Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

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

Republicans do not pay their debts.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

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

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

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

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

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

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

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124Comments

  2. 2.

    JPL

    John, Somehow I feel like the post needs to be longer.
    Feel like hell, want to play some warcrack, and still have this

  4. 4.

    raven

    Thinking about what it will be like at the game tomorrow night! It’s 32 now and should be about that when the game ends, whoo hoo!

  6. 6.

    Steeplejack

    @raven:

    Winter is here, for sure. It’s 30° here in NoVA, going down to 26° tonight. Coldest night so far, I think. Only going up to 45° tomorrow.

  9. 9.

    beth

    Rand Paul is on Real Time making sense on climate change for five minutes before veering off into crazy talk about clean water regulations making his backyard a navigable waterway so that’s why we can’t do big changes on energy regulations. Boy was Charlie Pierce ever right about that family.

  10. 10.

    raven

    @efgoldman: Yea, we’ve been on the road for 43 days, this is a huge game against a hated rival and we are going to the beach for 12 days Wednesday so I’m going no matter what. I love football so much and, boom, it’s gone before I know it.

  13. 13.

    Mary G

    When I fell & hurt myself in the bathroom, all I could think was “Well, at least I’m not naked, like some people I know of.”

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    @efgoldman:

    Up here in the blue states, overnight lows going well down in the 20s.

    Out here on the very blue left coast, we’re expecting overnight lows in the 50s. Too bad we don’t have any water.

  18. 18.

    jayjaybear

    @SatanicPanic: WoWhead to non-WoWhead translation: Blizzard sucks at rollout. Blizzard has ALWAYS sucked at rollout. Five expansion packs plus the initial launch and it’s the same thing pretty much every time.

  19. 19.

    dance around in your bones

    Ok, Firefox just updated itself WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME and everything is all screwed up. The print is tiny, like the mobile site, and I can’t find my add-on bar (admittedly I haven’t tried very hard yet because I was watching a Talking Heads video) – also texting an old boyfriend (Like, I was 14 and he was ….20? prolly illegal now (and then!) – but he used to call me a ‘child goddess’ which was pretty compelling) oh, the hot springs in Taos at the old D.H. Lawrence ranch!

    I know y’all probably think I make all this shit up, but I swear it is ALL true.

  25. 25.

    Karen in GA

    Have a photography workshop thingy in Roswell tomorrow, where I’ll practice what they taught in the last two workshops. Still haven’t taken any real pictures on my own. I can get on a rented motorcycle, drop the thing and fall off in the first five minutes trying to adjust to it, and still take it for a 2,000 mile ride alone in a foreign country, but I can’t shoot a picture with a DSLR without someone holding my hand.

  26. 26.

    dance around in your bones

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t know who Francoise Hardy is, but I’d be Marianne Faithfull in a tick’s moment.

    Whiskey voice and all. What a fucking great album she made after she lost her voice. Plus, she got to fuck Mick Jagger, which might have been a good thing

    Ok, I know I have linked this song before , when we had a ‘best breakup’ song contest. This wins, hands down.

  29. 29.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Completely random question: Is doing SyFy original movies the last stop for aspiring actresses before they do Cinemax After Dark movies?

  32. 32.

    dance around in your bones

    I remember seeing the Rolling Stones live on the East Coast and being a lil gal from Albuquerque, Mick Jagger made me a bit uncomfortable. He was kind of – how shall I say this – faggy? at the time? and I had no experience with that kind of behavior (remember, I was from Albuquerque!) He pranced around the stage in a weird fashion – kinda like Jethro Tull and his flute and his tights, doncha know.

    I could tell y’all a GREAT story about a concert I went to when I was maybe 14 or so? but it would probably gross all the guys out, though the ladies would understand. I was on psychedelics, so I can’t be held responsible for the ……stain I left on the seat o.O Hahahahhahah!

  33. 33.

    max

    Good thing I pre-ordered.

    That is the great secret of being an old gamer, Cole. Once you’ve seen them all, you can just want until the game has been out for awhile, has been extensively patched AND sells for less before you commit. And also, when they’ve got sufficient servers to make a go of it.

    max
    [‘Hell, I’m still buying games from 2005.’]

  35. 35.

    max

    but I can’t shoot a picture with a DSLR without someone holding my hand.

    Put it in auto mode. Take pictures. Take a lot of pictures. The pictures won’t be very good, but you will learn the camera. Then go and read the manual. And then take more pictures. And then read the manual some more. And then take more pictures using some of the other modes. Lots and lots of pictures.

    max
    [‘You must take many pictures.’]

  38. 38.

    Morzer

    Someone else who feels like hell:

    http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/14/rosetta-comet-dr-matt-taylor-apology-sexist-shirt

    The scientist who caused a furore by wearing a sexist shirt as he gave a progress report on the Rosetta mission on Wednesday has made an emotional apology for his “big mistake”. Matt Taylor was more plainly dressed on Friday as he broke down in tears at a briefing, apparently struggling to speak before confessing: “I made a big mistake and I offended many people, and I am very sorry about this.”

    Taylor’s gaudy clothing, including images of semi-naked women, sparked a row over his wardrobe and infuriated fellow scientists.

    With love to all the comrades and fellow-SJWs, Citizen Commissar Liberal Fascist Morzer

  39. 39.

    dance around in your bones

    @SatanicPanic: Yeah, I’been practicing all my life to get old.

    Ha! My husband used to have one of those t-shirts that said “Live Fast, Die Young, and Leave a Good-Looking Corpse”.

    Well, he died when he was 63, so he got 2 out of three.He WAS good-looking, and he made me laugh like hell. I still turn around sometimes to tell him something, and then remember he’s dead.I have a couple of Zip-loc baggies with some of his ashes in them, stuffed into a pair of socks I hand-knitted for him back in the day.

    I kinda like thinking of him stuffed into the socks I made for him.

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I think the arc goes from SyFy to Hallmark Movie Channel or something like that. Skinemax is a parallel universe: the performers don’t come from anywhere else, they don’t go to anywhere else. They exist only in that space.

  42. 42.

    dance around in your bones

    @Omnes Omnibus: Oh, I remember that song!

    Good thing I have a great sense of humor! My husband would have laughed as well :)

    ETA: I linked to a documentary on Keith Moon the other night called Living Famously

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack: Where do those nubile girls go to make rent after the SyFy offers dry up? I suspect casual pr0n – just to stay in town. Not judging – dreams die hard.

  45. 45.

    dance around in your bones

    Ok, fuck – I don’t know what happened there….but the film is called Living Famously
    AND one of the greatest drummers in the rock world. So he only lived until he was 32, but he lived his life the way HE wanted to, and what the hell – I can’t fault him for that!

    Plus, I love his eyes :)

  47. 47.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    They get into bad marriages or become trade-show eye candy. “Have you seen the Bass-o-matic 2000? Here’s a brochure. Next demonstration at eleven o’clock.”

  49. 49.

    dance around in your bones

    @Omnes Omnibus: I begged the fucking doctor for some Tramadol (non-narcotic) until my PCP can give me a new RX for the good shit.

    5 days, I reckon. I had to walk to my ortho doc’s office yesterday and got lost on the way back (Google maps! Do not trust them!!) and by the time I got home I’d probably walked 8 miles on my fractured hip.

    I was in tears. Had to take a shot of vodka to calm down :)

  50. 50.

    Mike J

    @dance around in your bones:

    Ok, Firefox just updated itself WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME and everything is all screwed up.

    I was on the Aurora update channel and the other day they wiped my plugins and prefs and sidegraded me to the developer’s edition. While I am a developer, I was already set up the way I wanted. Wound up having to uninstall, and happily, when the release version installed it recognised my userdir and everything came back.

    This happened the same day chrome released a buggy beta that ran in app mode on win7, even though win7 doesn’t even have an app mode. No max, min, or close buttons. My feedback email suggested putting a bar of soap in a sock and beating their PM with it.

  52. 52.

    Gin & Tonic

    @efgoldman: and found out everybody had a relative like that.

    A few years ago I would have smugly said “Oh, no boss, I don’t.” Then my daughter got married, to a thoroughly wonderful young man, and I got the opportunity to meet his father. Suffice it to say I’m in the club now.

  53. 53.

    dance around in your bones

    @Mike J: hey, I’d beat the guy with the bar of soap!

    I know one should not allow Firefox to automatically upgrade whenever they decide they have to be like Chrome (which I do not like and do not use – much less Internet Exploder!) I’m a Firefox and Pale Moon kinda gal. I like the way they are so – adaptable to your personal preferences

    Anyway, fucking Firefox got me unawares!!!!!.Bastardos!

  54. 54.

    Gin & Tonic

    Life as a comic, Pt 1. Felix Salmon quotes the New Yorker quoting Chris Rock: “I’ve never made money like Eddie. I’ve done fine, but it’s dribs and drabs: two here, one there.”

    The units are in millions, in case anyone is wondering. Dribs and drabs.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    Have played WoW for a good long while and never once encountered that.

    re: new expansion

    So far am enjoying sending the slaves peons cannon fodder underlings hired guns compatriots in my garrison out to do stuff.

  57. 57.

    LookingForACanadian

    9 big ones in MSP. Going to the last Gopher football home game tomorrow (of course)… Ski-U-Mah! Good season so far.

    Also: g’nite and good warmth to all who aren’t equipped to handle these early chilled temps :-/

  59. 59.

    dance around in your bones

    Ok, I don’t know where all you guys went, but I got sucked into the Keith Moon documentary again. And when Herman (of Herman and the Hermits) came on and started talking about Keith, I remembered that Herman and the Hermits were the first rock band I ever saw in concert (in ABQ).

    I was SURE that Herman (Peter Noonan) was staring right into my 13 yr old eyes in the 85th row of the upper whatever level…..hahahahahah!!!!

    One of the things I did in grade school was to sing “Mrs. Brown you’ve got a lovely daughter! Girls as sharp as her are something rare?” i can’t remember now – BUT! what we did was throw candy at the classmates, assuring that we would win the talent contest. And we did.

  61. 61.

    Morzer

    @Gian:

    I think it might be that rarest of things – a genuine apology from a man who is decent enough to recognize that he fucked up unintentionally but offended women by doing so. I’d say he deserves props.

  62. 62.

    Roger Moore

    @max:

    Put it in auto mode. Take pictures. Take a lot of pictures. The pictures won’t be very good, but you will learn the camera. Then go and read the manual. And then take more pictures. And then read the manual some more. And then take more pictures using some of the other modes. Lots and lots of pictures.

    This is generally good advice. The key thing to understand is that when you say you need somebody to hold your hand when taking pictures, the camera is willing to be that person. If you set it in auto everything mode, it will behave a lot like a big point-and-shoot camera with an optical viewfinder. Once you get used to that, you can gradually take over the decision making from the camera if/when there are decisions where you think you’re likely to know what you’re doing better than the camera.

    Not that you necessarily will want to make all the decisions yourself. Auto focus and matrix metering are wonderful inventions that let you think more about the subject and composition rather than the more technical side of photography.

  63. 63.

    Anne Laurie

    @dance around in your bones:

    Ok, Firefox just updated itself WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME and everything is all screwed up.

    This probably falls in the category of “things that are not helpful”, but my technical expert (aka the Spousal Unit) switched my machine from FireFox to the (FF-based) Pale Moon OS because Pale Moon is “what FF was before they fvcked it up”. If you’re better at tech than I — or can charm someone who is — might be worth checking out?

  64. 64.

    dance around in your bones

    @SatanicPanic: Well, frankly – I’m not AFRAID of getting old, it’s just happening to my body.

    I will be 61 next month, and I still feel like I am 18 inside. When I walk past a mirror (as rarely as possible) I do not recognize the older woman reflected there. I think, of course, that it is harder for women to ‘age gracefully’ as they say……

    I DID have someone the other day tell me I didn’t look a day over 50, so there’s that :)

  65. 65.

    Steeplejack

    @dance around in your bones:

    I’m still here, but not for long. I’ve reached that point where I’m tired enough to go to bed but also tired enough not to prevent myself from reading just one more thing before rousing myself to shut off the computer and actually go to bed. Plus I’m dog-sitting at my brother’s house, so I’m missing the housecat and my own bed.

    Okay, this convinced me. I’m off to bed. Night-night!

  67. 67.

    dance around in your bones

    @Anne Laurie: Thanks, Anne Laurie – as I said before, I’m a Firefox AND Pale Moon kinda gal.

    I have both installed on my laptop and use them back and forth as the occasion requires. I DO like Pale Moon a lot – your husband is right! It IS like Firefox used to be before they decided they had to update every 3 weeks like Chrome, Gah.

  69. 69.

    Morzer

    @Anne Laurie:

    The likeliest problem area is the extensions that people bolt onto Firefox, not Firefox itself.

    Any chance of a front page thread to acknowledge Matt Taylor’s repentance? Since we thumped him for his blunder, I feel we should be fair and acknowledge him doing the right thing.

    Cordially, Comrade Co-equal Citizen Commissar Liberal Fascist Morzer

  71. 71.

    Suzanne

    I’m trying to finish this ceramic sushi-and-sake set I’ve been making for my husband. I wanted to trim the plates tonight, but they weren’t dry enough. DAMNIT. I want to finish it by Christmas.

  72. 72.

    Anne Laurie

    @efgoldman:

    I don’t remember what year it was (2006, maybe?) but that’s when I got here, and found out everybody had a relative like that. I am forever grateful.

    Heck, thirty-plus years ago, a bunch of us from variously dysfunctional/distant families started celebrating a (hobbit) Bloat together over the Thanksgiving weekend. We’re now indoctrinating the third generation, and one of the founding members just wrote up a “Hail Barack, Caesar Augustus?” rant for the mail list to get all us liberals properly agitated in advance of the big day…

    Lovely gentleman, and I mean that sincerely — he & his wife have always been really generous to me personally as well as practicing Christian charity in general — but even in “families of the heart”, you can’t always avoid the aggravation!

  73. 73.

    Morzer

    @Anne Laurie:

    Just write back and ask who is supposed to be Mark Antony in this intriguing scenario. I seem to have missed Barack’s victory at the Battle of Actium as well as the suicide of Cleopatra Palin.

  74. 74.

    Hal

    @Anne Laurie:

    “Hail Barack, Caesar Augustus?”

    One of my old coworkers who I am friends with on Facebook openly wondered a few weeks ago if Obama was even going to allow the 2016 Presidential elections to happen. He’s hoping against hope he will. Stuff like that just makes me laugh nowadays because If Obama really was the Kim Jong-Un of the west all these people would have all been fed to the dogs by now.

  76. 76.

    Morzer

    @Hal:

    Well, you know, the cancellation of the consular midterms this year plus the proscriptions of McCain, Palin and the Kochs and the deification of Divus Alinsky… those were all really bad signs.

    In the Republican imagination.

  77. 77.

    Tenar Darell

    Saw Interstellar tonight, on film no less! I join the chorus of highly recommend. Now I need to talk my father into seeing it in a theater. Shouldn’t be too hard, he took me to my first showing of 2001 after all.

  78. 78.

    Anne Laurie

    @Morzer:

    Any chance of a front page thread to acknowledge Matt Taylor’s repentance? Since we thumped him for his blunder, I feel we should be fair and acknowledge him doing the right thing.

    You’re right, but I’ll save it until a time of day when more people will read it.

    I genuinely wish “we” could send him (or the lady who made the shirt for him) some alternate fabrics, though. If he’s a Hawaiain-shirt guy, the sf trading cards print should tickle his fancy…

  79. 79.

    Tim C.

    What’s funny is I just was trying to log in myself. Lots of full realms, however only one was totally dead offline…… That one in the picture… That wasn’t your doing I hope.

  80. 80.

    2liberal

    @Morzer:

    Any chance of a front page thread to acknowledge Matt Taylor’s repentance? Since we thumped him for his blunder, I feel we should be fair and acknowledge him doing the right thing.

    that wouldn’t result in girlie pix on page one – non starter

  82. 82.

    Anne Laurie

    @Morzer: Fortunately, I won’t be attending this year, and there are plenty of other good progressives to yell at him in my stead.

  83. 83.

    Morzer

    @Anne Laurie:

    His next spam mail (“Worse than Benghazi!!!”) will probably be about how liberals trampled his first, second and third amendment rights by not immediately agreeing with him.

  84. 84.

    Tenar Darell

    @Anne Laurie: if you’re serious, you could send a bolt(?) to him, care of the ESA, Philae Mission. They probably have fans sending them loads of stuff by now. Maybe Tom Levenson has a better address/contacts for ESA team…,

  86. 86.

    trollhattan

    @max: @Karen in GA:
    Right. Mastering a camera is a matter of keeping track of four variables–shutter speed, aperture, film sp..ISO and focus. And you can bag all that, set it to iAuto, and let the camera do it all with reliably acceptable results. Photography isn’t about the camera, it’s about what occurs within that rectangle and gaining that ability to previsualize sans camera is the photographer’s only challenge. The camera is just a crescent wrench.

    Find the Roswell aliens, find your eye, don’t sweat the hardware.

  87. 87.

    Morzer

    @trollhattan:

    I’ve been looking all day and I still can’t find my eye. I know I put it in the usual dish last night, but come this morning, it’s nowhere to be seen. Mind you, the cat didn’t have any breakfast this morning, which is … unusual.

  88. 88.

    Karen in GA

    @max: @Roger Moore: Thanks. The thing is, I got this camera specifically to take it off “auto” mode and finally learn how to take manual control. I have a great superzoom point and shoot for, well, pointing and shooting — it also offers some manual control, but I’d always wanted to really go in-depth. I was able to bring it to a photo workshop in Paris in September, but there were shots my point-and-shoot prevented me from getting. Also, it was too easy to just switch back to Auto mode when I got confused about the various settings, so I didn’t retain as much information as I would have liked about how the different settings work.

    Then when I was at the Tower of London a couple of days later, another tourist asked if I’d take her picture using her phone, I said yes, and then I started slightly geeking out and making suggestions about where she and her husband should stand and how the shot should be composed; fortunately I stopped before annoying the hell out of them, but it was clear they weren’t exactly prepared for that. They liked the picture, though, so there’s that.

    But yeah, time to actually figure out WTF I’m doing with this thing.

  89. 89.

    DivF

    @beth: Rand Paul reminds me of the larouchites (who’ve been around town this week canvassing for God knows what) talking about science. In amongst vast volumes of utter gibberish you’ll hear something that almost makes sense in a really profound way). Then the very next sentence they’re out beyond the orbit of Pluto.

  92. 92.

    trollhattan

    @Karen in GA:
    Do you have just one lens–the zoom that came with the camera? Maybe limit yourself to one focal length, set to A mode and spend the day only changing the aperture and exposure while leaving the other settings alone. It can be helpful to rein in most of the variables and just using one or two at a time, helps avoid becoming overwhelmed by the camera.

    Or if you have a prime (single focal length) lens, use that and leave the zoom in the bag.

  93. 93.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Warcrack is all effed up at the moment…the instances for garrisons are offline, and I imagine dungeons and raids are too.

  95. 95.

    tsquared2001

    Bruh came over tonight. Me and him are fighting with our sister over exactly how much she and her son can steal from our dad while he is still alive. Bruh done quit on the whole thing including the setting up dad for a new will.

    I know how he feels but I was raised to fight and this shit is just killing me.

    It is times like this that I miss my mom.

  98. 98.

    tsquared2001

    @Morzer: Dad had no idea until bruh took him to the bank and and printed out the statements. So we had a meeting – look at how she is taking you! Dad, you gotta change this up.

    Dad gets mad for two days and then forgets about it (the oldtimers).

    Everyone in my family is just a little bit crooked but there are some things you simply don’t do and that she is getting away with it would have mom ready to rumble.

    I just had to vent. Got up at 4:30 this morning to a cold house, had to re light the pilot, then worked 9 hours, found out bruh has washed his hands of it and now can’t sleep.

  101. 101.

    Morzer

    @tsquared2001:

    Sounds like you’ve got to find out how she’s getting money from the account and take away her ability to do it. Might be worth looking into power of attorney as well, although one of the legal eagles on here would know more about that stuff than I.

  104. 104.

    tsquared2001

    @Morzer: She is the co-account holder,designated tor paying dad’s bills. The funny thing is, we all bank at the same credit union. Shit, we all live within 6 blocks of each other. Looking forward to the next time I see her in line at the bank.

    Thanks, Morzer. Just discussing it tonight has clarified my thinking on this.

  111. 111.

    dance around in your bones

    Ok, so why do I wake up at 2:25am PCT and cannot get back to sleep?

    I can’t make any noise, because I have 3 housemates, 1 dog and 1 cat to consider.

    That fucking doctor who wouldn’t give me REAL pain pills is pissing me off again, even though I have applied at least 4 “Icy Hot” patches to my hip.

    I guess I’ll have to waste another X.anax to get back to fucklng sleep.

  112. 112.

    dance around in your bones

    Ok, so why do I wake up at 2:25am PST and cannot get back to sleep?

    I can’t make any noise, because I have 3 housemates, 1 dog and 1 cat to consider.

    That fucking doctor who wouldn’t give me REAL pain pills is pissing me off again, even though I have applied at least 4 “Icy Hot” patches to my hip.

    I guess I’ll have to waste another X.anax to get back to fucklng sleep.

  116. 116.

    dance around in your bones

    @Morzer: Perhaps you could arrange one for me :)

    I’ve been busy talking with my sister and beating up on Firefox after it totally wrecked all my personal add-ons and etc yesterday.

    The bastards.

  117. 117.

    Morzer

    @dance around in your bones:

    I would be honored, but I rather think that commerce across international boundaries might be difficult and Madame Morzer is a wonderful woman of unswerving moral views and an artist with a cleaver.

  118. 118.

    dance around in your bones

    @Morzer: Ah, I gotcha – I never want to interfere in a nice/perfect relationship .

    Gawd knows I was in one for.40+ years,, so I understand, (Plus, Mrs Morzer sounds rather formidable :) Ack! Ack!

  119. 119.

    Morzer

    @dance around in your bones:

    She has her formidable side, without a doubt. She also has a passion for good kitchen knives that means I have to keep an eye on her whenever we go shopping, or we shall end up with enough edged steel for the entire supporting cast of Kagemusha.

  121. 121.

    Sloegin

    September: This game sucks, nobody’s playing.
    November: This game sucks, there’s too many people playing.

  122. 122.

    Lee

    That is the main reason I unsub from WoW. Playing elder scrolls online now and having a blast. They have patched and updated the game smoothing out some of the problems.

  123. 123.

    Ronnie

    Thought this would be a long discussion on WoW. I was in nerdly heaven, till i realized there were about 10 comments actually about WoW. I’m not currently playing but thought this was an interesting documentary:

  124. 124.

    fergie

    Warlords of Draenor is great!!!! Ive been having a blast. I was worried that going back to Outlands (pre-outlands) would suck. But I was wrong. The whole thing is as good as Pandaria has been (and its kept me busy for 2 years). First weeks of expansions are always problematic and that has been true for every expansion of every game Ive ever played. Haters of Blizzard, blah blah I am as over listening to you little bitches, as I am over listening to Steven Moffat haters. The artists of Blizzard have created an amazing playground for us to play in and we dont even have to get dressed to go out!
    fergie

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