Free Republic

Haven’t seen what’s in - what’s out lists the year so I thought I’d start one. Feel free to add.

Would anyone work to support themselves or their families — and then turn over a chunk of that hard-earned money to somebody else, just because of the words used by that somebody else? A few people may be taken in by the words of con men, here and there, but the larger tragedy is that millions more are taken in by the words of politicians, the top-of-the-line con men. How do politicians con people out of their money? One example can be found in a recent article titled "The Autism-Welfare Nexus" by Paul Sperry in "Investor's Business Daily." Genuine...

As is often the case these days, offensive language or behavior is in the eye of the beholder. It depends on whether one subscribes to old school or new-age definitions of words that have been around for centuries. This word discrimination used to be a compliment of sorts, as in “one has discriminating tastes” based on the old school definition “To make a clear distinction; distinguish: discriminate among the options available. To make sensible decisions; judge wisely.” Of course the new-age definition is much less flattering, “to treat one person or group worse than others or better than others, usually...

The underlying red-blue issue involves the current state of bioethics. Many of the founders of this relatively new field were religiously motivated. Daniel Callahan, a former colleague of mine at the Catholic magazine Commonweal, cofounded the Hastings Center. Sargent Shriver and the Kennedy family launched the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. But the bioethics world turned rigorously secular and veered sharply to the blue section of the color spectrum. A key factor in the rise of bioethics, Callahan wrote, was the "emergence ideologically of a form of bioethics that dovetailed nicely with the reigning political liberalism of the...

Thomas Mann said, "Speech is civilization itself." A common knowledge of words and their meanings is necessary for a culture to survive and flourish. English, it is believed, already has more words than any other language. As our society evolves, so do words and their usages. Dictionaries track such changes. A few weeks ago a new edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, a perennial bestseller, was published. At roughly the same time, the prestigious Oxford English Dictionary added hundreds of new words to its online version. Some of the words appear fairly common. Brewski (a beer), chin music (an inside pitch...

New Evidence Overturns Skeptics' Case Explosive 1,400+ ELS Cluster Dwarfs Skeptics' Counter-Example Opponents of Bible codes say that you can find meaningful clusters in any book. To support their case, they presented an example of a code cluster about Hanukah they found in Tolstoy's War and Peace. While this example was fairly comparable to clusters Bible code researchers had presented back then, our researchers have unearthed clusters that look like mountains compared to the molehill of the Hanukah example. In this report we present a detailed side-by-side comparison of the Hanukah example and the most extensive cluster researchers have located...

[Q NOTE: This section--8--IS ABOUT WHY the Bible Code Scholars believe some of the shorter, not necessarily statistically significant phrases/codes/ELSs ARE significant in Isaiah because of their proximity and deeply connected meaning related to the surface text--as well as to common Biblical and cultural metaphor. . . my interpretation anyway. . . . This section 8 is not per se a statistical section. It can be argued that it is opinion. However, much of science is expert opinion based on experienced and learned observation as has been stated elsewhere in this document. And I think the rationale is well laid...

The Meaning of "Justice" By Russell Kirk The Heritage Foundation Lecture Number Four Hundred and Fifty-Seven March 4th, 1993 The word "justice" is on everyone's lips nowadays, and may signify almost anything. We hear the cry "Peace and Justice!" from folk who would destroy existing societies with fire and sword. Other folk fancy that perfect justice might readily be obtained by certain financial rearrangements -- as if anything in this world ever could be perfected. One thinks of the observation of William James: "So long as one poor cockroach suffers the pangs of unrequited love, this world will not be...