Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Public Office and Freedom of Expression
I could not begin to cover the latest situation with Chris Buttars but there is an important issue there. Everyone has a responsibility to refrain from yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater, but public officials have even more reason to be judicious in what they choose to say. As far as I’m concerned that’s a…
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Two Forms of Government
I really appreciated the video that Scott shared yesterday. (You can see the full video below.) It reminded me that there are only two distinct forms of government. One is transient as it depends on the life of the ruler(s) while the other is stable because it is based on a foundation of written law.…
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Senators Seeing the Future (Clearly)
There are obviously a few things that I don’t understand about the Senate. Yesterday I reported that according to Senator Bennett the most important (he said it was most important, it was not simply the first thing on his list) part of the job of a senator is to try to see the future clearly.…
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Community Activism
I have not said anything about this before (mostly because I have not put much energy towards the cause) but today brought great news that the proposed cogeneration plant in West Bountiful has been put on hold. The thing that interested me is that there has been no government obstruction so far to the plans…
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Senator Bennett Breakfast
I went to the breakfast conversation with Senator Bennett in Bountiful this morning before work. Overall I have to say that I am more impressed with the senator after meeting him than before I had met him. Having said that, here are a couple of things I took away from the meeting. There were very…
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Track Voting Records
The Voting Record plugin I mentioned last week is ready for an early release. You can download it here and give it a try. I have not added the function to allow users to search the votes yet, but the votes can be entered and edited by blog authors and displayed on your blog. Instructions…
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All is Well
It must be a really slow news day when the newspaper has to tell us something so basic as the fact that gays can’t get a marriage license in Utah. In other "news" the FEC would not allow me to run for President when I turned 18. Recently I’ve been so busy that I am…
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Legal Notice – SB 208
I was going to post a summary of the meeting, but many other people have already done a good job of that (Holly, JM Bell, Jason, Bob, Joe). So far, it appears that only JM Bell and BenJoe have taken the time to create something more than a back-of-the-napkin post of quotes and initial reactions. …
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A Blogger Press Corps – of Sorts
I was just talking to Ric Cantrell about the Bloggerpresser that is taking place this afternoon at 4:00 in the senate building (it’s an open invitation – see his post for details on attending live or virtually). I want to share a couple of interesting thoughts from our conversation. Ric mentioned as he has tried…
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Utah Waste Buster
File this under "technology experiments by public officials" but it seemed worth linking to Utah Waste Buster if for no other reason than the fact that my senator, Dan Liljenquist, is one of those who is behind this blog. While there are those who complain that this is a waste of money and time (not…
Got any book recommendations?