Free Republic

Anger is mounting over an anti-gun policy adopted in January by the international service and networking organization, Rotary International (RI).A letter announcing the rules, set to take effect in on July 1, claimed they were a response to “a lack of clarity around RI’s policy … when participating in activities involving guns, weapons, and other armaments, and when interacting with gun companies, including for sponsorship purposes.”The new rules – codified in Chapter II, Article 2, Section 2.100 of Rotary Code of Policies – unfortunately feature their own ambiguities and contradictions.But one thing is clear: Those who prize America’s Second Amendment...

Remember this- 'Piston engine goes boing, boing, boing, boing boing, boing... but the Mazda goes hmmmmmmm.' [YouTube] If you've ever driven a car with a rotary engine like a Mazda, it really is a lot of fun, very torquey and revs like crazy, always super smooth (except most from the 70s tend to backfire)- it's a shame the couldn't make them work out in a more substantial way. Besides smoothness of operation, the motor is compact, light, and simple, with only two moving parts. But in an example of epic bad timing, Mazda launched the Wankel-engined RX series just was...

Video Linky Here

The nation is technically out of the recession. But while many corporations are actually making more money, it comes at the cost of jobs and hardships on many Americans. The economy is growing, but at a sluggish 3 percent, according to Martin A. Regalia, senior vice president for economic and tax policy and the chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "We are in an economic malaise," said Regalia, who was a recent guest speaker for the Southern Frederick County Rotary Club in Urbana. There are about 90,000 jobs created each month, and while that may sound like a...

Until the mass murder at Fort Hood intervened, I’d intended to write about Thursday’s bingo night to benefit the Girl Scouts. It was a cold and stormy night. Almost all of the summer visitors are gone. We thought there’d be sparse attendance at the monthly charity bingo game put on by the Rotary Club. But the place was packed, wall to wall. Dozens of Brownies and Girl Scouts in uniform were scurrying about, serving the players. Final figures weren’t available on the spot. From prior experience, however, I’m sure more than $1,000 was raised for the Scouts. How ordinary is...

JAKARTA (AFP) — Indonesian Islamic hardliners have called for a ban on international organisations the Rotary Club and the Lions Club, saying they are part of a Zionist conspiracy, reports said Monday. The (FUU) said the clubs were "infidel" fronts for Freemasonry and the world Zionist movement and threatened Islam in the world's most populous Muslim country. "They gather funds and give them to America and the Israeli Zionists," FUU chairman Atian Ali Mohammad Da'i was quoted as saying in The Jakarta Globe daily. "We urge all Muslims to renounce membership in the Rotary Club and the Lions Club. Otherwise...

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A man opened fire outside a downtown Portland nightclub Saturday night, killing two girls and wounding seven other people before shooting himself in the head, police said. Gunfire erupted near the popular downtown bar Kells Irish Pub and the underage nightclub The Zone at about 10:30 p.m., according to the Portland Police Bureau. Police said nine people were shot on the sidewalks and streets outside the two establishments. By the time police arrived, a teenage girl had already died, police said. A second teenage girl died after being taken to a Portland hospital. The victims have been...

REGI US, Inc. and Reg Technologies have completed a prototype, proof-of-concept pump that is suitable for customer demonstrations. The RadMax Rad Max, based on RandCam/RadMax sliding-vane rotary engine technology (earlier post), is a 12-vane device that produces 48 pump actions every revolution. As a pump for water or fuel, the prototype 140-pound RadMax Rad Max has a theoretical displacement of more than 2,000 gpm at 3,600 rpm. The solution is scalable with minimal design changes, and many of the parts are interchangeable between different sized pumps. /The completed pump prototype is 10-inches in diameter and weighs 140 pounds. Maximum...

CANTON, Ohio - A widow rented a rotary dial telephone for 42 years, paying what her family calculates as more than $14,000 for a now outdated phone. Ester Strogen, 82, of Canton, first leased two black rotary phones — the kind whose round dial is moved manually with your finger — in the 1960s. Back then, the technology was new and owning telephones was unaffordable for most people. Until two months ago, Strogen was still paying AT&T to use the phones — $29.10 a month. Strogen's granddaughters, Melissa Howell and Barb Gordon, ended the arrangement when they discovered the bills....

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay received a warm welcome during his first official visit to the city since, thanks to redistricting, he became the area’s congressman. Speaking to the La Marque Rotary Club, which saw increased attendance from neighboring clubs, DeLay spent much of the time introducing himself and his political philosophy. He spun tales of his early days as a Fort Bend County businessman, who, while running for state office would not even admit he was a Republican, and his ascension to Majority Leader of the U.S. Congress. Talk of replacing the federal tax system with a national sales...

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine. Poliomyelitis, also know as infantile paralysis, used to be one of childhood's most feared diseases. A few years after Dr. Jonas Salk announced his vaccine on April 12, 1955, nearly every child in the U.S. was protected. Today polio has disappeared from the Americas, Europe and the Western Pacific.... A too-little known part of this feat is the role played by Rotary, the international businessman's club, which 20 years ago adopted the goal of wiping out the disease. Rotary understood that medical breakthroughs are worthless unless people aren't afraid to...

MOJAVE - At a time when space travel existed only in the realm of science fiction, Aleta Jackson knew it was in her future. "I decided when I was 6 I would go into space," she said. This was in 1954, three years before the Soviet satellite Sputnik launched the space age. Now, nearly 50 years later, Jackson has not quite made the trek into space herself, but she is deeply involved in private-industry efforts to get there. Jackson is a co-founder of Mojave-based XCOR Aerospace, a company working to provide safe, reliable and reusable rockets for access to space....

<p>The engineer, inventor and aspiring tycoon has spent half his life working on a project that he believes could revolution ize a mainstay of the industrial age: the internal combustion engine.</p> <p>Yeah, right, you're probably thinking.</p> <p>The DeFazio Rotary Engine, its creator said, needs no transmission. It requires no coolant system. It's 50 percent more fuel efficient and far more powerful than a typical engine.</p>

I have been asked to join the Rotary Club and I am looking for some information about it. Please give me your comments, good or bad. I have checked their website and talked to the people I know but I know that there is a wealth of information here.

I have been asked to join the Rotary Club and I am looking for some information about it. Please give me your comments, good or bad. I have checked their website and talked to the people I know but I know that there is a wealth of information here.