Free Republic

For the better part of a century, the machine most likely to kill an American has been the automobile. Car crashes killed 33,561 people in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Firearms killed 32,251 people in the United States in 2011, the most recent year for which the Centers for Disease Control has data. But this year gun deaths are expected to surpass car deaths. That's according to a Center for American Progress report, which cites CDC data that shows guns will kill more Americans under 25 than...

During the early morning of Oct. 25, 1893, a column of 700 soldiers from the British South African Police camped in a defensive position next to the Shangani River. While they slept, the Matabele king Lobengula ordered an attack on the column, sending a force of up to 6,000 men—some armed with spears, but many with Martini-Henry rifles. Among its weapons, the column possessed several Maxim machine guns. Once a bugler sounded the alert, the Maxims spun into action—and the results were horrific. The Maxim gunners mowed down more than 1,600 of the attacking Matabele tribesman. As for the British...

Election officials in San Antonio, Texas are examining a disabled voting machine after it allegedly left Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott's name off of the ballot. Earlier on Tuesday, the machine was being utilized in Bexar County's First Chinese Baptist Church of San Antonio. Bexar County Election Administrator Jacque Callan told local media outlet KENS 5 that the machine was "experiencing issues." According to Callan, the machine has a counter which will allow election officials to determine exactly how many voters used it. At this point, there is no explanation as to how -- or why -- the glitch occurred.

UPDATED: November 4, 2014 2:22 p.m. LANHAM, Md. (WNEW) — Malfunctioning voting machines are causing issues for voters in several Virginia precincts, the Republican Party of Virginia says. RPV wrote a letter to the Virginia Department of Elections this morning stating there were problems with some of the electronic voting touch screens in at least four different Congressional Districts. “Voters have difficulty selecting the candidate of their choice using the touch screen because the screen’s touch sensor is not properly aligned with the text that appears on the screen,” a RPV spokesman said in the letter. A video link included...

During World War II, American G.I.s called the German MG42 machine gun “Hitler’s buzz saw” because of the way it cut down troops in swaths. The Soviet Red Army called it “the linoleum ripper” because of the unique tearing sound it made—a result of its extremely high rate of fire. The Germans called the MG42 Hitlersäge or “Hitler’s bone saw”—and built infantry tactics around squads of men armed with the weapon. Many military historians argue that the Maschinengewehr 42 was the best general-purpose machine gun ever. It fired up to 1,800 rounds per minute in some versions. That’s nearly twice...

"The enormity of the slaughters of the "religion of peace" are so far beyond comprehension that even honest historians overlook the scale. When one looks beyond our myopic focus, Islam is the greatest killing machine in the history of mankind, bar none."

I'm planning on buying a new washer and dryer in the next few months and my wife has always wanted a front loading washer. Everyone I talk to including my mother, my sister and my best friend's wife tells me whatever I do DO NOT get a front loading washing machine. I have been told they get mildew-y, they leak, they tear up easily and that they just don't clean your clothes as well as a good top loader. All my washers to date have been top loaders and, excluding a part here or there, have each lasted more than...

On Thursday, a town hall meeting hosted by Al Sharpton and the National Action Network to address gun violence exploded into a revolt against “Chicago Machine” politics, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and the aldermen in City Hall, with panel and audience members calling to vote out their elected officials. One 82-year-old preacher even called for “Tea Party” style meetings in some of Chicago’s south side communities such as Altgeld Gardens and Trumbull Park.

On Thursday, a town hall meeting hosted by Al Sharpton and the National Action Network to address gun violence exploded into a revolt against “Chicago Machine” politics, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and the aldermen in City Hall, with panel and audience members calling to vote out their elected officials. One 82-year-old preacher even called for “Tea Party” style meetings in some of Chicago’s south side communities such as Altgeld Gardens and Trumbull Park. “This was a historic event,” Paul McKinley of V.O.T.E. (Voices of the Ex-Offender) and former 2nd Congressional District GOP nominee to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr. told Breitbart News....

Teenager astounds scientists by building a DNA testing machine in his bedroom - and he did it to discover why his brother is ginger Fred Turner, 17, from Yorkshire built a DNA testing machine in his bedroomBuilt the polymerase chain reaction machine from items he found at homeWanted to see if his brother had the mutated gene that causes ginger hairExperiment was a success and proved why his brother is ginger and he isn'tFred was named the UK's Young Engineer of the Year for his design A teenager has astounded scientists by building a DNA testing machine in his bedroom...

H.G. Wells' Time Machine fits today's Left It would seem at first blush that Morlocks and Eloi could be descriptions of our political Left/Right. But let me propose a different interpretation. Using the 1960 movie with Rod Taylor as the Scientist (George) as our analogue, who might be frolicking and fattening in the sun, and who laboring in darkness and tyranny underground? The Eloi are Obama voters, the useful idiots: Blacks, Hispanics, college students, metrosexuals, the Fellini-esque GLBT consortium, die-hard Woodstockers, tree-huggers, union rank-and-file. They obediently march to the doors of death when the siren of brain-washing is sounded. And...

PolitiChicks.tv has just received confirmation that a voter in Las Vegas tried voting for Governor Mitt Romney but the machine automatically checked “Obama” multiple times instead. Our source said: “Yesterday I went to an early voting site at Centennial Center in Las Vegas, NV. I went with my 19 year old son who was a first-time voter. I went to an open machine and inserted my card. When the selections came up, all of the candidate pairings were listed and I touched the box for Romney/Ryan. The checkmark appeared next to President Obama’s name. I touched the check mark removing...

Asheville Tea Party Sponsors Machine Gun SocialBy: Associated Press | News Channel 7 Updated: August 17, 2012 - 12:49 PM **SNIP** Those paying $25 can fire a 30-round clip from a 9mm-submachine gun such as an Uzi. Those who pay $35 can fire an M16. For $50, people get the power of an AK-47. Pizza and drinks are included.

The Popinator Project by http://www.popcornindiana.com aims to change the popcorn eating experience by making it more fun. The idea behind The Popinator is to instantly deliver popcorn into a person's mouth just by saying the word "pop". The Popinator is able to pinpoint where in the room the spoken word originated from and shoot a piece of popcorn at it. The Popinator shoots up to 15 feet and is for inside use only.

"I will admit that Mitt Romney's audience on Super-Tuesday was so boisterous it sounded like an Amway convention. I remember in the 2008 primaries, so did John McCain's. As B.B. King would say, once the general election came around, most of us were singing "The thrill is Gone." - Publius321 (Scott Ryan)

Bill Press has a new book out called “The Obama Hate Machine.” To read the blurbs, you might wonder if Press thinks no one should be allowed to criticize the president. Here’s Nancy Pelosi touting the book: "In a poisoned political climate, negative personal attacks on President Obama must have no place in our public discourse." What’s next? A mandate forbidding inappropriate free speech? These tolerant liberals are out of control. (Snip) Just like in his last embarrassing book, “Toxic Talk,” Press claims all the ugly rhetoric comes from conservatives.

The Obama-Biden reelection campaign, which just announced it banked $224 million in 2011, is stepping up fundraising as it steels for an expected fall "smear" machine from GOP front-runner Mitt Romney. In an email to supporters this morning, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina warned that the Republicans will have a fat bank account to tap for negative ads, something both Romney and Newt Gingrich did in Florida. "They're going to try to spend and smear their way to the White House," Messina said about Republican groups and candidates.

“Fingers!” Gerwin Schalk sputtered, waving his hands around in the air. “Fingers are made to pick up a hammer.” He prodded the table, mimicking the way we poke at computer keyboards. “It’s totally ridiculous,” he said. I was visiting Schalk, a 40-year-old computer engineer, at his bunkerlike office in the Wads­worth Center, a public-health lab outside Albany that handles many of New York State’s rabies tests. It so happens that his lab is also pioneering a new way to control our computers — with thoughts instead of fingers. Schalk studies people at the Albany Medical Center who have become, not...

WHITE CITY, Ore. -- Labor Day is usually associated with rest, relaxation, and last minute school shopping. Today, some people spent their holiday firing machine guns. The event was open to the public for anybody who wanted to fire one of the eighteen full auto machine guns or a silenced handgun. This event allows the public to have exposure to these expensive weapon systems in a safe environment that they normally would never get the chance to. The holiday machine gun tradition started off in Grant's Pass and takes place on Memorial Day as well.

“Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” from the Center for American Progress is just the latest in an ever-lengthening string of markedly similar “exposés” of so-called “Islamphobes.” Each purports to show that the anti-Sharia movement in America is a sinister cabal of well-funded, dishonest hacks stirring up hate against innocent Muslims in order to profit from it. Each has been highly distorted and markedly unfair, twisting the facts and cooking the data in order not to enlighten but to manipulate, not to educate but to propagandize. Just in recent months there have been two other reports,...