Saturday, November 27. 2010
I'm not shopping for anything this weekend. I do not shop - crass materialism is against my religion although I confess enjoying getting stuff from other people. Are you shopping? If you are, here's The Techno-Holiday Shopping Guide (Pic above of American Shopping Eagle via Vanderleun from Kaching.)
Tolkien's anarcho-monarchistic politics
Maine Family Robinson: If you want to see a well-off person splutter, make them pay a plumber.
The government should pay my plumber. And my lawyer. And my doctor.
MEP Euroskeptic Nigel Farage: "Just who the hell do you think you are?"
He is one of the good guys.
About those dumb white guys: Advertising's Hidden Second Message
We middle-aged working white guys are misunderestimated, even if we aren't cool. Cool is for pre-teens. Manliness and Womanliness are for adults. Many of us are stuck somewhere in between.
We need more food inspections?
Next thing, they'll have unionized TSA-type guys feeling up my tomato plants, reaching in under the leaves.
At The American, The Protected Class:
Every worker will be asked to make sacrifices as governments put their fiscal houses in order. Private-sector workers should be confident they are treated the same as public-sector workers.
Lucianne termed it "Momma Griz goes THWAP!"
I think it was a mistake from the start. Just another jobs program.
Unless to hang him? Yeah, that must be why.
Give Maggie's Farm half of Daily Kos' readership, for equality's sake. On second thought...maybe they would be an annoyance.
Tax revenues as a share of GDP have averaged just under 19%, whether tax rates are cut or raised. Better to cut rates and get 19% of a larger pie.
Hauser misses the point. The intent is to make you poorer, that's all. Ever see a Lefty worry about debt?
From the number of waivers, it already has.
End the "doc fix" and allow balance-billing.
But that would reduce gummint control of our docs.
Friday, November 26. 2010
 Photo: For your list for Santa, the Pfeifer-Zeliska .600 Nitro Express Handgun. Very handy if your home is invaded by some Cape Buffalo.
We're adding a new link to our roll: The Iconoclast.
Finally added the shooter to our roll. Mostly Politics. Didn't mean to overlook them.
Not for the blogroll, but I need this info: Pick-up Artist Forum. Especially the Social Shyness and Anxiety section. Thought I was the only guy with that little hang-up. I am the sort of guy that girls have to figure out how to pick up.
Buy three, get one free at Thorlos Socks. They are the Official Maggie's Farm casual and outdoor socks.
We also added The Last Psychiatrist to our list this week. He is the author of posts like How Not to Meet Women, and A Generational Pathology: Narcissism Is Not Grandiosity. We're an eclectic website. Eclectic is a euphemism for not knowing what we are doing.
Here's a book any guy would like for Christmas: Hemingway's Guns: The Sporting Arms of Ernest Hemingway
James Kibbie put his performances of all of Bach's organ works online, for free downloading. Nice of him to do that.
Taranto: Donkey Turkeys: They explain the election: You're stupid and Obama's right-wing
Jacoby: No subsidy for NPR, Taxpayer money is wasted on a biased institution that should stand on its own
A good Friedman bit for Thanksgiving: The Free Lunch Myth (h/t Moonbattery):
Thursday, November 25. 2010
Today I'm a turkey! Actually, some say, every day. But every 7-years my birthday comes out on Thanksgiving. I was given some yummy chocolates. My sons ate them. I cooked a yummy turkey and sides. My family and friends ate it. I bought an expensive ricotta cheese cake. They ate that, too.
But, I wasn't left with nothing, was I?
A friend sent me this wisdom from George Carlin:
Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited
about aging that you think in fractions. "How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!"
You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on
five! That's the key. You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. "How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16!
And then the greatest day of your life . . . you become 21. Even the
words sound like a ceremony . . . YOU BECOME 21. . . YEAS!!!
But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk. He TURNED, we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?
You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40.
Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 . . . and your dreams are gone.
But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!
So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.
You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a
day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday! You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime.
And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I was JUST 92." Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"
May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!
Wednesday, November 24. 2010
 VDH is funny, especially the parts about Warren Buffet - and the North Koreans: Reflections On An Ailing Society
Michelle: The no-grope list. Big Sis is on the list! I am not.
Another once-virtuous non-profit hijacked by moonbats: SPLC Demonizes Supporters of Traditional Marriage
Rick Moran makes sense about AGW. Me? I am not a denier. As I have noted in the past, I am an enthusiastic supporter of global warming in any form and from any cause. Scientists inform us that earthquakes happen when Gaia shivers from cold, and makes volcanoes to warm her toes. I want Gaia to be warm and comfy.
Is this for real? Michaelangelo Hid an Image of the Human Brain on the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
What's wrong with insider trading? h/t, Prof B. I think it should be legal in the US, as it is in many other countries. It adds pricing information to markets rapidly and efficiently. I don't want to hear Kindergarten talk about "not fair." Traders are not in Kindergarten, and they know it. And forget the mythical "little guy." There is no little guy trading stocks, bonds, or commodities and options. If they are, they are amateur gamblers and fools who will rapidly have their ass handed to them, insider trading or not.
Why Israel's airports don't need to touch your junk
Evanston is going to crush those white kids, however they have to do it. I guess they never heard Martin Luther King speak about color-blindness and content of character.
Modern parenting and paranoid parents. Protect the precious ones from all boo-boos and tears.
Ireland: It's the spending, not the taxes
Pierogies for Thanksgiving? We have them with our family on Thanksgiving to remember our Polish and German immigrant ancestors who were smart enough to wait to come here until things were set up a little better than what those crazy Pilgrims found - and we also eat Pierogies because we like them. Delicious.
As usual, my metal hips triggered the metal detector at JFK yesterday (pity CO doesn't have the new devices yet) and so I got the new enhanced pat-down. Not a big deal.
Interestingly, Stratfor reports that there are specific holiday season threats, and the media furor about the searches will of itself act as a major deterrent. God bless 'em.
People are talking about it.
I think he'd make the O look like a pencil-neck high school kid. Which of those two guys would you want playing Center on your team?
What do you think?
 Examiner: Empty promises on health care will hurt Obama
They will hurt us, too
Homeowner 1, Invader 0
What's not to like?
Are we seeing the end of Ethanol?
TSA: 'We hate obese passengers and people with personal hygiene issues:'
Chicago parents are fed up with the shoddy education many of their kids are receiving in Chicago Public Schools and they’re no longer being silent.
The O's message to the world: The United States is very bad, but Barack Obama is very good. He seeks to redeem America from its evil.
A New Record… Obama Job Approval Dips to 39% in New Zogby Poll
Al Sharpton: It’s Time for the FCC to Crack Down on Rush Limbaugh
It's past time for people to stop listening to Al
A great quote directed at the moonbat Anglicans:
“Wasn’t it Jesus who said: ‘Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’? Well, BSkyB belongs to Caesar and the Church should keep its eyes on the heavens not on the wheeling and dealing in the City."
Tuesday, November 23. 2010
Monday, November 22. 2010
Al Gore finally admits that ethanol never made any sense. He says:
“One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”
Everybody has known for years that it's just a boondoggle for Iowa corn farmers.
The end of the line is rapidly approaching for unsustainable government spending. The states will be the first to reach that station.
The arrival will be a painful crash. The impact will reshape much of the US government policies of the past half century. The triage of those affected will raise bloody howls of anguish, and none will escape the effects.
Those who survive the fittest will be those most adaptable to a renewed America of more effective use of personal and financial resources. All will face difficult choices. True need will be better defined, to protect those really unable to cope. True merit will be better rewarded.
Most agree that the root cause of the crash, the bulk of most of the deficits, is bloated government policies and the agencies that implement them. Some argue, instead, that the gap be filled by increased taxes, not facing that spending excesses will then require more again, further reducing the incentives to produce and afford taxes.
I’m not one to say that government workers goof off more than private industry workers. It’s not their work ethic that I fault. It is the policies that political leaders set them on that are at fault both for the financial ruin that most states and the federal government face and for the frustration expressed by taxpayers over servicing a better paid civil service than themselves.
A conservative commenter thinks that President Obama will act with his “natural tendencies to ‘rescue’ and ‘control’ things” and that “The nature of his response could determine his tenure at the White House.” A liberal commenter thinks that former US Senator Alan Simpson’s remark, that “the blood bath will be extraordinary” in April when the federal debt limit comes up for a required vote to increase it, when – the commenter fears – “we can only hope that the nation that emerges from that blood bath is still one we recognize.” (Republicans will require spending cuts.)
The public mood is contradictory. Most want someone else’s ox to be gored. Increase someone else’s taxes. Cut someone else’s entitlement. Slash government payrolls. Don’t eliminate the program that benefits me.
This time, however, as in the case of California’s continuing $25+ billion structural deficit, over a quarter of its budget, there are no more cans and the end of the road is before us.
Leaving it to the politicians has meant cost-cutting nibbles and kicking the can down the road with accounting tricks. Court challenges have often resulted in reversals of spending cuts, due to judicial quibbles, activism, or faulty drafting of the cuts.
Federal legislation would be needed to allow states to declare bankruptcy, or to forbid bailouts of the states, or the Congress may simply refuse to bail out the states. More howls, and more judicial meddling. But, it is the necessary next step, if Congressional budget-hawks have the wings to withstand downdraft counter-pressures from many voters at home and, instead, soar to responsibility. State legislators and governors will be forced to make hard choices.
At the state level, civil service unions will have to renegotiate contracts. Program excesses will have to be trimmed. Some taxes may be raised. There will, then, be carry-over to federal programs. There will be increased demands to trim spending mandates imposed on the states and to trim other federal programs that will be seen as excessive in light of the dimmed largesse of the states. All will enter a new America, in which there is a more direct connection between one’s own views, own comforts, and own efforts. It will be a difficult adjustment for all, painful for many, and would be a welcome improvement. The alternative is greater difficulties and pain for all if we allow complete insolvency and dissolution of assets by avoiding the confrontation with realities.
The Englishman's simple Mincemeat recipe
Cornbread stuffing
Dalrymple: A version of conversion - to Islam
See the Blue Moon last night?
We did. A very nice moon indeed.
Louis Zamperini endures
Labash: R U Lovin’ Sarah’s Alaska?
It's hilarious, even if you love Sarah
Also good for a giggle: The SNL pat-down sketch
Clarice's Pieces: God Bless Barack Obama
Is he really taking anxiety meds like the rumors say?
China's billions reap rewards in Cambodia
Chicago Boyz:
Political correctness has never been about helping the downtrodden. It has been about turning people’s compassion and courtesy into a weapon against them. Political correctness has always been the bully’s cudgel. At long last, it has been pushed to its breaking point of absurdity.
Alexander Hamilton was an illegal immigrant?
From one Brit colony to another. Legal.
Senate Approves $4.6 Billion for Claims by Black Farmers, American Indians
Buffett Tells ABC Rich Americans Should Be Paying `A Lot' More in Taxes
If their financial success is bothering them, they can send a check any time they want
Insty:
I’m not saying don’t go to law school, but don’t go into big debt in the expectation that big bucks will pay it off easily.
George Will on the TSA:
When Buckley was asked how he came up with topics for three columns a week, he jauntily replied that the world annoyed him that frequently.
Neo's Prez preferences
I'm sorta on the same page
SDA: Don't Mock Greens - They do a perfectly good job of it themselves:
Baehr: Immigration: A Modest Proposal
Importing oranges to Cuba?
Let them eat cake
Lots of good stuff at Gateway
Sunday, November 21. 2010
Saturday, November 20. 2010
Been to Chicago several times, mostly for business or meetings but once just for social. Nice little town, but it isn't ready for the big time yet.
After careful consideration, Maggie's Farm has concluded that what Chicago needs most for its future is a black woman Left-wing mayor with a history of pushing the limits. It's time to bring high integrity, union inspiration, and some caring government muscle to Chicago politics. Time for Carol.
We ardently support Carol Mosely Braun for Mayor of Chicago. She's not a namby-pamby weasel like the potty-mouth ballerina Rahm.
If you like Detroit, you'll love the Chicago of the future.
I guess I am a genius too. I drinks a bit, and me stays up late.
Science says it, so it must be true.
Somebody informed Insty about this book: The Blame Game: The Complete Guide to Blaming: How to Play and How to Quit
But blame is essential for self-esteem
Sol Stern tells the story of Tel Aviv
Stefani Germanotta is buying a Scottish castle
You needed to know that.
Getting Ahead In Today’s Mad Max Real Estate Market - Why the end game of this housing bust is going to be unlike any other in my lifetime. He says:
I've been through quite a few housing booms and busts. I’ve renovated houses so old they still showed visible damage from King Philip’s War, so I’ve been exposed to every housing bust since wigwams, one way or the other. The early nineties were pretty bad, as I recall. The late seventies/early eighties were Armageddon. But they all mostly had discrete causes and effects, and in fairly short order Metacomet or Jimmy Carter or whoever was mucking up the landscape got run out of town, and something like normalcy returned.
This time I'm not so sure.
Mona Charen: Why Sarah Palin Shouldn't Run
Like I say, I love her but she ain't my candidate. She is good at what she's doing - she should keep it up and enjoy life.
Strangling innovation with red tape
START: Another Phony Crisis, Another Rush To Vote
Via Betsy:
Charles Krauthammer sees the statement "Don't touch my junk," as a metaphor for how Americans are thinking about their government today.
And at Powerline:
Krauthammer explains: "The junk man's revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy.
Secretary of State Clinton Lashes Out at Europe; Demands That They Appease Muslims
Kotkin: How Liberalism self-destructed. A quote:
Liberalism once embraced the mission of fostering upward mobility and a stronger economy. But liberalism’s appeal has diminished, particularly among middle-class voters, as it has become increasingly control-oriented and economically cumbersome.
Today, according to most recent polling, no more than one in five voters call themselves liberal.
and
Modern-day liberalism... is often ambivalent about expanding the economy — preferring a mix of redistribution with redirection along green lines. Its base of political shock troops, public-employee unions, appears only tangentially interested in the health of the overall economy.
Sen Brown treads a fine line in push to alter health law
I think he wants to be re-elected. Guess he likes the gig.
Wisdom via SDA:
I admit I have been as reluctant to admit this as anyone. My whole career has been based on the proposition that somewhere, under all the insults and lying and general bad behaviour that makes up the bulk of political life, there was some genuine issue at stake: that if you could just strip away the politics, you would eventually get to the policy. It has taken me all these years to understand that, no, it’s just politics all the way down.
Friday, November 19. 2010
Get your eggs frozen?
100 leaked body scans (h/t Thompson)
Exhibitionists must love this
Protein:
The idea that America might inadvertently and incrementally fall into socialism is a great deal closer to the strategies of “actual existing socialists” than textbook definitions of economies nationalized at a single revolutionary blow. The reason Americans don’t understand this is that the universe of post-sixties socialism has remained largely hidden from public view. Yet this is Obama’s world. It’s time we got to know it.
Larry Elder: Clinton, Gore, and Kerry lost the white vote too
Woah!… Soros Group Says Obama Can Use Armed Forces to Push “Progressive” Agenda
Ah, exposing the totalitarism of the Left
Sen. Rockefeller: FCC Should Take FOX News, MSNBC Off Airwaves
Ah, exposing the totalitarism of the Left
Coyote: I am thinking about renaming the Chevy Volt the Chevy Bastiat.
Meet the 'New' Donald Berwick
This guy just can't wait to run your medical care. Yeah, more totalitarianism - for your own good. Isn't it comforting to know that some people know what is best for you?
Marginal Rev: Who again is supposed to cut the rate of growth of Medicare spending?
Condoms in Elementary School
For the pedophiles?
Where are the jobs? See below -
Thursday, November 18. 2010
A Brief History of Republicans and Democrats
That is cruel
Driscoll: The China Syndrome, Starring Tom Friedman as Jane Fonda
Tiger:
Is there any more graphic measure of the incompetence of our federal government than that it is the second half of November and nobody has the first clue what their tax rates will be for 2011?
Harvard MBAs Are Rushing to Wall Street Again. Yikes!
Via Althouse: In Defense of Going to Law School: A Prudential Perspective
Single, Childless Women Now Earn MORE Than Men: Do We Really Need MORE Federal Legislation?
Redistricting: Low-tax states will gain seats, high-tax states will lose them
Congress Getting Rich as It Bleeds Us Into Poverty
My thought about Palin too: High floor, low ceiling.
But I do like the lady. Related: It's Sarah's happiness that drives Libs nuts.
Roger Ailes Lets Rip
California Suggests Suicide; Texas Asks: Can I Lend You a Knife?
Idiot's guide to public sector that produces no wealth (h/t, Fausta):
Wednesday, November 17. 2010
Brian Aitken's Mistake - A New Jersey man gets seven years for being a responsible gun owner.
Wilson Sonsini and Silicon Law
Use Wiki? Send them a few bucks.
Inflation = taxation. the stealth $600 billion tax increase
McGowan on the Blindness of the Times
I would read his book, but I already know what he is saying.
Advice on giving advice.
Related to advice, Gingrich: Obama should take off most of the rest of the year
Happy 5th Birthday to Pajamas.
Can these things make $?
Obama Whines: American - Journalists 'Never Say Thank You'
Show a little masculine dignity.
Prager: Fairy tales, and people aren't all good
Religion of Peace holds religious Death To America rally
Why the hate? Why the "hate speech"?
Waiver-mania! The ever-expanding Obamacare escapee list
We want a waiver for Maggie's Farm - staff and readers
Soros: China has better functioning government than U.S.
It's called a "dictatorship," shmuck. Move there, and tell them how to do their job better. Bring Friedman with you.
Tuesday, November 16. 2010
From DiscoverTheNetworks, Organizations Funded Directly by George Soros and his Open Society Institute.
Related, Soros is targeting your state.
I've got to keep an eye on this guy, because his view of America and the world is so far from my own.
Monday, November 15. 2010
 Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just glad to see the TSA agent? With all the fuss about the TSA groping everybody's "junk," I think it's about time the TSA gave a waiver to Moslems so they aren't offended. No waiver for nuns, though. You never know what those sneaky nuns might be up to.
Anger is not a mental illness. Except when it is part of one.
Let's face facts: it can be fun to be pissed off.
Are we going to the dogs? Our de-aspirational society; or, a society aiming for victimization and tawdriness
I love that sort of cranky post.
So afraid of skin cancer that they get rickets.
Via Drudge, In-state tuition for illegal immigrants is preserved with California Supreme Court ruling
That's no way to run a railroad.
The Intellectual Class: New Book Calls Obama a ‘Philosopher President’
Good grief. Is he a Spinone?
Clarice's Pieces: Restoring American Stature Abroad
The Bower-in-Chief ain't the guy to do that.
Sarah Palin's true reality: 'Free' Alaska is a welfare state that enjoys generous federal subsidies
Sad but true. With all their oil, they should be supporting me. Oh, wait. I forgot. They can't drill.
Genius marketing: Buy Truck, Get Free AK-47
Solar power in Canada?
It's a joke, right? Or are they preparing for the Palm Trees in Saskatoon?
Health Care Reform Group Gets Waiver from… Health Care Reform?
Where can I get me my waiver?
Related: Unreal. SEIU Local 25 and 12 Other Union Groups Receive Obamacare Waivers
The super-rich tend to be Libs. Jacobson: Frank Rich Knows The Answer, He Just Can't Say It
Good news for Gaia is bad news for Greenies: Sea Life Flourishes in the Gulf.
Oil is carbon. Carbon is life.
No Pasaran: Everything you ever Really Needed to Know about the European Left
They hate Jews
Neoneo: Bush derangement syndrome vs. Obama derangement syndrome?
Coyote doesn't view voting as sacred. He'll take freedom anywhere he can find it.
Fan and Fred's New Boss is another 'affordable housing' advocate.
Brilliant!
Q&O: New York Times suddenly discovers governing as a priority for new GOP majority
Sometimes I confuse an Onion headline with a NYT headline.
Right Network video: Jackpot Justice: Lawyers Gone Wild
Left, Right agree: Obama’s G-20 performance worst ever
Is he a weenie, or a putz?
As Betsy considers, More evidence that Obama is in over his head in foreign policy
Sometimes I feel sorry for the guy - but not too often because I know he hates me.
Bridgeport's Missing Republican Votes
What happens in Bridgeport stays in Bridgeport.
Harry Reid wants more public employee unions.
They already own the federal government. What else do they need?
Gregory Kane: Nobody wants to talk about black America's gender crisis
It's racist to mention it.
The policy wreckage of the Chevy Volt. George Will.
It's a bad joke at the taxpayers' expense.
At NewsBusters.
In a sense, Krugman is right, and Palin was wrong to demagogue the issue. Why should Medicare (meaning us young folks) pick up the tab for elective, extra, and/or ineffective or marginally effective treatments? If people want those, they can pay for them, themselves. It is still legal, in America, to pay your doctor for his services.
Problem is that God rarely gives deep wisdom to expert panels.
 Get your John Galt t-shirts here. They're the in thing. Tiger wears one.
Rubin Museum: Sacred Symbols Across Two Cultures. Quote:
Almost every school kid know of his defense of the poor and slaying the dragon, a symbol of pagan Rome. Similarly, the Buddhist protector slays demons, but inner, psychological ones. He is depicted here as the six-armed Mahakala. In the Tibetan tradition his image is an object of meditation. As a "wrathful deity" his job is to quiet the mind or destroy the mind's chatter and help the person meditating reach a new level of awareness.
Aging brains and bloggers (h/t Insty)
Incoming Wisconsin, Ohio Governors Vow to Refuse Federal Money for High-Speed Rails
Reason: It's time to reform Social Security
Why the Fed Cannot Regulate ‘Systemic Risk’
Should there be a mortgage deduction? Should there be capital gains tax on sales of primary residences? NRO
Dino: Disputing the idea that “jobs won’t be coming back” is job one
Related at NY Post: Class dismissed: Why middle income jobs are not coming back
Lobbyists Upset About Demint Earmark Ban
Driscoll: Racist Nostalgia at the Village Voice
GOP Staking Claim to Obama's Coalition of Voters
Obama: ‘What About Compliments?’ Related at Powerline: American Narcissus
NPR switches story on tax money
Planned Parenthood Is Worried...and Should Be
Sunday, November 14. 2010
Does due diligence need to include going undercover?
Some at the Brooklyn Law School have their panties in a knot about an authorized photo shoot by Diesel, known for youthfully pushing the clothing envelope.
For a fee to the school, Diesel took over the law library, and had fun hitting the books: “what they got was a steamy display of writhing young models in skimpy lingerie grinding against books and computers.”
The panties uptight response:
"It's gross. I work on those computers every day!" fumed a female student, referring to a shot showing two bra- and panty-clad women climbing over the machines toward an open-mouthed man.
"Ugh. The library fantasies are now relentless."…
Red-faced school officials said they were duped by Diesel.
"We are as shocked and mortified as you must be by these photographs," interim dean Michael Gerber wrote in an e-mail yesterday to students, faculty and staff.
My favorite:
In one shot, a woman crouches over a man lying facedown on a desk covered with legal tomes, with the rear of her pink panties bearing the words, "Today I am your school teacher."
His gray undies answer, "Tonight I am your student."
The law school spokesperson let this slip show:
But she admitted that Brooklyn Law events director Chris Gibbons was in attendance during the shoot, while the nearly nude models crawled all over the library's desks and each other.
The spokeswoman said she did not know whether Gibbons shouted "Objection!" when the ladies got lewd in the library.
See the photos for yourself. Now crack those books, and smiles.
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