Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This fight is for everything.

No one could have predicted…

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Republicans in disarray!

No Justins, No Peace

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The words do not have to be perfect.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

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Reader Interactions

138Comments

  3. 3.

    indycat32

    -10 and 13 inches of snow plus drifting in my driveway. And I’m down to my last bottle of wine. At least I have power.

  4. 4.

    Glocksman

    Posted from your phone, laptop, or rapidly depleting the UPS on your desktop computer?

    Stay safe and if it gets too cold inside, don’t let pride get in the way and go to an emergency shelter.

  5. 5.

    srv

    And GG in the toasty Brazil is promising exciting new material from the Snowman to warm your wretched and cold souls:

    “We have only had these documents for seven months, which, given their volume and complexity, is not a very long time. There definitely are stories left that involve the Middle East, that involve Israel. The reporting is going to continue at roughly the same pace that has been happening.”

    And all those people who thought it was going to go away in a week or two.

    The AP doesn’t forget or forgive, Mr. Attorney General.

  6. 6.

    Ash Can

    Awesome.

    Well, light all the candles in the house and pile everyone into bed with every available blanket, comforter, quilt, etc. Then be thankful that you’re not one of the poor bastards who has to go out there and fix that shit.

  7. 7.

    MomSense

    Stay safe, Cole.

    We lost internet here but so far we have power. It warmed up today and everything melted–which means we had several inches of water on top of ice. Now the temps are falling fast and everything is just ice.

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    @srv:

    And all those people who thought it was going to go away in a week or two.

    I think you mean all those people who are so desperate to keep screaming Rosa/Traitor/Hero/Narcissist/Gandhi/Traitor/MLK/Traitor.

  9. 9.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Keep warm by thinking good thoughts about professional douchecanoe Rand Paul suing the NSA for using three letters as an abbreviation, or something.

  10. 10.

    max

    -6 not counting the wind chill, and now no power.

    Ice/tree took down your power lines, did it? (We’re still at a sweaty 8 degrees.)

    Anyways, if you’re on electrical (and not gas) heat, close the shades, close the curtains, seal the door bottoms, three blankets on the bed plus pets as bed warmers. Could break out the sleeping bag, if you have one. On the other hand, if you are on gas heat, you still have no fan for circulation. Grab a book and go to bed.

    And no kerosene lamps or any of that shit, what with the DEADLY CO, right? Right.

    max
    [‘You have to live to invent more amusing ways to hurt yourself.’]

  11. 11.

    DaveInOz

    A friend of mine has just moved to Pittsburgh after 2 years in Kuala Lumpur. I imagine she’s finding it a bit fresh at the moment.

  12. 12.

    2liberal

    my BIL rewired up my Dad’s RI home so he now has a genset for just such occasions as this. If you can afford it , that might be a good investment for someone who lives way out in the boonies. Do it for your mom and dad!

  14. 14.

    You_Dont_Say

    Take care and post an update when you can (after you have power and are not wasting any battery). Thinking of you till then.

  15. 15.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @max:

    Just realized in the thread below that I was telling Fleeting Expletive that his “CO2” monitor may be what’s going off in the middle of the night. Oh noes, bubbles!

    Seriously, though, if you start getting mystery “smoke alarms” in the winter, you probably forgot you bought the model that also monitors CO. Get your furnace checked, pronto.

  16. 16.

    Keith P

    and now no power

    If you still have phone service, I’d recommend calling He-Man; he has the power.

  17. 17.

    jl

    Dammit, Cole has no gratitude for the benefits of global warming.

    Just think, the average temp is about 1.5 degrees F higher now than a century or so ago.

    Without global warming it would be -9.5 and feel like -29.5.

    But does Big Fossil Fuel Inc. hear any thanks from Cole?

  18. 18.

    Steeplejack

    Down to 12° now in my corner of NoVa, supposed to go down to 6° overnight. ¡Caramba! High of 19° tomorrow, but then at the end of the week it’s back to highs over 50°. WTF.

  19. 19.

    Violet

    @max:

    Anyways, if you’re on electrical (and not gas) heat, close the shades, close the curtains, seal the door bottoms,

    In an old, drafty apartment I used to hang blankets over the windows during cold weather. Made a huge difference in how warm the place stayed.

  24. 24.

    Corner Stone

    Cole, I hope for your sake you have had your mani/pedi this week.
    Otherwise…***shutter***!

  25. 25.

    Steeplejack

    @tom:

    LOL. I have a good friend in Fairbanks, AK, and I have her weather on my Weather.com page. It’s colder here in NoVa than it is there right now (12° vs. 19°).

    ETA: Well, it is summer in Antarctica.

  26. 26.

    MattR

    @tom: Recent temperatures recorded on Mars by the rover Curiousity: between -13 and -24F
    Temperature in Winnipeg on New Year’s Eve: -24F (and that was not a record cold)

  30. 30.

    Xboxershorts

    35 degrees ABOVE zero in Reykjavik Iceland tonight.

    Enjoy!

    -5 and dropping here in Potter County, PA! JCs weather is 1/2 hour ahead of ours….

    All our cats are accounted for

  33. 33.

    ? Martin

    Your parents have power? Make sure they’re taken care of. And if they do have power, get over there once the inside temp gets into the 50s. Oh and

    GLOBAL WARNING IS A LIE! BENGHAZI!

  41. 41.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack: Accuweather. And sorry, I was doing conversion to Celsius earlier for some Canadian friends and got confused in my head. Accuweather is saying low of 15 tomorrow, feel like -12 with winds. That will probably be overnight lows tomorrow.

    Didn’t mean to exaggerate like that, but it’s still bloody cold.

  42. 42.

    Comrade Mary

    @Ash Can: NO NO NO CANDLES! Especially if you’re sleeping / have pets around. Flashlights or battery powered hurricane lights will do.

    John, two words: BLANKET FORT. You plus pets will be totally toasty under there.

  43. 43.

    ? Martin

    @Xboxershorts: Same temp right now in Barrow Alaska as at my mom’s house. Had to go all the way to Qaanaaq, Greenland (something like 800 miles north of Iceland) to find a place notably colder than my mom’s house. Though it’s supposed to be warmer in Greenland than her house by Wed.

  45. 45.

    Suffern ACE

    None of this would be happening if we would still have troops in Iraq. We would have leverage over our weather. Like we did when we were a real super power.

  49. 49.

    mai naem

    It’s pretty cold in Phoenix too. It’s 55 degrees right now. Supposed to get down to 41 tonight. And it’s jacket time tomorrow because it’s only going to be 68.

    Okay, I said this just to be, well, snarkyish. I was in Payson a few weeks ago(about 75 miles n of Phx) and, jeezus, I am such a wimp I was dying and basically non-functional at 40+ during the day. Granted, I didn’t have th right clothing but OMG I have no idea how people live in 20 degree temp.

  50. 50.

    Gex

    -18˚ feels like -35˚.

    My dog is an Eskie and he’s able to tolerate this for longer than most dogs. Which means I’m out in it longer than I want to be while he frolics in the snow and the cold.

  52. 52.

    Suzanne

    I know y’all in the polar vortex are miserable right now, but I have to confess that I am slightly jealous, because next summer my face will be absolutely melting off and I think the bitter cold is just slightly preferable to that. Besides, my boobs look awesome when it’s cold.

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    @Comrade Dread:

    Here to the north, some bastard ordered a cloud today and it barely cracked 60–first time in days we didn’t set the temp record for the date. Sent my bro back to Cow Hampshire this a.m. after a couple week visit and at least one minor sunburn. Hope he’s ready for shock.

  56. 56.

    mai naem

    @? Martin: Yeah, Cole’s a lib so of course he’s going to mooch off his parents heat!! Also too, why can’t his moocher pets warm themselves up by their bootstraps? One of them was even given an extra toe by jeezus christ himself!!!

  59. 59.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    It’s prolly gonna be touch and go in a few hours, John. God knows yer soft and very unlikely to survive. Listen to me and you may be able to make it out of this alive. Worse case scenario, your animals will be able to survive on your frozen carcass for weeks until they can be rescued. It will have to be a closed casket funeral because the poor dears will chew off your softest appendages first, your ears, nose, other strictly cosmetic appendages..

    But first, let’s try to avoid that fate. Your going to need some combustible items. Do not go outside. One slight mishap – a fall or worse, getting lost for hours in your own backyard, and you won’t survive, even if you make it back inside, where there is no heat to reverse hypothermia.

    Now, look around the house for something to burn for heat. I recommend those hideous blankets your dogs use, the ones you blamed on your poor grandmother. Pile up everything combustible in the fireplace. If you don’t have a fireplace, use the oven in the kitchen but make sure you bust out a window first for ventilation.

    You are going to need lots of food to survive multiple weeks in stranded isolation. Now is the time to decide which pet will provide you with the most sustenance. I know it sounds cruel but you’re in a savage world of survival now. Your pets already have a short list of your sweet meats and who gets what.

    Does the phone work? Call me and I’ll step you through field-dressing an animal. I’m sure you’ve heard there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Don’t panic, there’s only two ways. Call me.

  61. 61.

    PurpleGirl

    I haven’t been following the weather numbers in NYC but I’m warm and comfy staying inside. Will sleep in the living room again because the bedroom looses heat rapidly. Newish (3 years old) and tight fitting double paned windows do help to keep the wind out. My building is X-shaped and the bedrooms are in the extensions out from the building core. Living room is in the building core and holds heat much better.

    Cole, stay safe and as warm as possible. All three critters should be under the covers with you.

  62. 62.

    max

    @Just Some Fuckhead: God knows yer soft and very unlikely to survive. Listen to me and you may be able to make it out of this alive. Worse case scenario, your animals will be able to survive on your frozen carcass for weeks until they can be rescued. It will have to be a closed casket funeral because the poor dears will chew off your softest appendages first, your ears, nose, other strictly cosmetic appendages..

    Naw. That’ll happen after he falls down and breaks his neck and nobody notices.

    max
    [‘But we were HUNGRY!’]

  66. 66.

    jl

    @Comrade Mary:

    ” I’ve been sharing this explanation of how COLD HERE NOW doesn’t disprove climate change. ”

    Thanks for the link. I hadn’t seen a graphic if this arctic funnel, or bulge or whatever it’s called.

    Sorry to hear that you know people you need to share this with to convince them a cold spell does not ‘disprove’ global warming.

    Out of frustration, and by lack of self discipline, I have taken another tack at dealing with people like that. It starts out with me going apeshit and yelling “You MORON, do you know what ‘AVERAGE’ means? Huh? Do you? WTF does ‘average mean to you!!??? Huh? Hey, relax, take a deep breath, and ANSWER THE QUESTION!”

    I can’t take it anymore from the teabagers in my family, and I kind of went off on some of their dumb ignorant statements over the holidays. I am a bad person with no tolerance of the opinions of others, I guess.

  67. 67.

    trollhattan

    What the holy hell–our dogs are messin’ with us even more than we knew.

    Scientists have discovered that dogs will align their bodies with the Earth’s magnetic field before excretion. Their findings suggest that when the magnetic field is stable, dogs will stand in-line with the North-South axis while avoiding the East-West axis.

    http://scienceblogs.com/lifelines/2014/01/03/a-dogs-compass/

  70. 70.

    Petorado

    @Keith P: Rush is flailing. In year’s past he would have gloated about how cold in winter disproves climate change. This is why I prefer the phrase “global weirding” over “global warming”. As climate changes, every year becomes an extreme of heat, cold, drought, floods, fires, hurricanes, and other weather-precipitated events

    We’ve taken the spinning top of weather and climate cycles, with normal wobbles and vacillations, and stuck a human finger in it to where normal variation is surrendering to a wild swing between extreme poles, right before the spinning top crashes.

  75. 75.

    Debbie(aussie)

    Can’t believe that people actually live where it gets that cold(not just where JC is). Best wishes to al juicers suffering the cold and snow and ice, take care of each other please. Do the homeless have somewhere to go?

    Just got back from specialist appointment. He recommends surgery-pedicle subtraction osteotomy. WOW! eta:i need to lose a min of ten kilograms(am obese)

  76. 76.

    Steeplejack

    @PurpleGirl:

    Interesting about the interior microclimates. My thermostat is at just about the centermost point on the centermost wall in my apartment, so it’s always a little cooler in the living room (big triple-wide window)—or hotter in the summer, of course. And I always notice the cold when I go to bed, because the head of the bed is against an exterior wall. The wall itself feels a little cold. (Building is pretty well constructed but 60 years old.)

    I opened the stove and put it on “warm” a while ago to distribute a little more heat.

    Temp has dropped to 8° from 12° just a couple of hours ago.

  79. 79.

    jl

    @Omnes Omnibus: It looks like Limbaugh has decided to construct a whole virtual world of bullshit, because he has lost any touch at all with reality, or is going insane, or drugging it up again, or some combination.

    Why does he need to construct some conspiracy theory about an arctic air mass as part of his disinformation BS campaign against climate change?

    Maybe he is addicted to extemporaneous BSing.

  80. 80.

    StringOnAStick

    Talked to our friends in Calgary last Saturday night. They’ve been cycling through periods of heavy snow, minus 35C, and then a day warm enough to melt, so much so that they can no longer drive their tiny Toyota for fear of becoming high centered on the ice ridges on their neighborhood streets.

    I went back country skiing yesterday here in CO, by noon it had dropped to -5F and the wind started to rage; I was OK except for my rapidly numbing toes – my new ski boots are apparently not that warm, dammit. The powder was good though, just wish we could have stayed out longer enjoying it.

  83. 83.

    max

    @parsimon: Max!

    What?!

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): Seriously, though, if you start getting mystery “smoke alarms” in the winter, you probably forgot you bought the model that also monitors CO. Get your furnace checked, pronto.

    Well, if the CO2 gets high enough (8%), you will also be screwed. Of course the CO levels will be sky high by that point, so it probably wouldn’t matter. (Everyone talking about global warming has everyone thinking about CO2, so naturally when the switch to occurs to indoor heating, the brain wants to keep talking CO2. Happened to me a few times.)

    max
    [‘Yes, children, do not funnel the exhaust from your car into your bong for the extra bang to your high.’]

  84. 84.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @StringOnAStick: Have you considered heated boots? I’ve never tried ’em. I still use a pair of four buckle Salomon racing boots (cold, tight, and responsive).

  85. 85.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @trollhattan: So Mitt Romney was just using the dog as an organic car compass. Why didn’t he say so?

    I like the last line in that article:

    So, does this eliminate the need for a compass on long walks with the dog??

    I don’t think that was intentional word play, but if so, well done.

  86. 86.

    ? Martin

    @jl:

    Why does he need to construct some conspiracy theory about an arctic air mass as part of his disinformation BS campaign against climate change?

    Because there’s 30 million people willing to listen to it, and advertisers know a good mark when they see one.

  87. 87.

    max

    @Violet: In an old, drafty apartment I used to hang blankets over the windows during cold weather. Made a huge difference in how warm the place stayed.

    In the apartment I lived in, the foundation had cracked a bit and settled at a small tilt, so every time it rained, the damn water would leak under the door and pool up in foyer. So we had to use towels during gully washers. But that was in Texas.

    (Of course, I lived in another apartment where the power lines ran along the property line. Trees would grow there and the power company and the property owners argued all the time about cutting back the trees. So the trees would wind up growing long enough to short across lines every time there was a hard wind. Which meant, sometimes, five long outages in a month. No power == no A/C, so indoors would be 96+ degrees with stale, stagnant air. Hard to sleep in.

    This is better than that. As long as you DON’T GO OUTSIDE.)

    max
    [‘At least dying will be painless, Cole! And not sweaty and sick!’]

  88. 88.

    Jennifer

    JC, before you do anything else, open all the taps in the house to a trickle. With that kind of cold and no power, your water lines will freeze quickly if you don’t. Turn on the hot water a tad, too – in sub-zero temps, the hot water lines can freeze too.

  89. 89.

    Suffern ACE

    What I find strange about the north-south dog poop alignment discovery is that it took 30,000 years to figure that out. You’d think that kind of fact would have at least merited an old wives tale or bawdy verse in a folk tune.

  90. 90.

    Debbie(aussie)

    Can’t believe that people actually live where it gets that cold(not just where JC is). Best wishes to al juicers suffering the cold and snow and ice, take care of each other please. Do the homeless have somewhere to go?

    Just got back from specialist appointment. He recommends surgery-pedicle subtraction osteotomy. WOW!

  93. 93.

    Schlemizel

    If you have an electric range put a couple of big soup pots of water on, they don’t need to boil, just simmer. If its gas you can heat the water for maybe an hour or so than turn it off & let them give off heat for a couple hours. You are not going for comfort just prevention of frozen pipes.

    If you have water pipes on outside walls or the inside temp gets near 32 turn the faucets on with just a drip of water to keep the pipes from freezing.

    Not that you’ll see this I assume your laptop battery is being saved for an SOS if need be.

    I lived in an old, uninsulated, farm house that only had a wood stove in the basement with a grate open in the center of the house to heat the whole thing – in Northern MN. More than one morning I woke up to ice on the surface of the toilet bowl! Its unpleasant but a healthy person will survive.

  97. 97.

    danielx

    Twelve below and all is well…daughter unit wanted to know whyever I sealed up the fireplace when it’s so cold outside because “I want a fire, dad!”. Because even with the flue closed I could feel cold air coming in, miss thing, and I don’t even want to think about the gas bill for this month. Supposed to be 40 by the weekend and it’s going to feel like fucking Miami or someplace after this. Three people already died locally, including one woman in her 90s who went out to clear a path for her dogs outside her back door and fell down, and sure enough she couldn’t get up. Read once about the old women who swept snow from the streets in Moscow during the thirties…they’d sit down to rest on an outside bench and be found next morning frozen stiff.

  100. 100.

    Jennifer

    @Schlemizel: eh, an electric range doesn’t work when the power is off.

    As for the taps, they need more than a drip. It was only a low of 12 here last night, and I awoke to a frozen cold water line in the kitchen, which I had left on a steady drip. Took two hours with the heater fan in the cabinet blowing at the plumbing wall to get it unfrozen – an option you wouldn’t have if the power was out. Better safe than sorry – you want a trickle, not a drip.

  102. 102.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Bill E Pilgrim: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

  103. 103.

    danielx

    @eemom:

    That’s West by god Virginia, although Suzanne makes an excellent point. I’ll bet anything there will be a jump in midwest birth rates nine months from now.

  104. 104.

    Comrade Mary

    @jl: Good to hear! He’s got one of the more approachable blogs on the topic. Real Climate is awesome, but probably overwhelming for anyone new to the research.

  105. 105.

    Schlemizel

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The Irish poor literally lived in holes dug in the ground & then covered with sod. It kept the wind off but you can imagine they didn’t bath. Castles had those huge tapestries hung for a reason, it cut down on the drafts.

    The people who had it worst were probably the early pioneers with timber homes. They were not sealed tight and I had read more than one account of settlers spending the winter jamming moss, dirt and bits of cloth into gaps that formed as the wood shrank. I assume life must have really sucked wherever they came from to be willing to put up with that sort of living.

  110. 110.

    trollhattan

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Will only add that the dog is slumbering next to me, blissfully unaware I’m going to be following her around the backyard with a compass. I demand proof!

    Perhaps I can fit her with a frickin’ laser?

  115. 115.

    Suzanne

    Last night, my mom called me to tell me that she talked to my aunt who lives in Westchester County. She said, “Lynn got six or seven inches.” I laffed so ridiculously hard.

  116. 116.

    max

    @trollhattan: Perhaps I can fit her with a frickin’ laser?

    Fit the dog with a compass (with an external axis) and attach a laser to it.

    max
    [‘Of course, you’ll never see the pointer in sunlight or with trees around, but IT’LL BE AWESOME anyways. Think of the bragging rights!’]

  117. 117.

    jl

    @Comrade Mary: I like Real Climate, but Laden’s weather blog explains some of the intuitive nuts and bolts of physics and thermo of weather better than other places I’ve seen. I find the climate models easier to understand than the models of pressure fronts and short run bends and jiggles of jet streams and so forth.

  122. 122.

    trollhattan

    @max:

    I’d simply order #2 to handle this task, but there’s a line of obviousness I just won’t cross.

    (Come to think of it, I have a cheap frickin’ laser level. Now, for some duct tape.)

  123. 123.

    trollhattan

    @Debbie(aussie):

    We don’t know, it just happens. To end the chain, you must sacrifice one large beer to the FYWP totem. It can under no circumstances be Fosters.

    Then go forth and magically multi-post no further.

  126. 126.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Schlemizel: Right. There was no technology like oakum and tar that was used to keep wooden ships afloat for millenia. Using something like moss and a sealant like tar or plaster was common. Caulk isn’t just the stuff that one gets in tubes at Home Depot.

  127. 127.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Schlemizel: Yes there was.

    Pioneer log cabin builders needed caulking to fill spaces between logs of their cabins and they made their caulking of whatever they could find: earth, water, tree bark, twigs, even animal hair.

    The thing you’re describing above is correct, but it’s how log cabins were/are built, is the point, not just some crazy desperation move.

    Similar principle with many kinds of boats, especially ancient ones. They wouldn’t stay afloat for ten minutes without caulk, which was often stuff like some sort of fiber mixed with beeswax, for example, hammered in.

    http://books.google.com/books?id=wlYjdqa1u84C&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=log+cabins+caulk+history&source=bl&ots=b6_n8_1Eim&sig=k1Sn6R3ZM1L2e_RDznSDsvqkWZM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UJfLUq-aEszaoATfjIFA&ved=0CJUBEOgBMAg#v=onepage&q=log%20cabins%20caulk%20history&f=false

  128. 128.

    Ruckus

    In ANWAR they can only use moss to caulk the logs in a cabin.
    I don’t know from cold any more I just got back from the big house, wearing shorts and a tee shirt. Not bad at all, NOAA says it’s 60 out, just after 10pm. It will be a tad chilly ridding to work tomorrow, low 50’s. Electric vest will fix that.

  131. 131.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Ruckus:

    You must be closer to the beach than we are. It’s 48 in the Valley right now, and it’ll get into the high 30s at night the rest of the week.

    That’s the downside to our semi-desert climate — it may be in the 70s during the day, but the temp can easily drop 30 or more degrees once the sun goes down. If you’re not prepared, life can kinda suck.

  132. 132.

    Elmo

    One of the houses I lived in during my renting days in the high Sierra had stunning views through two-story windows that faced out directly to the ski hill.

    Single-pane windows.

    The only heat was the woodstove, which was badly flued, or plumbed, or whatever you call it, and needed constant attention to keep a fire going. So it would always go out during the night.

    We had to keep produce like bananas and tomatoes in the fridge to keep the frost from ruining them on the kitchen counters overnight.

  137. 137.

    Paul in KY

    @Suffern ACE: Agreed. How many people have watched dogs crap over the last 8,000 years or so? Maybe the thing that threw us off would be that sometimes the dog’s head points South & sometimes it points North. That’ll fuck with ya…

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