Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Glenn Greenwald may be many things. But as a poof reader, his skills leave much to be desired. (Via Glenn Reynolds, who dared to utter this multifaceted four letter word.) The way Greenwald rants, you’d almost think he imagines poof is nothing more than a synonym for Republican fear of ick. I mean, what is…

I’ll concur with Glenn Reynolds in saying “Ugh” to this sort of thing: Mike Huckabee last year accepted $52,000 in speaking fees from a bio-tech giant that wants to research human embryonic stem cells, a non-profit working to expand access to the morning after pill and a group pushing to study whether tightening gun control…

Via Glenn Reynolds, John Podhoretz reflects on the political implications of the Bhutto assassination: American politics would dearly love to take a holiday from history, just as it did in the 1990s. But our enemies are not going to allow us to do so. The murder of Bhutto moves foreign policy, the war on terror,…

In what voters ought to be taking as the final insult, the wife Bill Clinton is using in a 22nd Amendment circumvention scheme is now refusing to answer questions: Before the brief Christmas break, the New York senator had been setting aside time after campaign speeches to hear from the audience. Now when she’s done…

A great story and why you should support Fred

I’m glad to join Rick Moran’s blogburst for Fred Thompson, which Glenn Reynolds linked yesterday. Analogizing to Washington’s perilous crossing, here’s what Rick said this morning: To be brutally frank in appraising the situation realistically, Fred Thompson’s chances of winning the nomination are not good. I will not attempt to snow you, gentle readers, with…

This is very bad news: Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has died after a suicide attack at a political rally. She was shot in the chest and neck shortly after her speech in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Ms Bhutto was attacked as she got into her car and the gunman then blew himself up. “At 6.16 p.m.…

I don’t know. But yesterday I was very suspicious when I read that a tiger supposedly “jumped” an enclosure said by experts to be impossible for a tiger to jump. The story is on the front page of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, and a story at the Inquirer website is now fueling speculation about human error:…

I hate it when people imitate sock puppets. How can you tell the real sock puppets from the fake ones when that happens? Inspired by the discussion about Glenn Greenwald at Protein Wisdom. H/T Instapundit Cross Posted at Power and Control

What is it about the left and the refusal to learn from history? In an earlier post, I wrote about the refusal to learn about the danger of appeasement, and now I see that the movement to raise taxes on alcohol has not gone away. Far from it. A New York Times report story editorial…

Something good has come from Will Smith’s ill-thought-out Hitler remarks. Or can I say that? I sometimes worry that Godwin’s Law may be swallowing most Hitler discussions, especially for a yakker like me, because nearly everything I might say about Hitler or Nazis contains something that might be considered an analogy or a comparison. Or…

Earlier today, Coco and I saw a Christmas wreath hanging on a door. Nothing especially unusual about that, except it wasn’t a door to a type of building where people usually hang wreaths. So we stopped and posed in front of it. I don’t think Coco fully understands product placement issues, but we can’t have…

More words of wisdom from Ann Althouse: I don’t see myself as the candidate-endorsing sort of blogger. Nor do I. However, sometimes I see myself as the opposite of the candidate-endorsing sort of blogger. My problem is that I just want the Republicans to come up with someone who can beat Hillary (or, for that…

I need to get a 100ft Ethernet indoor (non-plenum) cable with connectors on both ends. I have seen such cables on the net for around $10 or much more. Are the $10 cables any good? If so where is a good place to buy?

A. Jacksonian has put up a political lexicon for this election season. My favorite? A fresh face from Illinois – An individual with Chicago Mob connections running for high office before their Mob connections come to light. Go read the whole thing. Cross Posted at Power and Control

Gotta run out, and I don’t have time for posts (or quality photography) right now. But a very Merry Christmas from Coco! (And her master, who was unable to leap into the picture in any kind of satisfactory manner.) MORE: Here’s a slightly different spin on the holiday season: UPDATE: I know it is bad…

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has been shut down. And how did I find this out? I was over at DKOS looking for a Bussard Fusion Post by Roger Fox and came across this one on the FEC. It links to a Washington Post story. The federal agency in charge of policing the torrent of…

Further information on the Toshiba mini-reactor can be found here and here… A small-scale design developed by Toshiba Corporation in cooperation with Japan’s Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) and funded by the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) is the 5 MWt, 200 kWe Rapid-L, using lithium-6 (a liquid neutron poison) as…

Dr. Helen said something with which I can readily identify: …before the internet, I could count on one hand the number of people I felt I had anything in common with. That is so true. I feel the same way. The Internet (especially the blogosphere) is great for finding kindred spirits who share similar philosophical…