Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Currently reading
I have switched from the always interesting Caesar to Homer’s Illiad, a book I have been meaning to read for all too long. I plan to take notes on the book and blog as I go. Plans don’t always work out though.
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Blog party in Dublin
Ok folks, I am floating Saturday the 15th of January as a possible date for a get together. Leave a comment!
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Americans have their holidays in perspective
Mark Steyn really doesn’t like people who take holidays on a regular basis. And that means us Europeans. But Paris in August, like London ”over Christmas,” is in itself a symbol of flight — flight from work. In 1999, the average ”working” German worked 1,536 hours a year, the average American 1,976. In the United…
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Thomas Friedman: In my next life
I meant to blog this article ages ago, but I really did enjoy it. Read the whole thing. Yes, I want to get almost the entire Republican side of the House of Representatives to bend its ethics rules just for me. I want to be able to twist the arms of House Republicans to repeal…
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Palestinian textbooks: Where is all that 'incitement'?
Is this another urban myth? At the political level, a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Palestinian education and the Political Committee of the European Parliament have both held hearings on the matter. No country’s textbooks have been subjected to as much close scrutiny as the Palestinian. The findings? It turns out that the original allegations were…
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Tiger, Tiger, Fading Fast
Slate had a brief storyon the Irish economy too last week… The lessons of Ireland’s success are obvious enough to border on common sense, in the same way that eating less is the key to losing weight. Support free trade. Create an environment that is amenable to investment. Educate your population. Align the interests of…
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Do we want the Turkish peasantry here?
Kevin Myers, this time spouting his outlandish views in the Telegraph: Within the EU, Sweden and Germany have received most Turkish immigrants – and most of them are not the cosmopolitan sophisticates of Istanbul, but are from the relatively backward communities of Anatolia. Young Swedes and Germans of Turkish extraction usually marry back into their…
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Iraq 2004 Looks Like Vietnam 1966
I found this article last week and thought it was worth a mention: But a comparative analysis of U.S. casualty statistics from Iraq tells a different story. After factoring in medical, doctrinal, and technological improvements, infantry duty in Iraq circa 2004 comes out just as intense as infantry duty in Vietnam circa 1966 – and…
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Blair overstates the threat of terrorism
William Pfaff writes: PARIS Tony Blair gave a major talk last Friday on terrorism and the intervention in Iraq that was a strange combination of apocalyptic warning and anodyne remedy, very different from what has been said on the same subjects by the George W. Bush administration in Washington. The British prime minister declared that…
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Pew survey on blogs
As if we didn’t already know, blogs and blog readership are growing. : 7% of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the internet say they have created a blog or web-based diary. That represents more than 8 million people. : 27% of internet users say they read blogs, a 58% jump from the 17%…
Got any book recommendations?