Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

The Chinese are finding out it’s difficult to have one without the other: The future of China’s most independent and outspoken publication is in doubt following a mass walkout of its commercial staff and rumours that many members of its editorial team are planning to follow them out of the door. Under Ms Hu’s leadership,…

Former police officer Barry Cooper (author, “Never Get Busted Again“) is so disgusted with the War on Drugs that he came up with an idea for a reality TV show called “Kop Busters.” In a clever sting operation, police ended up raiding a house where nothing illegal was going on — most likely because their…

I’m glad Dave Price put up a post to commemorate the defeat of Communism, and I’m glad Glenn Reynolds remembered it too Matt Welch asks an excellent question: The defeat of communism 20 years ago was the most liberating moment in history. So why don’t we talk about it more? And here’s an excerpt from…

An article that Glenn Reynolds linked about the up-and-coming search engine Bing reminded me that something is rotten in the state of Google — especially where it comes to searches related to abortion. If you’re familiar with Google (and who isn’t?) you know that most of the time when you enter a search word, you…

Matt Welch asks why we aren’t celebrating it. It’s a question that needs to be asked: why don’t we celebrate the greatest victory in American history? After all, we celebrate V-E day, even though our WW II “victory” in Europe left more of that continent under totalitarian rule than before the war, and failed to…

One of the reasons I am against Global Warming theory is because it’s not just a theoretical argument or a scientific position. The theory that man-made CO2 causes warming is so inextricably intertwined with the notion that the power of government must be utilized against CO2 that it can literally said to be built in.…

Cornered by an interviewer, Jerry Garcia tries to explain.

No I’m not talking about his Nobel Peace Prize. I’m talking about the Economic Prize announced this morning. Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson won it for: Ostrom, a political scientist at Indiana University, showed how common resources — forests, fisheries, oil fields or grazing lands — can be managed successfully by the people who use…

The Media Threat Level (MTL) has been raised from Fawning Lapdogs to Praetorian Guard. WHAT THIS ALERT LEVEL MEANS: Danger of dissent is extremely high. Any criticisms of Barack Obama should be made with the understanding the media will portray them as racist or dangerous. Exercise free speech at your own risk. ABOUT THE MTL:…

In an amazing development I learned about at Greg Mankiw’s blog, a first year graduate student in Economics has won the Nobel Prize! In Economics! LONDON — The surprise choice of first-year graduate student Quintus Pfuffnick for the Nobel Prize in Economics drew praise from much of the world Friday even as many pointed out…

The Belmont Club was discussing the McChrystal letter and the President’s response to it. The Wall Street Journal says Secretary Gates has passed on a request for more men for the Afghan campaign from General McChrystal. Gates had attempted to delay the formal transmission, but mounting public interest in the issue made it pointless to…

Maybe I’m too sensitive to images, but for some time, I’ve been wondering something about the Obama logo. And I have to ask. Do we have a president who wants to be a soft drink? Or do we have a soft drink that wants to be president? Or does it matter? I realize it’s all…

In Secular Decline I discussed how we can get out of our current financial troubles. I talked about Kondratieff Waves and what drives economic cycles. Innovation. Electronic Component News makes a similar point. Name an industry that can produce 1 million new, high-paying jobs over the next three years. You can’t, because there isn’t one.…

Yikes… That’s the biggest fall in employment ever. The good news is, once the trend bottoms out history suggests employment should bounce back strongly. The bad news is no one really knows when it will bottom out. And with the huge expansion of FHA, continued loss of employment could mean another massive financial crisis looming…

While I’ve read reports like these before, it’s a bit of a shock to see them finding their way into the BBC. But find its way this one did, with a headline sexy enough to make any sceptic drool: What happened to global warming? This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so…

Speaking of considerations related to crime and punishment, I sometimes wonder whether (in some minds, at least) abortion is becoming a sort of moral reductionist trump card that can be used to trivialize concerns about nearly anything else. It’s a version of the slippery slope argument, and I first heard it a few years ago…

After playing around with the idea a bit, I thought this was funny enough for the blog: Coco is hoping I don’t print it out and paste it on the gate.

Crime and punishment seems to be under a great deal of discussion lately, and it’s one of those issues that always seems to be lurking in the background, even when the issue is not directly about crime and punishment. Roman Polanski, for example is not an ordinary sex scandal, but is a debate about crime…

I was going to comment on Barack Obama winning the now-thoroughly discredited Nobel Peace Prize, but I see M. Simon has beaten me to it, and said this: Expect a war. A big war. Soon. Yes, as I said just last week, “If you want war, prepare for peace.” The Brits are already having fun…

Yep. The results of the experiments are in and it is now official. Cosmic Rays affect clouds. ScienceDaily (Oct. 6, 2009) — Billions of tonnes of water droplets vanish from the atmosphere in events that reveal in detail how the Sun and the stars control our everyday clouds. Researchers of the National Space Institute in…