Free Republic

Sarah Palin and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle There is a principle in quantum mechanics holding that increasing the accuracy of measurement of one observable quantity increases the uncertainty with which another conjugate quantity may be known. In simpler terms, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that you cannot make a measurement without affecting the results of the measurement. The mere fact you make the measurement influences the accuracy of the results. Some thinkers have elevated the uncertainty principle to the status of a philosophical principle, called the principle of indeterminacy. How does this principle apply to Vice-Presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin?...

The Copernican principle states that the Earth is not the center of the universe, and that, as observers, we don’t occupy a special place. First stated by Copernicus in the 16th century, today the idea is wholly accepted by scientists, and is an assumed concept in many astronomical theories.However, as physicists Robert Caldwell of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Albert Stebbins of Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, point out, the Copernican principle has never been confirmed as a whole. In a recent paper published in Physical Review Letters called “A Test of the Copernican Principle,” the two researchers...

The GOP primary process is largely over, as months before many Republican voters have an opportunity to cast their votes, John McCain has essentially been crowned the nominee. This is not the beginning of an unraveling of the conservative movement; it is more the culmination of many years of philosophical neglect.We have heard many conservatives complain that the GOP has “forgetten its principles.� More specificallly, the complaint is that Republican officeholders have drifted from Constitutional principles in particular, or from conservative principles in general. If you were to ask such people for examples, it would be a fair assumption...

Timeless principles consistent with where Huckabee remains today and relevant to the recent headlines. Also nine years ago, Huckabee said the1998 Jonesboro shootings were driven by "the winds of spiritual change in a nation that has forgotten its God." "Government knows it does not have the answer, but it's arrogant and acts as though it does," Huckabee said. "Church does have the answer but will cowardly deny that it does and wonder when the world will be changed." He gets it. And the message of values grounded in the Word of God are timeless. The winds of spiritual change that...

Like the Olympics, it's a game that's played every four years. The media march out on the field in their ideologically matching blazers and try to convince the GOP to ditch social issues. Their pitch goes something like this: Republican voters are far more moderate than their party's platform. The day of the religious right has come and gone. With pro-life, pro-marriage stands, the party alienates legions of voters who agree with it on taxes, spending and defense. An article in the July 5 Wall Street Journal ("Giuliani Support Hints at Shift") argues, "Mr. Giuliani's lead in the polls -...

To observe the sentimental fantasy and ruthless political calculation that fuels the Bush administration's immigration plans, one need only turn to Michael Gerson’s most recent Washington Post column. Former Bush speechwriter Gerson was a powerful voice in the White House, especially on the matter of injecting faith into policymaking; his May 25 column provides a window into how the administration deals with facts. Gerson accuses opponents of the Senate’s recent amnesty proposal of a nativist fear of illegal immigrants. Such a fear, he argues, will hurt the Republican party’s electoral chances and miss an opportunity to make the country even...

I hear the candidates trying to compare themselves to Ronald Reagan. None measure up. I don't recall Ronald Reagan ever having to compare himself to anyone else in an attempt to gain support. Ronald Reagan was his own man. The candidate that irks me the most is Rudi Giuliani as he tries to embrace conservative values. Reagan didn't have to try to embrace such values. He already held such values. Ronald Reagan did not move to conservative principles and values to win votes and support. Such values were already a part of his being. Ronald Reagan did not migrate to...

RIVERSIDE - Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and other Republicans helped cost the party the 2006 election because of their pork-barrel spending, out-of-control earmarks and corruption, Sen. John McCain said Tuesday. "I hope they've learned the lessons that the American people are sick and tired of this incredible waste of tax dollars," McCain said after a fundraiser in Riverside. "We Republicans came to power in 1994 to change government, and government changed us. And that's why we lost the election: We began to value power over principle." McCain was elected to Congress in 1982 representing what was then the first...

Last year I learned an embarrassing lesson from Basil of Basil's Blog. President's Day is not a holiday, Washington's birthday is. If you don't believe me, check the US Code (5 USC 6103). It is most appropriate that Washington's birthday be the one celebrated, because he serves as a reminder of what public service can be. For some, politics is something your whole life is centered on. The desire to be the President consumes all else, including principle, loyalty, all in a desire to have the top job. Yet, Washington was a President who'd rather have retired than run. He...

http://conservativepresident2008.blogspot.com/2006/12/constitution-party-to-select-candidate.html The Constitution Party, a conservative third party founded in 1992 to serve as a possible ticket for Pat Buchanan to run on, plans to have nominated its candidate for President by July 2007, World Net Daily reports. The party held a national committee meeting last weekend where Howard Phillips, who is the party's founder and three time Presidential candidate (1992, 1996 and 2000), told World Net Daily "The time has never been better for a third party dark horse candidate to grab the White House." Phillips said that the party will nominate candidate next year and among the possibilities...

How did our country stray so far from the founding principles of limited government, states' rights, self-reliance and moral integrity? Most Americans blame it on Congress. Americans have little faith in members of Congress, but we keep re-electing our own congressman and senators, often with little or no serious thought on the matter. In 1994, after 40 years in the political wilderness, Republicans assumed control of Congress with the promise that they would get back to those founding principles. A few tried. Fewer are still trying, but we are torpedoing their efforts. Even if we are alert enough to know...

McLEAN, Va. -- On Nov. 22, U.S. Circuit Judge J. Michael Luttig was at work in his chambers here when he received a telephone call telling him to switch on the television. There, he saw Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announce that the government would file charges against Jose Padilla in a federal court -- treating the accused terrorist like a normal criminal suspect.

In the long run, the battle to make America safer is part of a larger cause—the battle to make the free world safer and, indeed, to make the whole world freer. Victory will come only if representative government prevails, because freedom is the one force strong enough to stop tyranny and terror. In our modern day and age, America appears to have forgotten the guiding principles that have led her thus far. Getting America Right offers not a revolutionary, novel solution, but an answer that is as old as America herself—a conservative one...

Men who believe in something, even if wrong, will triumph over those who believe in nothing. That is the lesson of the Bush recovery of the past four weeks. From August, when Cindy Sheehan set up Camp Casey to bedevil his vacation in Crawford – which was cut short by Katrina and then the New Orleans debacle – to November, George W. Bush seemed a man at sea. Opposition to the war was rising to 60 percent, his approval rating had plummeted to 36 percent, his credibility appeared fatally impaired. There seemed a danger that, for three more years, an...

That the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers has been mercifully euthanized is good news. What this bizarre episode says about the "conservatism" of George W. Bush is the bad news. Whenever someone tries to tell me about the supposed commitment to the cause of our 43rd President, my off-handed response is: "Colin Powell, Christine Todd Whitman, Alberto Gonzales, Arlen Specter (Bush supported RINO Arlen over a real Republican in last year's GOP primary), mega-deficits, Nobody's-gonna-outspend-me-on-Katrina-aid, signing the campaign-finance fraud, Islam-is-a-religion-of-peace, Ramadan fetes in the White House, an amnesty for illegal immigrants thinly disguised as a guest-worker program, didn't support...

Friday, October 21, 2005 2 profiles in couragePosted: October 21, 20051:00 a.m. Eastern By Kevin McCullough © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Often I am critical on my broadcast when it comes to the quality of education the public educators believe themselves to be giving our children today. In large part, the teachers unions of our nation have become elitist snobs that seek to wreck the value system of our children and undermine the stability, authority and provision of the parents. It is the parents' God-given responsibility to give guidance to, teach and train these young ones to eventually become men and women. It...

George Lakoff [http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/people/lakoff] is the self-appointed guru [http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml] who has helped create and feed the Democratic frenzy over "framing [http://jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/frameshop/]," which is code for revamping rhetoric once ideas and people have repeatedly failed. To which one says: good luck with that. If the Dems can win an election touting higher "civilization fees" in lieu of taxes, then the American people deserve them in high office. Reality and history will not be so kind to Lakoff: as a man once noted, ideas have consequences [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226876802/102-5211570-0496 146?v=glance], and the language you dress them up in does little to affect that. It's noteworthy...

Rick Santorum will not be elected to a third U.S. Senate term. But it's not because Pennsylvania's junior senator is "too conservative." He is anything but, as a succinct National Journal analysis shows. No, Mr. Santorum will lose his 2006 race for re-election to presumptive Democrat nominee Bob Casey Jr. because he has thumbed his nose and furiously waggled his fingers at a large cross-section of his conservative base. How can this be? Santorum is an unwavering abortion foe, right? Sure. And to him homosexual marriage is an abomination that will open the door to legally sanctioned man-canine matrimony, right?...

By the time you read this, chances are that Terri Schiavo will be dead. In a land of plenty, where her parents are more than willing to feed her, where millions of thoughtful and concerned citizens have campaigned for her continued provision of sustenance, she is nonetheless condemned to wither away, literally, by a method that would be considered cruel and unusual punishment when applied to the worst of serial rapist-murderers: starvation. Private money and time has been volunteered to support her; Bob and Mary Schindler, Ms. Schiavo’s parents, have, in a blatant display of statist intrusion, been denied the...

Yielding to my contrarian impulses, I decided to see if I could figure out a good reason for Republicans and other Conservatives to oppose the privatization of Social Security. And I did! Going to the Social Security Administration website and using the Quick Calculator there to estimate what I’m likely to receive when I retire, not too many years from now, I see that I will receive the maximum benefit, about $2,000 a month in 2005 dollars. Now, my other investments, including my PRAs (Private Retirement Accounts, but I call them my “401k” and my “Roth IRA”) will yield a...

Al-Zarqawi Said to Declare 'Fierce War' 13 minutes ago BAGHDAD, Iraq - A speaker purporting to be Iraq's most feared terror leader declared a "fierce war" on democracy and said in an audiotape posted Sunday on the Web that the Americans were using next weekend's Iraqi elections to install the Shiites in power. "We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," said the speaker, who identified himself as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of the al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq. "Anyone who tries to help set up this system is part...

Food cops who think your weight is their business are bent on slimming Americans down by any means necessary. That includes happily ignoring such commonplaces as evidence, logic, and common sense. Reaching deep into their toolbox to hammer companies that advertise food to children, they're now invoking the "precautionary principle" -- a bizarre theory that insists everything should be banned until it's proved absolutely safe. Susan Linn, two-time speaker at the obesity-lawsuit-pushing Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) and dedicated opponent of all forms of advertising, recently told Obesity Policy Report: "I think that we need to take a leaf from...

Why I'm Voting to Re-elect George W. Bush Written by Michael Ashbury Saturday, October 30, 2004 Has George Bush been the perfect president? No. Of course, I don’t think there have been any perfect president in my lifetime. Yet George Bush, faced with extremely difficult and complex problems of an inherited recession, attack on our soil by extremists determined to destroy our way of life, and managing two wars, has done an excellent job of leading this diverse country, keeping us safe, and moving the economy in the right direction. But, let's look at the real George Bush. He is...

How to Oppose Liberal Intolerance By Lawrence Auster FrontPageMagazine.com | August 11, 2004 The double standard may well be the most characteristic feature of the leftist cultural order under which we now live. A particularly revealing instance of the double standard was the media's wall-to-wall obsession with the Abu Ghraib abuses, combined with its refusal to show the tape of the savage beheadings of innocent Americans by Islamist killers. While conservatives complain endlessly (one might even say boringly) about the double standard, however, they have signally failed to understand it. One explanation may be that today's leftists deceptively describe their...

FREEDOM, Calif. -- Traffic calming is not just physically hazardous. It harms our way of life as well. Most people have experienced nightmares at some point in their lives. One that’s quite common is to dream you are trying to get somewhere, but can't. One version of the nightmare goes like this: You are driving home from a very long day at work. The freeway is normally congested at this hour because few improvements have been made to increase traffic flow in decades even though the population of your town has grown significantly. Unfortunately for you today, the traffic is...

Michael "Mike" Peroutka, Presidential nominee for the Constitution Party, will be on WorldNetDaily RadioActive with Joseph Farah today, Monday August 2. The interview should begin at 4:05 EDT. The show starts at 3 and ends at 6EDT. You can stream at www radioamerica org - the call-in line to speak with Mike is 1 800 510 8255. Freepers especially welcome -

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Press Office202-863-8614 Washington, DC-With ABC News reporting that Sen. John Kerry has commissioned "top-secret polls of various potential running mates," RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie today released the following statement: "To John Kerry, the most important criterion for a Vice President, and therefore for a potential President, is not experience, accomplishment or judgment but polling numbers. Once again with John Kerry we see politics in place of principle." "I look forward to learning soon who polled the best."

"Democrats fretting over fumbles by John Kerry's campaign have something new to agonize over — his bizarre flip-flop [Wednesday] on abortion rights," the New York Post's Deborah Orin writes. "After months of saying he'd have a litmus test as president and only pick pro-choice Supreme Court justices, Kerry did an about-face and said he might name some right-to-life justices after all. " 'I will not appoint somebody with a 5-4 [Supreme] Court who's about to undo Roe v. Wade,' Kerry told the Associated Press. " 'But that doesn't mean that if that's not the balance of the court, I wouldn't...

President Kerry? Joseph Farah Well, now that I have your attention ... Let's see, I would estimate that I have received at least 1,000 e-mails on my last column, predicting John Kerry will win the presidential election in November. Some people have mistaken my prediction as an endorsement. Obviously, these folks have not read the volumes I have written previously on the junior senator from Massachusetts. I think he's a disgrace. As I mentioned in my last column, I believe his election would be a national disaster. I think he's a traitor to his country. I wouldn't be surprised if...

Is The President So Important? By Joseph Farah Many readers took offense at my recent column skewering George W. Bush for policies that have demoralized Americans, leaving them feeling politics don't work and that they have no good options in the presidential election of 2004. I'm sorry. I call them as I see them. I didn't support Bush in 2000 because I was confident he would pay little heed to the Constitution he swore an oath to uphold and that he would cater to special interests rather than the will of the people. He exceeded even my worst expectations. Now...

Defining Moment for President Bush Defining Moment for Bush Presidency 12-9-03 Today President Bush meets with Wen Jiabao, who is referred to as the Premier of China. Wen is said to be bringing a message of warning to the US President that the President, on the behalf of China must "reign in" Taiwan and turn them away from continuing to be free and democratic. Wen makes these statements under a cloud of threat of war against Taiwan and even the US. Taiwan is a free and democratic nation. China is not. President Bush spoke eloquently in his State of...

CLEVELAND — Cosmology used to be a heartless science, all about dark matter lost in mind-bending abysses and exploding stars. But whenever physicists and astronomers gather, the subject that roils lunch, coffee breaks or renegade cigarette breaks tends to be not dark matter or the fate of the universe. Rather it is about the role and meaning of life in the cosmos. Cosmologists held an unusual debate on the question during a recent conference, "The Future of Cosmology," at Case Western Reserve University here. According to a controversial notion known as the anthropic principle, certain otherwise baffling features of the...

Last week was not kind to President Bush. On his Asia trip, Japan and China showed little enthusiasm for his economic advice. A survey by the pollster John Zogby put his job performance rating below 50 percent. He threatened to veto his own spending bill on Iraq after the Republican-controlled Senate voted to make part of the reconstruction package a loan rather than a grant. And, while the rate of economic growth continues to increase, the index of leading indicators declined for the first time in six months, reducing the likelihood of significant job growth before the November 2004 election....

<p>A long time ago, by which I mean the year 2000, conservatives didn't want to expand the size and reach of government. Today, it's plain their sentiments have changed. They still don't want Democrats to expand the size and reach of government. But when Republicans do it — well, let the good times roll.</p>

<p>Washington -- Like British soccer fans, Tom McClintock's hard-core conservative supporters sound like they would rather burn down the stadium than switch their loyalty to Arnold Schwarzenegger, even if it means losing California's governorship to someone who makes Gov. Gray Davis look like a Republican.</p>

The Least Harm Principle Suggests that Humans Should Eat Beef, Lamb, Dairy, not a Vegan Diet. The following abstract and the aforementioned title were written by S.L. Davis, Department of Animal Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331.Wildlife Damage Control has received permission to reprint this abstract in its entirety which was "Previously published in the Proceedings of the Third Congress of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics, 2001, pp 449-450." Again, this article was NOT written by Stephen Vantassel. See my version of this principle written long before this article at Uneasy Conscience of the Animal Rights...

'Ten Commandments' Justice Loses Again MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A federal appeals court declined Tuesday to lift an order requiring the chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building by midnight Wednesday. Chief Justice Roy Moore immediately asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider what it had just decided, until the U.S. Supreme Court can rule on a petition by Moore to intervene. Moore, who installed the 5,300-pound monument in the rotunda of the judicial building two years ago, contends it represents the moral foundation of American law and...

he news this summer has been rather bleak for conservatives. The Supreme Court first decided to write "diversity" into the Constitution. A few days later, it issued a ruling on sodomy laws that called into question its willingness to tolerate any state laws based on traditional understandings of sexual morality. In neither case was there much pretense that the Court was merely following the law. At this point it takes real blindness to deny that the Court rules us and, on emotionally charged policy issues, rules us in accord with liberal sensibilities. And while the Court issued its edicts...

Mr. Justice Thomas and Matters of Principle by William Murchison Posted Jun 25, 2003 It's all a matter of tailoring, see? -- wide vs. narrow, as in lapels. Narrow is the rage this season at the U.S. Supreme Court. A "narrowly tailored" admissions plan for boosting minority enrollment at the University of Michigan Law School? A 5-4 majority of justices beamed. Such a plan advances "a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body." Ah, but what about a plan that awards minority applicants 20 resume-padding points when they apply for undergraduate work at...

White House Throws Principle Out Window June 10, 2003 We spent the first hour of Monday's program on the idea that we're going to extend the child tax credit to families that don't pay taxes. Many of you told me that I was making a huge mistake opposing this. If you think you're conservatives, you have a long way to go, because what some of you people were saying is not conservative at all. It's purely political. However, I have to hand it to you people. You were right in one sense. The White House is leaning on reluctant Republican...

Why? The other day, my nine year old son wanted to know why we were at war. My husband looked at our son and then looked at me. My husband and I were in the Army during the Gulf War and we would be honored to serve and defend our country again today. I knew that my husband would give him a good explanation. My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my son to go stand in our front living room window. He told him: "Son, stand there and tell me what you see?" "I see trees...

Summary: It's not moral authority that the United Nations supplies, but merely social pressure to conform. [CAPITALISM MAGAZINE.COM] Thomas Friedman writes to Andrew Sullivan: Why is it that liberals, such as myself, who were ready to support the war, so desperately wanted U.N. approval for it? It was for a couple of reasons--one that is already apparent and one that will become more apparent. First, because this is such a huge, unprecedented task, taking over a whole country half a world away, that the more international legitimacy we had going in, the more time and space we would have to...

Canadians can be forgiven for thinking Jean Chrétien sets his position on Iraq with a daily spin of a carnival wheel. After saying Monday that Canada "will not participate" in the current war because it is "not justified," the PM declared Thursday it is the Americans' "right" to invade Iraq -- and that Canadians "respect that." This latest quasi-reversal offered more proof the PM's shifting stance is based on political expedience -- not principle. The flip-flops began last year. When asked in September what evidence might prompt Canada to join in the forcible ouster of Saddam, Mr. Chrétien replied famously,...

Don't call them principled. They're not. And don't call them ideologues. They wouldn't know an ideology from a par-boiled turnip. They protest. They demonstrate. They've disrupted metropolitan traffic in Boston, San Francisco, and several other cities. A few have engaged in violent vandalism against others' property. But they have yet to articulate precisely why the American campaign against Saddam Hussein and his Baathist dictatorship has them so exercised -- unless we accept "we don't like it" as the response. Most people, be it frankly said, aren't all that good with abstractions and reasoning. Most of our actions are propelled by...

In general elections should a person vote for a candidate or his party affiliation? There are various reasonable arguments that can be proposed to justify voting in either manner. Perhaps it would be well to look at the motivation for voting in general. One would think the motivation would be to vote for someone who would act in a manner, if elected, to advance those principles that would most closely relate to those that the voter himself held. These principles providing the basis on which the functioning of the government would result in providing the benefits desired by the voter....

Two months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision of sweeping legal consequence, relying not on the Constitution's text but on national public opinion polls. In declaring the death penalty for mentally retarded inmates to be cruel and unusual punishment, the high court rooted its decision in a recent trend among states to spare the retarded from execution. It was not the first time the court had considered this issue. Just 13 years earlier, the court reached exactly the opposite outcome on precisely the same question, holding that executing the mentally retarded didn't violate the Eighth Amendment. Whether...