Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

An interesting Atlantic Magazine article from 17 September 2007. WASHINGTON, D.C — A charged-up Sen. Barack Obama begged politically active members of the Service Employees union to join his “movement” to reform the Democratic Party. “The question I ask SEIU members is, not “Who is talking about your agenda?” but “Who can change politics in…

From pdf page 62 of the Blagojevich indictment [pdf] (page 60 as the indictment is numbered). Later on November 7, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH discussed the open Senate seat in a three-way call with JOHN HARRIS and Advisor B, a Washington D.C.-based consultant. ROD BLAGOJEVICH indicated in the call that if he was appointed as Secretary…

With the indictment of Democrat Governor Rod Blagojevich the Rezko deal with Mr. B. Obama is back to the front burner in terms of figuring out if the Smartest President Ever™ was involved in any of the corruption. A former Illinois bank official, now claiming whistleblower status, says bank officials replaced a loan reappraisal that…

It all started with the friend of the Smartest President Ever™ Tony Rezko. Patrick Fitzgerald was the lead US Attorney in the case. * Democrat Rod Blagojevich wanted the Chicago Tribune to fire editorial staff in exchange for state help with the sale of Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs baseball stadium which is owned by…

There’s been some discussion in the comments to this post about whether the Constitution matters in the case of Barack Obama’s birth certificate (which I have discussed in countless posts. Basically, the State of Hawaii certifies Obama was born there (which satisfies the legal standard), and the Truthers (based on unverifiable Internet rumors) say he…

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been taken into custody by Federal authorities. All times are Central Standard Time Which is GMT -6. Updated at 9:08 a.m.: Blagojevich and Harris were arrested simultaneously at their homes at about 6:15 a.m., according to the FBI. Both were awakened in their residences and transported to FBI headquarters in…

Virginia Postrel takes a look at economic experiments that show that economic bubbles are inevitable. For more than two decades, economists have been running versions of the same experiment. They take a bunch of volunteers, usually undergraduates but sometimes businesspeople or graduate students; divide them into experimental groups of roughly a dozen; give each person…

Yeah. We have a Drug Czar. An Energy Czar. And coming soon to an American company near you: an Auto Czar. And no – the czar will not be into self rule. He is going to rule auto companies who take government money. WASHINGTON – A federal “car czar” would oversee a government-run restructuring of…

Today is Obama Birth Certificate D-Day in the Supreme Court, which will most likely not vote to hear the various claims that Obama was not born in the United States (or that even if he was, that he’s still not “natural born”). David Horowitz is fed up with the Birth Certificate Truthers, and expresses his…

The guy speaking is Federal Marshall Matt Fog. Here is a partial transcript (probably not exact but it gets the heart of the talk) starting from a little over one minute in and going for about 3 minutes: == The numbers are atrocious when you start talking about who the drug war is targeting and…

It is getting difficult to keep up with all the conspiracy theories floating around the ‘net but, I do my best. The latest is Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars. It discusses a kind of information warfare where the warriors get populations to work against themselves. Silent weapon technology has evolved from Operations Research (O.R.), a…

Here’s something for libertarians and privacy lovers to chew on. A guy living in San Francisco’s sleazy Tenderloin District got so fed up with the crime outside his apartment window that he installed a live webcam with a dedicated web site. Now that the entire world can witness crimes in his ‘hood, they’re calling the…

Barry Cooper a former narcotics officer has decided to turn the tables on his old buddies. It is not pretty. Unless of course you consider just deserts pretty. Also note that the girl they are trying to get out of jail, Yolanda Madden, is white. As I keep saying – if enforcement on the white…

Today is Remember Pearl Harbor Day. It marks the entry of the USA into WW II. You can listen to a bit of Roosevelt’s A day that will live in Infamy speech by clicking the link. At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor by Prange is probably the most comprehensive book on…

Never known for respecting the limits of its jurisdictional authority, the Berkeley City Council is considering a resolution demanding the indictment of Boalt Law Professor John Yoo for “war crimes.” And — get this — they’re also considering “ordering” Boalt to offer alternatives to Yoo’s courses: Berkeley’s City Council will delve into national policy again…

Well not exactly all the drug users, only the casual ones. If you are dressed up in a suit or even better an evening dress or a tuxedo I guess you will be let off the hook. Say isn’t that the way it works already? Yes it is. The well off go to rehab the…

“even if he were to produce an original birth certificate proving he were born on U.S. soil, he still wouldn’t be eligible to be president.” So argues Leo C. Donofrio, whose pending case in the United States Supreme Court seeks to have Barack Obama disqualified on the grounds that he is not a natural born…

Live Leak reported on the DVD confiscation raids. Friday, May 9, 2008 Actor and comic Tommy Chong says he is linked to FBI raids Wednesday in Newport and Clermont County’s Union Township. Chong tells Local 12 federal agents were after thousands of DVD copies of a documentary he recently made. Tommy Chong, 30 years ago,…

Inspired by Now that Obama has won, we could be in Iraq for a hundred years at the site of that master of political humor Instapundit. Cross Posted at Power and Control

In what I’m sure will be hailed as an astounding discovery, the City of Oakland is learning that when police stop arresting criminals, crime goes up! Armed robbers terrorized Oakland restaurants and small businesses in three separate crime sprees over the past year. The first wave targeted Asian eateries and struck during the 2007 holiday…