Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

New Energy for America

Obama hasn’t lead anything.

I’m not liveblogging this, but Sarah Palin just asked, “You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick!” With that unexpected line, she has just won Coco’s vote. (She already had mine.) So far, she’s doing very well. The crowd loves her. 11:21 — I’ve watched a lot of speeches during…

In a Washington Post Op-Ed purporting to be about economics, Harold Meyerson displays what I think is a near-total misunderstanding of identity politics: …the GOP’s last best hope remains identity politics. In a year when the Democrats have an African American presidential nominee, the Republicans now more than ever are the white folks’ party, the…

I’ve lost count of the number of posts, articles, and opinion pieces arguing that McCain made a mistake in picking Sarah Palin. That he’s really blown it. That his choice was a sign of dementia, etc. Dick Morris has an interesting take on these arguments: Some claim [McCain] made a mistake in choosing the Alaska…

Speaking of cool, regular readers know that I don’t think censorship is. Needless to say, I was upset to read this New York Times account supposedly documenting attempted censorship in the local library by Sarah Palin when she was newly elected Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents…

Ann Althouse asks a question a lot of people are asking: …why are we even thinking of evaluating candidates based on the chastity of their offspring? Even if we could ascertain whether a candidate has this qualification — and, given birth control and abortion, we can’t — it’s a patently absurd and offensive idea for…

Asia Times commentator Spengler was at the Democrat’s Convention and thinks that Obama is going down to a crushing defeat. The Democrats were watching the brightest and most articulate presidential candidate they have fielded since John F Kennedy snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And this was before John McCain, in a maneuver worthy…

Country Matters More Than Party

Palin Is A Breath Of Fresh Air

A friend emailed me a link to a typical gossip column, um, “analysis“: While Levi Johnston (pictured below) admits he’s “in a relationship” on his personal MySpace page, the teen hockey player made the candid statement that he does not exactly wanna be a parent, proclaiming, “I don’t want kids.” Way to set the record…

Whether you’re a card-carrying Libertarian, a small-l libertarian, a libertarianish political non-conformist, or I suppose even if you’re from the other side and hate libertarians, you don’t want to miss David Harsanyi’s The Libertarian Case for Palin. The potential political consequences of Sarah Palin have been chewed over from every imaginable angle. Though there is…

It seems that when Obama made a refreshment stop on the campaign trail he didn’t have time to wait for the restaurant to prepare his food and Biden couldn’t wait to get to the bar. Obama then joined Joe Biden, who had made directly for the bar when the two candidates arrived, at a table…

This video lasts about an hour and a half. It deals with health care issues in her 2006 run for Governor.

Newsweek reports that John Coale, a major Hillary fund raiser, has gone over to John McCain. There is a video from the Republican Convention at the link showing a five minute interview with Mr. Coale. John Coale, a prominent Washington lawyer, husband of Fox TV host Greta Van Susteren and a supporter of Sen. Hillary…

This was asked by Democratic political consultant Joe Trippi, who couched it by way of futuristic attribution to John McCain: …if you think a first term Governor isn’t ready for the number 2 slot, are your really sure that a first term Senator is ready for the number 1 spot? Actually, I don’t think I…

I don’t know whether Palin ever supported Buchanan, but what about this? A meme is developing out there among liberals that Gov. Sarah Palin was a supporter of Pat Buchanan in the 1990s, a charge that the McCain-Palin campaign strongly denies. Palin denies having been a Buchanan brigadista, as does the McCain campaign. Buchanan, however,…

Not in Berkeley, but in Denver, where Zombie documents a scene numbingly reminiscent of what I used to sit through when I was a Berkeley Police Review Commissioner: I personally witnessed the entire incident, from the beginning to the end, and can say without reservation that the Rocky Mountain News video is intentionally deceptive, and…

It’s tough to know where to begin with something like this, it’s so outrageous. But in light of my earlier post about the vicious attacks on Governor Palin’s daughter (“Trutherism is becoming a contagious disease”), I’m thinking that I need to revisit the question of what constitutes “trutherism.” At the core of the Truther belief…