Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Finally! Now that the debt-plagued New York Times is down to its last paltry millions, the government is sounding the wake-up call. Leading the charge, Senator John Kerry is calling for government rescue of the failing newspaper industry: “America’s newspapers are struggling to survive, and while there will be serious consequences in terms of the…

It seems the DEA is telling lies again about the drug war. Cocaine is as cheap as ever, according to a new analysis of government data by a Washington, D.C. think tank. The findings appear to contradict claims by U.S. law enforcement officials that the drug has become more expensive. “[Over] the last two years…

The left has a hard time applying economic analysis to problems except the drug war. And the right is fairly good at economic analysis (comparatively) except for the drug war. Drugs makes the left smarter and the right stupider. Interesting, no? Capitalism applies selection pressure in the right direction – efficiency, waste reduction, etc. Socialism…

Today we are covering opening and closing tags. Please follow the lesson closely. There will be a quiz. H/T Extra Good Sh** by blogger Fred Lapides whose blog is neither work nor wife safe. But it is #1 in Google rankings if you look it up. Funny that there are so many people interested in…

While Janeane Garofalo’s charge that the Tea Party Movement consists of racists attracted a great deal of attention, I’m fascinated by the way she slipped in an admission that not all of the participants were white. It’s almost pathological or elevated to a philosophy or a lifestyle. And again, this is about racism. It could…

Watts Up With That? has information on how to contact the EPA over the new “CO2 is a pollutant” rules. In a stunning act of political kowtowing, the EPA caved to special interest groups and politics and declared CO2 a “dangerous pollutant”, even though it is part of the natural cycle of life. Now the…

All photovoltaic industries in the world depend on government subsidies. China is going down that road as well. Shi Dinghuan has stated that what China’s solar power manufacturing industry needs is a more active set of government policies to support and subsidize the adoption of solar power domestically, along the lines of the industrial policies…

Roger Kimball looks at Britain’s pending 20-mph speed limit, and observes, In Britain, as in the United States, “local authorities” like nothing better than sticking their collective noses into the everyday life of ordinary citizens, chivvying them with ever more intrusive rules and regulations, backed up by the coercive power of the state. The only…

I like to joke about global warming, especially global warming hysteria. The problem with humor is that it’s like drugs; it relieves pain symptoms but does not make it go away. I suppose you could laugh at physical pain too, but that would not treat the underlying cause. Pain that they are, global warming activists…

Sgt Mom gave a rousing speech at the Tea Party at the Alamo recalling the history of Texas. It is not too long. Follow the link and read the whole thing. Note that Sgt. Mom was one of the organizers of the Alamo Tea Party and she and the other organizers managed to get rock…

I’ve been trying to reconcile two recent incidents — one in which an angry and violent mob was allowed to shut down a talk by Tom Tancredo, and another in which a perfectly civil journalist was arrested for trying to ask questions of the public outside a Katie Couric award ceremony. Here’s the video of…

The election in 2010 will be most amusing. And 2012 is going to be the height of hilarity. About 1/2 the electorate is apathetic about politics. If 20% of them decide to participate in the next election due to taxes and inflation….. My first mate didn’t want to vote for the Black Man for two…

Because I’m no political naif, it came as a shock to see that I had apparently been duped. (Well, at least so it appeared.) While catching up on email, I found an apparently official announcement from the American Family Association (how I got on their list I don’t know) claiming that the AFA was “the”…

We are in the midst of seriously improving energy efficiency in the hopes that it will reduce energy consumption. However, there is an economic theory (about coal consumption no less) known since 1865 that says that increasing efficiency will increase overall energy consumption even if the amount used for a given task is reduced. In…

The announcement that Pat Toomey will be running against Arlen Specter (again) in the Republican Primary election is a reminder of a stubborn problem plaguing the Republican Party. While I’m not enamored of Specter’s borderline liberalism, I find Toomey’s social conservatism annoying, but it isn’t the point of this post to weigh in on the…

Polywell Fusion looks to be getting a $2 million boost from the DoD Recovery Act Plan. Here is what the DoD has to say about their plan. Today, March 20, 2009, the Department of Defense (DoD) released its EXPENDITURE PLAN for the projects to be funded with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.…

In news that warms my heart, I see that right here in Ann Arbor, a Tax Day Tea Party Protest drew over 200 people: About 200 residents turned up for the Tax Day Tea Party on the University of Michigan’s Diag at noon today. The protest coincided with similar events across the country. And locally,…

While I am not always successful, I often seek to understand what drives the mental processes of those who devote their lives to meddling with other people’s lives. Sometimes, though, these mental processes prove very difficult to understand, as I found when I read this report about a Michigan state task force which wants to…

M. Simon just sent me a wonderful quote about progress: “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. This is so because those who gain positions of power tend always to extend the bounds of it. Power must always be constrained or limited else it will increase to…

Which reminds me a lot of America in the 50s when it was comic books, duck tail haircuts, and rock ‘n roll. It seems there is always some tool of the devil that needs exploiting. And the tools of the devil go in an out of fashion. In 1914 the once legal over the counter…