In most other countries they tend to pop up and then fade into the sunset with far greater frequency than they do in the United States but it happens here too. Remember the Reform party? or the Whigs? Roger Ebert has a great post on why the split in the Republican party that has given us the dreaded tea party may actually be the beginning of the end for the GOP. With such a vicious split in the GOP it seems unlikely that they could be the natural ruling party. The Tea partiers are now espousing ever more extreme positions that are at odds with the majority of American's views and the "rational" Republicans are just placating them in order to hold onto what power they have.

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The Republicans exit history – Roger Ebert's Journal
All I know is just what I read in the papers. — Will Rogers Me too. Or hear on TV, or see on the net. That's all most of us knows. I'm sure the President and Senators and government officials…

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With Better Place launching its EV battery swap system in Israel this week, a writer for Haaretz is not impressed. Economically the numbers just don't add up for drivers.

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An electric car named cottage cheese
The big money for Better Place lies in the monopoly it received from the state on building and operating charging stations.

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Excellent for science geeks

Reshared post from +Dr. Kiki Sanford

Awesome footage from NASA of the Apollo moon landing… (h/t +Jennifer Ouellette )

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YouTube – Apollo 11 restored footage: montage
Create AccountSign In. Home. BrowseMoviesUpload. Hey there, this is not a commercial interruption. You're using an outdated browser, which YouTube no longer supports. Some features on YouTube may …

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Jules discovered the other day that the chickens love to eat watermelon rinds so now we give them some for a treat after I carve up the melon. They also seem to love cantaloupe and wild arugula .

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This pair of herons has been hanging out near the entrance of the GM proving grounds for the past several weeks but there are lots more inside where I can't photograph them. I can't seem to find a match for them in any of the places where I've tried to ID them. Any ideas?

In album July 16, 2011 (8 photos)

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A hummingbird at the feeder in the yard this evening

In album Hummingbirds (5 photos)

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In Feb 2011, Chevrolet visited the Engadget Show in New York to announce the new MyLink infotainment system and demonstrate the EN-V concept.

In album EN-V and Chevy MyLink go to the Engadget Show (99 photos)

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If you're in the southeast Michigan area on Saturday and you like finding some really cool and interesting indie artsy-fartsy type stuff, head over to the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti's Dept town between noon and midnight for the Shadow Art Fair. And while you're there sit down and try out one of the brews created by the Greffs and their team.

http://www.shadowartfair.com/

http://www.arborbrewing.com/index.php?site=cornerbrewery

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Anyone else having issues with Seagate GoFlex external drives when paired up with Macs? I recently picked up a 1TB (USB3 but backward compatible to USB2) unit so I could consolidate my photo archives. After initially working fine and formatting as HFS+ with no problem and starting to copy files from other drives, it started acting up, randomly disconnecting, hanging and not allowing access to files and then refusing to eject.

I ultimately tried to start over and repartition and format on the mac and it kept throwing up posix errors so I tried on a windows box which worked ok. Plugged it back into the mac and trouble started again and now it won't format on either machine. I'll probably take it back and replace with a Western Digital drive which have generally given me less trouble over the years.

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I'm now eligible for a discounted upgrade from Verizon and the decision looks like it will be a tough one. I've been rocking an OG Droid since it became available, but I've definitely extended it beyond its limits with too many apps and trying to do more than it's limited 256MB of ram can really support.

I've largely narrowed my choice down to two new motos, the Droid 3 that on sale last week online and in stores this week and the Droid Bionic that was announced at CES and is expected to finally launch around Aug 4. I'm partial to physical keyboards and the D3's example is hugely improved from the original and the new larger 4" screen and dual core processor are pretty sweet. For some reason, Moto opted to leave LTE out of the D3 so its a 3G only phone.

I just checked out the D3 at the verizon kiosk downstairs and its really nice and the keyboard feels really good. My wife and son both have 4 inch phones and I think that's really the sweet spot for a smartphone.

Nobody really knows much about the final specs of the Bionic yet. When it was shown at CES, it was a 4.3" screen with a dual core Nvidia CPU and LTE. Moto has since redesigned the phone and it may now be as much as 4.5 inches from corner to corner which is bordering on being too large for a phone. So far all three LTE phones that Verizon has released have had dismal battery life. I'll be waiting to see how big the bionic is and how long the battery can hold out before I make my decision. If they go to 4.5 and the battery sucks wind I'll probably go with the D3. However, if they can squeeze some decent cycle time out of the bionic and they use the slightly smaller screen, then I may have to go without a physical keyboard.

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