Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Maybe I don’t pay as much attention to these things as I should, but until I clicked on Glenn Reynolds link, I hadn’t really heard of “Spanx” (which sounds vaguely sexual as well as vaguely violent, in a sexual sort of way) — and thus never considered whether the product might mean the end of…

The fate of the Senate healthcare bill may well depend on today’s vote on an anti-abortion amendment: A pep talk by President Obama wasn’t enough to give Senate Democrats the votes they needed to pass a massive health care overhaul, but a Monday vote on abortion funding could determine whether the legislation survives. Senate Majority…

Those who worry about the Tenth Amendment should sink their teeth into this long and disturbing look at the birth of the animal disease regulation industry. Many Americans became convinced that only the federal government could enforce the collective action needed for success. Preventing the spread of contagious diseases required creating an authority with the…

Today is the 68th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — a horrible event which should always be remembered, and which always has been annually commemorated by whatever president has occupied the Oval Office. I haven’t read news reports or other blog entries about whether the current occupant plans to do anything or…

The latest left wing meme is that Sarah Palin is a Birther. (She is not, but based on some sympathetic statements she made in a radio interview, numerous leftists have declared that she is — including those who subscribe to a crackpot theory of their own known as “Trig Birtherism.”) From “Is Sarah Palin a…

What a coincidence. A lot of people have been writing about something I vowed never to write about, as M. Simon Dave just did. Sean Kinsell “wasn’t going to post about it” but he finally did, saying that, Today, you can’t read any blog anywhere, it seems, without running into a discussion of [it]. I…

Not that anyone knows, I just thought I should ask. UPDATE: I mean, wow.

…The theory is flawed. After one month – admittedly not an “infinite” amount of time – the monkeys had partially destroyed the machine, used it as a lavatory, and mostly typed the letter “s”. NOTE: On a related subject, my own blogging may be light due to similar issues.

Via Glenn Reynolds, I learned that a woman named Joy Behar thinks that whether Tiger Woods is or is not a hypocrite depends not on whether he failed to uphold the values in which he believes, but whether or not he is “right wing.” “The “View’s” Behar: If Tiger Was A Right-Winger He Would Be…

Edward Lawson (who regular readers may recall is a dear old friend) was arrested not long ago in Newark, New Jersey for basically nothing. (A lot of manufactured, trumped up charges.) He discusses what happened here: EDWARD LAWSON from Picture America on Vimeo. For no reason that I can determine other than his appearance and…

Maybe I’m too traditional, but men’s plunging necklines (exhibited in order to display what the fashionists call “heavage”) is something I can do without. Man cleavage — plunging necklines slit open to reveal chest hair, pectoral muscles, maybe more — is back. Until recently, male d&eacutecolletage was an androgynous fashion affectation limited mainly to sporadic…

Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log has the latest broad look at the state of Fusion. He discusses the state of laser fusion. The the $3.5 billion American National Ignition Facility seems to be doing well. But what excites me is that he has some indirect news on The Polywell Fusion Reactor experiments. The dark horse…

Auric Goldfinger? Not this time Mr. Bond. This time it is Climategate. Ah. Yes. Science Adviser to the President, John Holdren is a Climate Playah. Lift up a rock and another snake comes slithering out from the ongoing University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) scandal, now riding as “Climategate”. Obama Science Czar John…

Earlier I saw signs hanging on chains which blocked a brand new, otherwise perfectly passable sidewalk on the University of Michigan campus. The signs proclaimed “SIDEWALK CLOSED. NO WINTER MAINTENANCE” and yet there was absolutely no indication that any maintenance was needed. The only thing that’s changed is that the temperature has dropped into the…

Here’s a guy who speaks fake Chinese, fake French, fake Italian, fake Russian, fake Spanish, fake German and fake Japanese, in order to invite fellow fakers to reply by speaking in fake English. A tall order, but for those who wonder what our language sounds like to those who don’t speak it, here’s one girl…

Earlier I stumbled across the phrase “New York hostess” in a news article, and as I tend to be hypervigilant about sneaky new trends in language, I wondered precisely what the term meant. The hostess in question is a nightclub hostess named Rachel Uchitel. While “hostess” is not defined, it would see that it is…

One of the things I most like about Michigan is that it’s a relatively car-friendly state. The speed limit is 70, which means that you can comfortably do 75 without having to worry about the cops. This touches on one of my pet annoyances about life on the East Coast — and I recently saw…

And what is that something that is rotten in Denmark? Climate data? Nope. (although that is a likely candidate). The rot stems from the CO2 trade. Denmark is the centre of a comprehensive tax scam involving CO2 quotas, in which the cheats exploit a so-called ‘VAT carrousel’, reports Ekstra Bladet newspaper. Police and authorities in…

I’ve been keeping aquarium fish for years, and I have long known that fish gender is nowhere near as starkly defined and inflexible as it is in higher animals. It has long been known that many species of fish can and do switch gender, sometimes routinely. The process is not well understood, though. Earlier Glenn…

The ITER fusion test reactor project is getting a schedule review [pdf] because the project is seriously out of whack. The scientific and engineering team building the ITER fusion reactor failed to win an expected endorsement from the project’s governing council last week. The council, which represents the seven international partners in the project–China, the…