Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

With all the talk lately about “religious freedom,” you might think that there would be some agreed-upon definition of what it is. But of course, you’d be wrong. American Civics is no longer taught, and few people have the slightest idea of what freedom of religion is. More and more, I am noticing that it…

We now know what it must have been like reading Caligula’s biographer Is it possible server-gate will achieve the opposite of what Republicans want and make Hillary Clinton seem more personable—and popular? So far, at least, the emails released this week seem to evoke less a Foggy Bottom Machiavelli at work than a fairly ordinary…

A commenter calling himself silverer explains: I let my employees go. All nice people. I had to. Government is so oppressive, I just can’t do it anymore. All my costs of doing business constantly rises, mostly due to government mandates and regulations. Insurance is becoming a nightmare. They want to exclude everything. Every year the…

“The President of the United States doesn’t respond to taunts.” Mostly he issues them. And then denies issuing them. Sometimes on the same day! “At no point have I ever suggested, for example, that someone is a war monger meaning they want war,” Obama asserted. .. During the White House press briefing this afternoon, Obama’s…

Poetic to see the lollipop pacifist countries find out first-hand how much worse things get when US troops aren’t around to keep the craziest militants in check. Probably Europeans like to forget Normandy wasn’t that long ago, and we were still minding the Fulda Gap just 25 years ago. It’s always something.

Immigration anyone? I never write about it, but lots of people are talking about it these days. Since 9/11, “Homeland Security” is supposed to take care of immigration, in the form of an outfit known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”). I guess there must not be an immigration or customs or border problem. Because…

From the article Flawed Fundamentals: Well, as those of you who follow me know, I’ve taken time off of my investment advisory business to build digital swaps powered by the blockchain. The startupt venture, Veritaseum, is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this movement because not only is it significantly ahead of most banks efforts in…

The real gap in this country isn’t race, or income, or gender, or sexual orientation, or politics.

The discussion of Central Banking Warfare begins at about 13 minutes in. But you should watch the whole thing to get a feel for her points. You should also check out Narco Dollars for Beginners if you are not already familiar with it. And her main site Solari. Also her latest video Catherine Austin Fitts…

        If you want some actual financial commentary head over to Zero Hedge.

You may have heard that the Saudi stock market has fallen 7%. This is due to falling oil prices. Which brings up the shale revolution. I have written about it recently. And I have been reading something that has opened my eyes even wider. Read that last paragraph again. Some shale operators can make good…

I’ve long had mixed feelings about abortion. I find it inherently gruesome, and the more developed the fetus, the more it becomes genuinely grotesque. Recent accounts (like the one of a technician sticking scissors under the chin of a developed fetal boy and then snipping through his entire face to extract the brain) give me…

Donald Trump reminds me of Gertrude Stein’s “there is no there there.” His position on the drug laws is a perfect example: In his incarnation as current Republican presidential front-runner, Trump is in no way a fan of illegal drugs. He’s claimed to have never tried controlled substances “of any kind.” Last June, he said…

Earlier I took this photograph with my camera: I had to photograph it outside because inside the camera just wasn’t giving me good images of the object. And even this one does not look as good as reality. It’s very difficult with this Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ-8, and it seems to me that macro photography…

I agree. And I am agreeing with President Obama’s mentor, Constitutional Law scholar Larry Tribe. More here: the EPA, like every administrative agency, is constitutionally forbidden to exercise powers Congress never delegated to it in the first place. The brute fact is that the Obama administration failed to get climate legislation through Congress. Yet the…

The only power bankers have is given to them by people who want to live beyond their means.

Is there tension between truth and math? I think there is. Not that there should be, but some people think truth is what they believe, regardless of the math.

I’m thinking of a productivity increase. Like the one that exploded in the 1920s. Everyone was going to get rich from it. Instead the huge increase in farming productivity put millions out of work. Everybody wedded to the old supply chain. And a lot of people collateral to them. We are in the middle of…

Democrat Martin O’Malley is promoting a Democrat plan for debt free college. I have a better plan. Debt free education. All you need is determination and an internet connection. No Democrat plan for a government program required.

The graphic and the following commentary are from Zero Hedge. …the Chinese steel industry grew by 11X during the last 20 years, expanding from 125 million tons, which was already larger than the US and Japanese steel industries in the mid-1990s, to 1.1 billion tons today. But neither China nor the world can use that…