Clap Louder

Much of the clap-louder crowd are breaking their palms today over this:

Obama: Enough is Enough in Debt Talks, 'This May Bring My Presidency Down, But I'm Not Yielding' | TPMDC:

"'I have reached the point where I say enough,' Obama told the leaders, according to the account. 'Would Ronald Reagan be sitting here? I've reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this.'"

A couple of points if the 'don't question dear leader' folks can quiet down for a moment.

1. No one forced Obama to couple deficit (the grand lie) with debt limit increase. He should have told the Republicans to go fuck themselves from the get-go. Dems and Repubs corporate masters were never going to let them default. Never. Because it would spook the precious markets (per them).

2. He still put SS and MC on the table. No denying that.

3. He'll do anything for a deal, regardless of how band is hurts the middle class. We get small tax increases yet the local library gets shut down? Whoppty-fucking-do.

4. Ronald Goddamn Reagan. Is it not crystal clear who this man patterns himself after?

5. You want me to clap louder? Raise the fucking debt ceiling in a clean bill. No more cuts to middle class programs.

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What Tiabbi says.

Obama Doesn't Want a Progressive Deficit Deal | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy:

"I simply don't believe the Democrats would really be worse off with voters if they committed themselves to putting people back to work, policing Wall Street, throwing their weight behind a real public option in health care, making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as ordinary people, ending the pointless wars abroad, etc. That they won't do these things because they're afraid of public criticism, and 'responding to pressure,' is an increasingly transparent lie. This 'Please, Br'er Fox, don't throw me into dat dere briar patch' deal isn't going to work for much longer. Just about everybody knows now that they want to go into that briar patch."

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Adm. Thad Allen: Separating The Value of Public Service From The Politics

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Watermelon-prescribing 'doctor' gets a month : Crime Scene:

"A man who posed as a doctor and told a Belmont woman to eat watermelon in a hot tub to help her kidneys has been ordered to spend a month in jail and never to pass himself off as a medical professional."

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Alabama's GOP Delegation Voted Against Funding for Tornado Forecasting

Not nary a one will pay a political price.

Legal Schnauzer: Alabama's GOP Delegation Voted Against Funding for Tornado Forecasting:

"Bachus, however, apparently neglected to mention that he and other Republicans in Alabama's Congressional delegation voted against funding for satellites that are critical for accurate storm forecasting. The Web site climateprogress.org reports that Bachus and his fellow Alabama Republicans--Martha Roby, Mo Brooks, Robert Aderholt, Mike Rogers, and Jo Bonner--voted against a bill that would replace aging satellites that are the heart of America's weather-forecasting system."

Therefore, who's really at fault? The asshole politicians or the dumb-asses who elect them. This we know for sure: An ass is involved in the process at all points.

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Oh, Matt Taibbi. How many nails must you crush on the head...

Loony-ass Insurgents vs. Waffling Bores: GOP Presidential Fight Starts Tonight | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy

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Daily Kos: Bill Maher lays out GOP's utter failure

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People of the U. S. can not or will not wrap their collective heads around the ass kicking we receive. America. farf yea.

AMERICAblog News: Rachel on Osama and money: "The goal of Al Qaeda was to bleed America to the point of bankruptcy":

"'According to bin Laden, the goal of Al Qaeda was to bleed America to the point of bankruptcy. That was his grand strategy' (6:35 in the clip).

She titles her report 'On Our Terms, Not His'. On his terms, we lost, right? After all, isn't that what the Reagan of our myths did to the old Soviet Union — get them to spend themselves into bankruptcy?

Food for thought, though I don't hold out hope for our digesting it. The real predators feeding on our decline — the military-security industry — are feasting. They're unlikely to allow the process of decay to stop until the last drinkable drop has passed their lips. And we're unlikely to stop them."

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Washington works just fine

I wonder which Republican policies our 'Democratic (haha)' President will champion today. Do your back exercises and stretches, because we will most certainly be hauling the load on our backs.

No look at all these non-pragmatic, non-serious, pie-in-the-sky-ers. Change is not perceptible, Hippies!

Newly Released Spending Deal Targets Health, Environment, Energy | TPMDC

Six-month spending bill unveiled: What's cut and what's not - TheHill.com

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Ouch, ouch and ouch.

Rep. DeFazio: Obama should ‘act like a Democrat’�|�Raw Replay

Cornel West: Obama is ‘another black mascot’ of ‘Wall Street oligarchs:

"Princeton professor and famed black intellectual Cornel West has long been a supporter of President Barack Obama, but he’s recently changed his tune."

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Obama’s constitutional law professor joins group calling Manning’s treatment illegal:

"The Harvard professor who taught President Barack Obama about America's founding document has added his name to a letter damning the treatment of U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning, the lone soldier accused of leaking a vast number of government secrets to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

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Obama Is Missing - NYTimes.com:

"What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular?"

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Daily Kos: From change agent to dealmaker:

"Instead of being the public leader, the transformational leader, that many of us expected, the leader he campaigned to be, he's shrunk. He's just become another Washington insider playing the insider game. The insider game has him making choices between shutting down the government and stepping on the poor. The insider game has him choosing between tax cuts for the wealthy or declaring war on the unemployed middle class. The insider game has convinced him there is almost nothing he can do about the housing crisis. The insider game has him appointing a corporate CEO who ships jobs overseas as the head of his domestic jobs council. The insider game has him appointing the very same people who ran the economy into the ground as his principal economic advisers. He told us of a Washington that was broken, but he was quite mistaken. Washington works just fine. Just not for regular people."

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DC For Obama Furious Over Budget Deal:

"Barr said his grassroots group, which is not affiliated with Obama's official campaign, knocked on more than 100,000 doors for Obama in Virginia ahead of the 2008 election. Barr said more than 250 people had already signed up for an April 28 campaign launch party.

Barr's enthusiasm has faded. 'We may end up postponing indefinitely,' Barr said. 'We may also just hold it and use that time as strategy to fight back against the White House and Congress.'"

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Surprise, surprise: rich get richer - The Boston Globe:

"THIS IS the biggest stickup in American history."

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The Real Housewives of Wall Street | Rolling Stone Politics

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I couldn't agree with this post more and this is why I will not vote for any Democrats in 2012. Give. It. Too. Them. instead of this bullshit slow-burn of the same policies that Obama and Congressional Dems (haha) are applying.

AMERICAblog News: Maybe it is time to let the GOP destroy the economy

My income is less than half what it was before the recession. And I know people that have been looking for a job for a year. It's tough out there. But at some point, maybe we have to consider whether we're going about this all the wrong way.

If the Republicans want to make a political/electoral issue out of the debt ceiling, then let's not raise it. Hand the keys to the legislation, to to speak, to Boehner and McConnell, and tell them it's their choice whether the legislation passes. And when it doesn't pass, and the world economy melts down, no one will elect a Republican for decades to come.

I'm simply tired of dealing with Democrats who don't have half a brain or half a backbone, and Republicans who would rather demagogue, and lie, than fix the country.

Why keep paying ransom to the hostage takers?

Maybe it's time to simply let Atlas shrug.

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I was at the beach 3 years ago when this artist was creating a beach mural. Same time this couple went. Very cool.

Sand-Written Wedding Proposal Mystery Solved! - Yahoo! News

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Suspicious Bagel

Again, thank jeebus for Matt Tiabbi. Our national discourse is flooded with these faux-Democratic 'moderate' pseudo-long-view, clueless-what-pragmatic-actually-means, status quo fluffers.

As long as they got there's, they'll spew any stupid shit imaginable in order to hold onto that shit.

Matt Bai's Post-Partisanship | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy:

"Bai is one of those guys -- there are hundreds of them in this business -- who poses as a wonky, Democrat-leaning 'centrist' pundit and then makes a career out of drubbing 'unrealistic' liberals and progressives with cartoonish Jane Fonda and Hugo Chavez caricatures. This career path is so well-worn in our business, it's like a Great Silk Road of pseudoleft punditry. First step: graduate Harvard or Columbia, buy some clothes at Urban Outfitters, shore up your socially liberal cred by marching in a gay rights rally or something, then get a job at some place like the American Prospect. Then once you're in, spend a few years writing wonky editorials gently chiding Jane Fonda liberals for failing to grasp the obvious wisdom of the WTC or whatever Bob Rubin/Pete Peterson Foundation deficit-reduction horseshit the Democratic Party chiefs happen to be pimping at the time. Once you've got that down, you just sit tight and wait for the New York Times or the Washington Post to call. It won't be long."

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If your fellow passengers are a bunch of terrified teabaggers, you might be an American.

Florida Professor Arrested for Having a "Suspicious" Bagel on a Plane | NBC Miami:

"A Florida professor was arrested and removed from a plane Monday after his fellow passengers alerted crew members they thought he had a suspicious package in the overhead compartment.

That 'suspicious package' turned out to be keys, a bagel with cream cheese and a hat.

Ognjen Milatovic, 35, was flying from Boston to Washington D.C. on US Airways when he was escorted off the plane for disorderly conduct following the incident.

Monday's incident is another example of other passengers essentially becoming the authority on terrorist activity on planes."

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Nothing to see here folks, but we should pre-emptively give bailouts to all chemical factories within a 1000 mile radius.

Dead Birds Fall From Sky AGAIN In Louisiana, 300 Miles From Arkansas Incident Days Earlier

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Since we have been discussing dicks today.....

Indiana Snow Penises Given Generous Local News Coverage (VIDEO)

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A Better Chocolate

I was stoked to see this with all of the Unions bashing by Republicans and the Obama Administration.

Video: Saints and Vikings players show union solidarity - Shutdown Corner - NFL� - Yahoo! Sports:

"Minutes before the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings kicked off the 2010 NFL season, players from both teams stepped on the field and raised one finger into the air in a show of union solidarity.

The move was a public message to owners that players are united in negotiations for the upcoming collective bargaining agreement, which threatens to derail the 2011 season."

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Of course all of the uber rich, announcer assholes got all uppity about it, because in their Taliban like view, Unions are like women and children.... not seen and not heard.

Tiabbi takes them to task. Read the entire article, it is a good.

This country needs much more union protest. Voilent, if need be.

On ESPN and "Replaceable" People -- RollingStone.com

So it seems the whole sports world is abuzz about the decision by the Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints players to raise a finger in the air before the season-opening game as an expression of union loyalty -- "We are one" -- in a year in which the players and the owners are negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement. I watched that gesture during the game and knew it was going to inspire the usual sneering (it started almost immediately, with Al Michaels chirping, "There's nothing like starting an NFL season with a labor statement"), as voices from all corners (including, unbelievably, many former NFL players) denouncing the absurdly brief, silent, and inoffensive demonstration as a tasteless interruption of our God-given right to nonstop mindless entertainment.

Forget about people actually supporting unions in a labor disagreement: they apparently don't even want to see them, not if it's going to delay a football game by three whole seconds. There were actually arguments across the media landscape to the effect that NFL players were out of line bringing their labor disagreement into our living rooms, the implication being that any display of union activity is somehow unseemly or ( I love this) selfish. We have a whole reality-show culture celebrating the cause of people eating centipedes and stabbing each other in the back for cash prizes and fame, but football players quietly showing union solidarity is tasteless. If you can explain that one to me, please don't hesitate to write in.

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Here is the anti-union folk's agenda.

This is What Class Warfare Looks Like � Main Street

AMERICAblog News: 64% of US wealth went to top 10% since Reaganomics

Op-Ed Columnist - The Tax-Cut Racket - NYTimes.com:

"How did we get to this point? The proximate answer lies in the tactics the Bush administration used to push through tax cuts. The deeper answer lies in the radicalization of the Republican Party, its transformation into a movement willing to put the economy and the nation at risk for the sake of partisan victory."

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Hows about another vaca down to the Gulf, Obama. Another swim with the daughters, perhaps? Enjoy some of the toxic seafood.

Heckuva job.

Shocking Fish Kill Reported In Plaquemines Parish (PHOTO):

"Over at The Upshot, National Affairs Reporter and Louisiana native Brett Michael Dykes has some shocking photos of a massive fish kill that Plaquemines Parish Billy Nungesser has been distributing to the media. Dykes ably sets the scene: 'What you see above isn't a rural gravel road. It's a Louisiana waterway, its surface completely covered with dead sea life -- a mishmash of species of fish, crabs, stingray and eel.'"

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Why do we not have glass cathedrals honoring science. If there is every an alter I would worship at it is the one that has the power make chocolate even tastier. Water to wine? Fuck that. Give me a chocolate that I can't even imagine.

BBC News - Cacao genome 'may help produce tastier chocolate'

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Death of the Middle Class

I feel like-wise.

Daily Kos: The Words I Never Thought I'd Write Here (UPDATED):

"What I do know is that it has all added up. Not prosecuting torture. Not protecting privacy rights. Trading away any negotiating room on health care by refusing to acknowledge single-payer. Less-than-fierce advocacy for LGBT rights. Demonizing the left. Drill baby drill.

All of those things tarnished the dream. Those things, and many others.

But there were two things that finally did it in for me. Two small things, really, compared to the big picture and compared to some of the core issues listed above.

One, understandably, was education. Understandably, because I am a teacher. My horror at the Obama education policy has only been growing stronger since the beginning of this adminstration. Recent articles and comments have pushed me to the tipping point on that issue.

But the final straw, the one that broke the camel's back, was his response to the Simpson outrage, in combination with his own remarks in the weekly address. What I realized in reading about this issue and about Obama's history is that in the guise of 'saving Social Security,' protecting us against it being dismantled, he is going to allow a reduction in SS benefits, in service to the ideal of 'cutting the deficit.' Maybe I'm reading the signs wrong, but I doubt it."

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Nothing 'free' about the 'free market'.

I doubt theirs a Neo to save us, though.

Free market has turned us into 'Matrix' drones - Business News, Business - The Independent:

"A leading economist has likened the nation's acceptance of free-market capitalism to that of the brainwashed characters in the film The Matrix, unwitting pawns in a fake reality. In a controversial new book, the Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang debunks received wisdom on everything from the importance of the internet to the idea that people in the United States enjoy the highest standard of living in the world; an iconoclastic attitude that has won him fans such as Bob Geldof and Noam Chomsky."

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We don't do 'accountable' and it will be our down-fall.

'Inside Job' A Must See Film for Every American:

"The Economy Won’t Recover Until We Prosecute

So there was a little fraud, no big deal, right? Wouldn’t looking backwards at fraudulent conduct be distracting for the people, the government, and the economy? Shouldn’t we look forward so we can recover? No. Specifically, the Wharton School of Business has written an essay stating that restoring trust is the key to recovery, and that trust cannot be restored until wrongdoers are held accountable. The Wharton paper states:

The public will need to 'hold the perpetrators of the economic disaster responsible and take what actions they can to prevent them from harming the economy again.' In addition, the public will have to see proof that government and business leaders can behave responsibly before they will trust them again. For more on the importance of trust in the economy, see this. The stakes are high. As Pam Martens, who worked on Wall Street for 21 years, writes:"

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What Tiabbi says... pretty much always.

Wall Street's Big Win | Rolling Stone Politics:

"But Dodd-Frank was neither an FDR-style, paradigm-shifting reform, nor a historic assault on free enterprise. What it was, ultimately, was a cop-out, a Band-Aid on a severed artery. If it marks the end of anything at all, it represents the end of the best opportunity we had to do something real about the criminal hijacking of America's financial-services industry. During the yearlong legislative battle that forged this bill, Congress took a long, hard look at the shape of the modern American economy – and then decided that it didn't have the stones to wipe out our country's one �dependably thriving profit center: theft."

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Arianna Huffington: Memo to America's Middle Class: Obama Is Just Not That Into You:

"Those in the 'disappointed' camp maintain that Obama presented himself one way to gain their support during the campaign and then, once he had it, ended up governing another way, turning his energies to winning over Republicans instead of changing the game in Washington. As Paul Krugman puts it, 'Why does the Obama administration keep looking for love in all the wrong places? Why does it go out of its way to alienate its friends, while wooing people who will never waver in their hatred?'"

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Capitalism, not 'job-ism'.

Wash Post business writer hits on the biggest problem in American economy:

"It is only in the world of Chamber of Commerce propaganda that businesses exist to create jobs. In the real world, businesses exist to create profits for shareholders, not jobs for workers. That's why they call it capitalism, not job-ism. There's no reason to beat up on business owners and executives simply because they're doing what the system encourages them to do."

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Death of the Middle Class:

And then he kicked the chair out from underneath his feet.:

"For all the faceless statistics we read every day - I wanted to add a face. A man who loved his sons. A man who got up and went to work everyday. A man society kicked to the curb. And, in turn, a man who felt his best option was to kick the chair out from underneath his feet."

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Sleep on it

In news of 'No-shit, we've known this from the get-go'.....

Rumsfeld decision let Bin Laden escape: Senate report | Raw Story:

"WASHINGTON (AFP) – Osama bin Laden was 'within the grasp' of US forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements, a hard-hitting US Senate report says

And, further, in news of 'No-Shit, we've stated that this was the reason from the get-go'....

But, dirty fucking hippies can only be right after the fact... when it is too damn late to do anything about it.

Daily Kos: Dem Congressman: Bush "Let bin Laden Get Away" to Justify Iraq Invasion:

"'Look what happened with regard to our invasion into Afghanistan, how we apparently intentionally let bin Laden get away. How we intentionally did not follow the Taliban and al-Qaeda as they were escaping,' Hinchey said. 'That was done by the previous administration because they knew very well that if they would capture al-Qaeda, there would be no justification for an invasion in Iraq.'"

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70 + 63 + 60 = 100?

And not 1 FAUX viewer blinked.

Math iz hard.

Whoops: Fox graphics department goes rogue on Palin poll:

"According to a recent Fox news poll, her backing for the GOP nomination has swelled to 70 percent among party voters, anchor Byron Harlan said.

According to the poll, the other top candidates for a 2012 bid on the Republican ticket are Mike Huckabee, with 63 percent and Mitt Romney with 60 percent."

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She's the worst.

Palin Plane Tour: Using Private Jet, Forcing Staff To Take Bus:

"Sarah Palin's 'Going Rogue' bus has logged thousands of miles as it crosses the country, promoting her memoir. But Palin herself has been traveling by private jet, using the bus only for brief stops and media appearances."

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It must be the media's fault. HAS to be.

Insider: Sarah Palin uninformed on Latino issues - Jonathan Martin - POLITICO.com:

"A top adviser on Hispanic issues to John McCain’s presidential campaign said Sunday that a joint interview with McCain and Sarah Palin planned for Univision last fall had to be canceled because Palin was unprepared to discuss Latin America policy.

“She did not feel comfortable speaking about issues regarding Hispanics and Latin America,” GOP consultant Ana Navarro told Univision anchor Jorge Ramos in an interview. “Those are not topics that come up frequently in Alaska. So she asked to cancel the interview and, unfortunately, you were already there.”"

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Rigth, Matt?

Matt Taibbi - Taibblog – Yes, Sarah, There is a Media Conspiracy - True/Slant:

"Is the media out to get Sarah Palin? It seems like most of the letters I get are insisting that I admit it. “Surely you can’t deny,” writes one woman from Florida, “that no political figure in American history has had to put up with what Sarah Palin has had to put up with from the mainstream media.”

Now, this is the part of this red-blue schtick where I’m supposed to strike back without thinking and re-hash the history of, say, the Monica Lewinsky scandal in rebuttal and then, as the argument progresses, do the whole “I know you are but what am I?” thing until the end of time. I’ve decided from now on that I’m just not going to go there with any of this culture-war bullshit. It’s exhausting. I mean, hell, if you want to argue over who’s more justified in wallowing in media victimhood, that’s not a fight I mind losing. Mazel tov!

I would, however, like to point out a few things, none of which really involve taking sides in this particular cat-fight. In no particular order:"

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It really sucks that Alabama sucks so freakin' hard.

Not a vagina amongst them.

GOP gubernatorial candidates favor jail time for abortion doctors | Breaking News from the Press-Register - al.com:

"MONTGOMERY -- Doctors who perform abortions on demand would face time in prison if most Republicans running for governor in Alabama had their way."

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After all of the crap above, I'm thinking I want the opposite. De-boost my memory.

Want to Boost Your Memory? Try Sleeping on It - Yahoo! News:

"Can't remember where you put your keys? Here's a tip for you: record the sound of your jingling keys and put it into your iPod. Then get someone to play it to you at night, while you are deep asleep. Chances are it'll help you remember."

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