason was that too many white kids were interested in science: The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on…

Leave it to Sean Kinsell to point out gems I might otherwise have missed. In this case, some gay jokes by straight men. Sean has noticed a direct relationship between the quality of the gay jokes and the attractiveness of the straight men who tell them. I found Sean’s observation too important to let pass:…

Bill Whittle has made another excellent video about the American Dream. He talks about the efforts of the Alinsky Left to break our hopes and our dreams. The funny thing is even the left acknowledges the power of hope in America. They ran their election campaign on it. Bill’s diatribe is an exhortation to, as…

As a longtime advocate of sexual freedom who grew up in the West, I have a natural tendency to see the world in Western terms, which means that I see sexual freedom in Western terms. I pretty much agree with the IASHS framework of “Basic Sexual Rights” (which Glenn Reynolds aptly described as a “Sexual…

Climate researchers at Penn State are in for a nasty shock this morning. As I said yesterday, one of our jobs this year is to wipe the complacent smiles off the smug faces of the lobbyists, “experts”, “scientists”, politicians and activists pushing AGW. This is why I am so glad to report that Michael Mann…

In a comment to my post about the practical problems of constitutional issues, Veeshir stressed the importance of anonymity, We’ve come full circle back to when it was best for your gov’t to not know your name. Our only defense is anonymity. The right to anonymity is an important right, and fortunately, it is constitutionally…

I know I am sounding like a crank, but I hate it when I am asked by strangers to donate money. Not that I am uncharitable, but I prefer to select causes myself, and donate to them whenever I feel like it. I don’t mind being told about worthy causes, nor do I mind it…