Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Ann Arbor has a local daily newspaper that is supposed to be subscription-only. Because I get the Detroit Free Press, I decided not to subscribe to another local paper. However, for whatever reason, they decided to start delivering it, and now I don’t want it (especially because I’m not there). So I called to stop…

This is better than pennies from heaven. Tony Rezko is trying to get a better deal. So Tony’s sentencing has been delayed by the judge in the case. A federal judge has indefinitely postponed the Jan. 6 sentencing for Tony Rezko, the prominent political fund-raiser and former adviser to Gov. Blagojevich. The move this morning…

While I was having trouble sitting in my seat because of construction issues, I appeared on a very cool PJTV show with Stephen Green and Andrew Ian Dodge, and we discussed a variety of topics. Including… Dick Cheney and whether he’s a changed man for being so surreally fond of Obama’s National Security Team. Nancy…

Even though I am in the middle of a renovation project and don’t have time, when I heard about a demonstration in support of the Iraqi shoe-throwing journalist in front of Berkeley’s Marine Corps Recruiting Station, I decided to go a little out of my way to a hardware store in the area so I…

H/T Backyard Conservative Cross Posted at Power and Control

Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log announces the results of the WB-7 Bussard Fusion Reactor (BFR) experiments. And the results? No show stoppers so far. An EMC2 team headed by Los Alamos researcher Richard Nebel (who’s on leave from his federal lab job) picked up the baton from Bussard and tried to duplicate the results. The…

The semiconductor industry is about to report its first back to back years of declining sales based on projected sales for 2009. Gartner Inc this morning reported that for the first time in the semiconductor industry’s history, 2008 and 2009 will show back-to-back revenue declines. The report follows on estimates from Gartner made late last…

I was looking for some information on the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago and came across this interesting bit. When he first came to office, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich proposed selling the building to assuage the state budget. The proposal won many critics. Lawmakers at first agreed to the plan, but later a $200…

Evidently it is not just Senate seats that are up for sale. Siemens AG apparently paid for contracts. The problem with such schemes is that the contracts go to the highest bidder. And now you know one of the reasons government costs so much and accomplishes so little. Siemens’ scam ran like a suspense novel.…

I’m sure someone else has made observations along these lines, but I think the “journalist” who threw the shoes at President Bush was, while acting out, expressing a largely unacknowledged collective rage on behalf of many of his fellow “journalists” — and not just the ones in Iraq. Showing extreme and contemptuous disrespect for the…

I just came across a book Amateur Nuclear Fusion that is the tale of one guy’s efforts to make neutrons in his basement. Here is the blurb from the book: Here’s a look inside an amateur lab that does nuclear fusion. I outline the basic principle of the Farnsworth fusor, and describe my fusor in…

It looks like another Friend Of Obama (FOO) is having a little trouble with the law. Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — A federal grand jury is investigating how a company that advised Jefferson County, Alabama, on bond deals that threaten to cause the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, did similar work in New Mexico after…

I have been trying to decide if the introduction to the next story should be the Mikado’s List Song or Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. So I’ve decided to do them both. Think of it as low culture and lower culture. Popular entertainments for the times. You will note the song from the Mikado…

There were about a dozen people in the church at the time. What is there about Palin that inspires such stupidity? Such hatred? Gateway Pundit has more plus links. Cross Posted at Power and Control

He was close to corrupt Daley. President-elect Barack Obama has never been close to Mr. Blagojevich. He has aligned with the Daley division of the fractured Democratic machine, while Mr. Blagojevich, chiefly through the sponsorship of his father-in-law, a powerful Chicago alderman, has been from that faction that has always resented the mayor’s good fortune…

So who owns the governor of Illinois? Earlier today, we reported on the developing pay-for-play scandal involving humiliated Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich which allegedly involved offer the SEIU the power to name Barack Obama’s replacement as Senator in return for a cushy job with the SEIU’s Change to Win coalition or a new SEIU-funded lobby…

On my chimney, the crab is always trying to catch the sun. What happens if it succeeds? (Any astrological meanings and interpretations are deliberately unintended, of course.)

Via a link from Chocolatier, I’m glad to see that traditional, wholesome Stalinist values are still alive! What a relief! I know it sounds paranoid, but sometimes I worry that the old-time traditional Stalinism we once venerated might be over, and that kids have been infected with strange new values that aren’t values at all,…

Mexico is hurting. The war on the northern border is devastating the country. Five thousand, three hundred, and seventy-six people have been killed in Mexico’s drug war so far this year, double the number from last year and more than all the US troops killed in Iraq. Is this what victory looks like? That’s the…

Ann Althouse observes that Barack Obama isn’t getting a honeymoon: Once, new Presidents got a “honeymoon” — even after they took office. But there’s no honeymoon for Obama, who’s been plagued all along by one bad friend after another. Of course, not having been inaugurated, he hasn’t even reached the honeymoon stage, yet he still…