Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

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

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

When we show up, we win.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

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

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

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94Comments

  1. 1.

    Layer8Problem

    “No breakfast, I’m starving, eating a piece of pumpkin pie as an appetizer.”

    What a coincidence!  I just finished a slice of chocolate peanut butter pie as an appetizer, not having had breakfast.  Go figure.

  2. 2.

    Tim C.

    Not a regular commenter here, but I think a lot of people are like me and probably need to hear the following advice.  It’s advice I’ve been following the last year when my mental health started really getting difficult.

    1. We don’t know what’s going to happen.   Not at any level.
    2. Whatever is going to happen, we have a responsibility to care for each other and for ourselves.
    3. Watch your use of Weed and Alcohol,  I’m not saying don’t, but John isn’t the only person who has struggled with that beast,  his journy helped inspire mine, and I recognize when I was using substances as anesthetic.   Helps in the short run, but as we get older, there’s a cost.
    4. If you have meds that help (Anti Depressants were probably life-saving in my case) Then don’t go off them.
    5. Remember that as bad as times might get, we can always draw inspiration from those who came before us.   See number 2.   If the worst should fall on November 5, we still have work to do.

      Love to all in this community who have helped me more than they know since 2005

  3. 3.

    cope

    Not to be left behind, I will now go eat one of the three remaining lavender lemon squares my wife made the other day.  Oh, and a cuppa Joe to wash it down.

    Thanks for the inspiration.

  4. 4.

    lowtechcyclist

    A few days ago, I came across a pumpkin pie I put in the freezer last November and forgot about.  I thawed it out, and I’m almost finished with it now.  It tasted just as good as if I’d made it a day earlier and had just pulled it back out of the fridge.

    Next time I’m in the mood for pumpkin pie, I think I’m gonna bake a batch of smallish pumpkin pies, and freeze all but one of them.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    @lowtechcyclist: I do that sometimes with cookies and brownies.

    I freeze the brownies after I bake them, of course.  But I freeze the cookie dough so I can just open the freezer, scoop out 3 cookies worth of dough, and have fresh baked cookies.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

     No breakfast, I’m starving, eating a piece of pumpkin pie as an appetizer.

    Pie doesn’t count as breakfast?

    I did have breakfast, and then a mid-morning snack courtesy of work’s Europa Clipper launch watch party. Europa-colored donuts, because we embrace our nerdishness.

  8. 8.

    lowtechcyclist

    @dmsilev:

    Pie doesn’t count as breakfast?

    It’s a mathematician’s favorite breakfast.  And we all know what multiple the pie’s circumference is of its diameter. ;-)

  9. 9.

    lowtechcyclist

    @WaterGirl:

    I freeze the cookie dough so I can just open the freezer, scoop out 3 cookies worth of dough, and have fresh baked cookies.

    Hadn’t thought of doing that! That’s a great idea.

    If I started baking brownies, I’d blimp out in no time.  Gotta make some choices to preserve my boyish figure. :D

  10. 10.

    Doc Sardonic

    @WaterGirl: My late mother when I was much younger, used to do everything but bake the cookies before freezing. She would put the cookies on the baking sheets, place the baking sheets in the freezer then bag the frozen cookies. All I had to do if I wanted a cookie was heat the toaster oven and insert frozen cookie 🍪 and bake.

  14. 14.

    Mike in Pasadena

    It’s been years since I’ve had a tasty piece of pumpkin pie. Enjoy your pie. You deserve it.

  15. 15.

    HumboldtBlue

    Interesting women’s soccer story from Watford.

    American investment in English football clubs is on the rise – from Arsenal to Chelsea, Wrexham to Birmingham – the game attracting billionaire investors and high-profile celebrities. Next in line are Watford Women. But this investment is different.

    Watford’s new partner is the Hollywood-based not-for-profit organisation Sound of Gol and the motivation is simple. “Educate and empower the Latina woman, so they can educate and empower the Latina girl,” says its co-founder, director and producer George Valencia.

    How on earth does investment in Watford Women empower the Latina woman? Sound of Gol, which Valencia founded with his wife, the actor Judy Reyes – best known for her roles in Scrubs and Devious Maids – aims to challenge the pay-to-play model of youth football in the US and tackle the underrepresentation of Latina women, providing them with all the benefits the sport brings to young people.

  17. 17.

    Spanky

    I’ve gotten into the Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups that was supposed to be for Halloween.

    Must. Nap. NOW.

  18. 18.

    zhena gogolia

    I spoke too soon. As we were coming back from our walk, our neighbor across the street (or I guess her son, since she never leaves the house) was putting up their Trump 2024 sign. I don’t think Vance’s name was even on it.

  21. 21.

    Trivia Man

    @WaterGirl: I make a big batch of waffles. Freeze them  on a cookie sheet so they don’t stick together, then bag. One or two in the toaster as needed. Add peanut butter and honey. 😋

  22. 22.

    wjca

    Interested to see that there was just one guy (admittedly with a gun), at a gas station in North Carolina, making a threatening comment about FEMA.  Dumb enough to do so when there were a bunch of National Guard troops right there.  Since arrested.

    I wouldn’t be amazed if the other stories were just many-tongued rumor doing its thing.

  23. 23.

    Scout211

    If anyone was having trouble with John’s Zelle account accepting payments over the weekend, it is working now (at least it is for me).

  24. 24.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    Did a link to this get thrown out to the jackaltariat in the previous thread?

    I apologize for the redundancy if it did.

  25. 25.

    danielx

    Got Harris and Trump signs in the neighborhood, including some at homes next to each other. On the other hand this is central Indiana so I’m encouraged by seeing Harris signs at all.
    On the other hand…there’s a lot of hatred out there, as I found by personal experience back the week after Labor Day. I’ll skip most of the details, but my daughter’s godfather is someone I have known and regarded as a friend for damn near forty years. He’s a serious gun freak so I figured he’d be a Trumpista, but we’d always avoided political discussion for good and sufficient reason – he and his wife are great godparents. Remember birthdays and holidays, all that, and the daughter unit loves them to death. He asked if I was going to vote for Harris and I indicated in the affirmative, and it was like flipping a switch. He jumped my shit, as da yoots say, and there was mention of how he’d like to shoot some of my fellow travelers in the face among other choice phrases. Oh yeah, I’m a hypocrite because I own firearms and would consider voting for a Democrat. I sort of let it slide off until he got to “you people”, and I said stop right there, I am not “you people”. I’m a person, not a group, and there’s some stuff about which we don’t agree and are never going to agree. That doesn’t mean I think you’re a bad person (okay, white lie sorta), but I’m not getting in your face, you’re getting in mine, and I’m the same person I was fifteen minutes ago before this discussion started. His wife apologized to me later for her redneck husband (her words) but it’s going on six weeks since this incident and I’m still processing the whole thing. Ordinarily I’d just blow it off and have no further contact but can’t do that, the daughter unit loves him and in that arena he’s a great guy.But the impulse just to say fuck you is still at the back of my mind. End rant, this has been weighing on my mind ever since it happened and probably will forever.​​

  30. 30.

    EngineerScotty

    @HumboldtBlue: Good luck with that.

    And I mean it.  Former US Soccer chairman Sunil Gulati tried to reform the youth soccer ecosystem in this country, and was handed his nuts in a jar for it.  The current president of US Soccer — Cindy Parlow Cone–has, as her day job, youth soccer coach, for the elite travel league (ECNL) that is doing its damnedest to make/keep the sport an elite endeavor.

    The good news is that MLS has been running its own academy system for a while (for boys), and seems to be doing fairly well.  Most MLS academy teams are free for participants, and being run by people who care most about finding and developing players for the pros, not about winning youth trophies or fleecing parents.

    The bad news is that there’s nothing like this on the girls’ side.

  31. 31.

    danielx

    @WaterGirl:

    Yeah, I got that. I’m still shook about his visceral reaction to how I’m planning to vote, though, and it was very much on my mind after reading your thread last evening. I don’t fear the election results (much) but I do fear the reaction when Trump (as I devoutly hope) gets his ass handed to him. I am reasonably sure there are people out there who simply will not accept any result except a Trump win. How they are going to react to a loss is predictable, and there are a shit ton of guns in the hands of unstable people.

  32. 32.

    Ksmiami

    @danielx: it’s not a tiff about marginal tax rates. The guy is a piece is shit. Doubly so for attacking you like that. Dump them. It ain’t worth it.

  35. 35.

    HumboldtBlue

    @danielx: ​ 

    I understand the loss your daughter may feel, but when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time, and he was unequivocally clear about how big of an asshole he is.

    I used to have a gathering of about 15–20 people at my small apartment on the second Saturday in December for the annual Trucker’s parade. My group of friends who celebrate Xmas together used the event as the kickoff to our Xmas season — we do a meetup at the local Xmas store for our locally made stuff, meet for breakfast one day and the finish it off with a huge and very popular Xmas Eve dinner and gift exchange — but we stopped doing the parade in 2019.

    Why? Because the fucking Trumpists took over the parade, well, the people who organize the silly thing — and that’s why we started, it’s a silly local parade with trucks decked out in lights tooting their horns — unsurprisingly became Trumpers (I know most of them) and decided to openly support Trump.

    The final truck in the parade is always the fire department’s hook and ladder truck, and we were enjoying the parade that night in 2019 when the truck passed us, and they had a fucking Trump sign on the back.

    I got pissed and told everyone that’s the last fucking time we do that party. Everything Trump touches turns to shit, even a silly, local parade in Eureka.

  36. 36.

    Ruckus

    @Tim C.:

    Over my lifetime I’ve seen and talked to a lot of people who use substances to curtain over aspects of life they think/know/believe are crap. (As stated here before, was a mental health counselor a few decades ago, for 4 yrs – I experienced listening to a few folks who basically didn’t get that life isn’t always easy or fun or simple. Or even close) All of us, or at least most of us do this from time to time. Life can be difficult, a pain in the gluteus, it can be fun, joyful, overwhelming, and on and on and all on the same day. In the long run those substances almost always in the end make things worse because the reason for feeling that way doesn’t get fixed or at least acknowledged and understood. Substances are like a blindfold, especially if they are used to cure the problem. They don’t cure anything and they often bring on effects that make things worse. Substances, used cautiously and in small quantities can ease the situation – BUT. They can far too easily make things worse. They are not a solution, they are a cover up. Alcohol, pot, drugs to get high on or to hide from everything never fix anything or do anything other than act as a momentary deflection. And that can be ok, as an act of relaxation – but only if not ABUSED. Which is an all too easy to get to point.

  38. 38.

    jackmac

    @danielx: ​
    @danielx: ​ Is it really that hard for close family (or friends) like this to maintain civility? The husband needs to apologize and then STFU especially if he wants to maintain good relations, particularly with the goddaughter.​

  39. 39.

    lowtechcyclist

    @trollhattan:

    Trying to imagine a freezer big enough to conceal a pie from my gaze. Unable.

    Nice surprise, though!

    This is a chest freezer, so anything on or near the bottom has layers of stuff piled on top of it.  So, lacking X-ray vision, every now and then I get a surprise when I’ve forgotten what’s at the bottom of a particular pile.

  40. 40.

    TBone

    I thought they had given the lady in the dental chair  cubicle next to mine laughing gas!  She laughs when she’s nervous apparently, and so we were all giggling our asses off today despite the pain. Her dentist’s name, Dr. Hu (he spelled it for her) sent her into peals of laughter and she kept it up while I was singing Steely Dan Dr. Wu “Can you hear me doctor?”

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vCuU2y6qR2s

  41. 41.

    pluky

    @Ruckus: Point I sometimes make in meetings is people often treat booze as an analgesic, something to mask pain. It’s not. It’s an anesthetic, removing the capacity to feel anything at all. Without the feedback of sensation, it leaves one incapacitated to deal with any underlying cause.

  44. 44.

    Gravenstone

    @WaterGirl: I remember having a roommate in college in the 80s. We’d make two batches of chocolate chip cookie dough. We’d eat the one as we baked the other…

  45. 45.

    Another Scott

    I’m back from reattaching a broken piece of clapboard that fell off the tippy-top of the siding on the side of our dormer.  I was actually smart about working on it – I used a ladder to climb up on the 1-story roof of our addition, then carefully shimmied backwards up the house roof to the flat dormer roof, climbed up on it, then lay down and bent over the edge to work on it.  (Rather than being 20+ feet up in the air on a ladder).

    Seems like it worked, and I didn’t fall and kill myself.  A good day!

    Only about 38,234 more chores on the list to go…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  46. 46.

    Ruckus

    @danielx:

    Sounds like he’s embedded in his ideals. You likely know this but the only person that can get him out of that is him.

    He has recognize what he believes, see it for what it actually is, and make a full decision that he wants change. That’s step one. Likely the hardest, longest and least likely to happen. Because he seems deeply involved in his concepts, which is likely one reason he’s angry, other people see the same situation differently. He thinks they are wrong of course but he might be somewhat angry because someone (or many) he knows obviously doesn’t. He might think that because he thinks anyone who doesn’t is wrong OR because he has doubts about his beliefs. People in the second group are able to change, people in the first are very unlikely to change. They will double or triple down to prove themselves right, which of course can backfire on them. They will often separate themselves from anyone who does not fully believe them and their ideals. Which of course shuts down much/most of the possibility of change. Sorry about that and the above but that time as a mental health counselor  taught me a lot. (We did a once a week discussion group with a shrink to discuss our progress with our clients – who, what, when, where and how, and that always gave us valuable concepts of dealing with and about them) Good for the patients and good for us.

  49. 49.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Gravenstone: ​
    I learned years ago that the classic chocolate-chip cookie batter (the one on the Toll House bag) improves in flavor considerably if you let it sit in the refrigerator (not freezer) for 36-48 hours after mixing it, before you bake it. I know this isn’t how most people make cookies, but this was actually tested and proven.

  50. 50.

    narya

    @Trivia Man: This is how I keep my sourdough starter from going too long w/o a feeding (it lives in the fridge). I’ve scaled a formula that basically uses the discard from a regular feeding.

  51. 51.

    Ohio Mom

    @Another Scott: There’s an argument to be made that climbing like that is actually not smart, no matter how strategic you think you are being. It might be smarter to hire stuff like that out.

    Shorter version: pleaeve careful, we need you hear in the comments.

  54. 54.

    Another Scott

    @danielx: I’m sorry you went through that with him.

    :-(

    I guess maybe you’ll have to compartmentalize the relationship with him.  Just as you’re the same person you were 15 minutes before, he’s the same good godparent he was 15 minutes before.  You can see how things go moving forward.

    Maybe something else set him off and it had nothing to do with you.  Maybe his wife will get him to change and apologize.  Or maybe not.

    Personally, at some appropriate time, I would try to break it to your daughter that there was a disagreement.  She needs to know that people can and will have different beliefs and can be good in one area and bad in another.  One of my mantras is that everyone should be crushed in some way when they’re a kid and have support to recover from it.  Having a major disappointment first happen when one is an adult, or later, can be very hard to recover from.

    Just some thoughts.  Best wishes, and good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  55. 55.

    Ohio Mom

    @danielx: How old is your daughter, is she old enough to understand politics, if she supports Democrats now or if she will grow up to identify as a Democrat, how is her godfather going to react to her?

    You’re in a tough spot, it’s not that this guy was rude, you have to wonder if his temper is going to eventually be directed at your daughter.

  57. 57.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I learned years ago that the classic chocolate-chip cookie batter (the one on the Toll House bag) improves in flavor considerably if you let it sit in the refrigerator (not freezer) for 36-48 hours after mixing it, before you bake it. I know this isn’t how most people make cookies, but this was actually tested and proven.

    I’ll have to remember that – I’m planning to make a few batches of Toll House cookies for different people for Christmas.

  59. 59.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @danielx: Boy oh boy, I really feel for you. I’ve had a few such blow-ups with friends/family/co-workers since the 2016 campaign cycle, and none of them have ever really resolved. Even when there is common ground in other arenas, I just haven’t found a way to get back to the 15 mins before the conversation that led to the blow-up. As with you, I was not the instigator, and in fact, didn’t contribute to the blow-up at all. I was just basically standing there when the Trump-liking person went off on me.

    There’s something going on between their ears that is just not normal.

  62. 62.

    Another Scott

    @lowtechcyclist: I used to make a big batch of Cowboy Cookies (chocolate chip cookies with oats) once or twice a year.  Got lots of practice.  ;-)

    I have memories of seeing a big story somewhere a decade or so ago on the effect of small variations in ingredients, mixing, time, temperature on how chocolate chip cookies turned out. Something like 200 variations.

    This is something similar. As G&T says, refrigerating the dough helps.

    Basically, baking is chemistry. Temperatures and times and ingredients all matter.

    My J likes almost raw cookies. I like them baked until they just turn slightly brown but they have to be a cookie and not warm dough!!1

    Different strokes. :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  63. 63.

    TBone

    I just remembered that Dr. Hu kept telling the laughing lady to raise her left hand if she felt anything because he couldn’t tell if she was in any pain or not.  I had my eyes closed the whole time, and I guess you had to be there, but he kept saying it through their giggling, so today is Raise Your Left Hand Day as well as Indigenous Peoples Day.

  65. 65.

    Baud

    @danielx:

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    I’m not going to give advice on how to handle these personal relationships, but I’d like to point out that you are the ones who are more entitled to be angry at them for their politics.

  66. 66.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @jackmac: He’s a MAGAt. There’s only one way, and it’s their way. Anything else must be squashed, because freedom or something

  69. 69.

    zhena gogolia

    Sexual assault (confessed on tape and broadcast to the world before the 2016 election)

    34 felony convictions

    Violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    And yet they support him. I can’t live in a country with them.

  71. 71.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @zhena gogolia: There’s a weird one in our neighborhood that lists Trump / Vance / Kennedy.

    Was stopped on the dog walk an hour or so ago by a guy canvassing for a state rep candidate I’d never heard of. Never mentioned her party. I shut him up by telling him I’d already voted, to which he replied “too bad.”

    Back home I confirmed she’s the Republican candidate.

    That’s the only Republican ground game I think I’ve seen other than 2-3 weird random billboards in Philly.

  76. 76.

    Ruckus

    @pluky:

    Yes, exactly.

    And of course it almost always makes things worse the longer things get hidden rather than worked on because nothing is getting fixed. And of course sometimes there is no cure.

  77. 77.

    Baud

    Some good news

    RUTHERFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — A man is being charged after being accused of threatening FEMA workers in western North Carolina, according to the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office.

  78. 78.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    That’s the best part!

    Scrape the bowl, lick the spoon – raw cookie dough – yummmm.

    Which is exactly why I no longer make cookies…..

  79. 79.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    Yep.

    shitforbrains has never felt sorry for anything – he’s perfect – just ask him.

    As I’ve stated on BJ before, I was a mental health counselor for a few years and people that never say, or especially never actually are sorry, they are seriously screwed up. We all screw up on occasion – that’s part of humanity. We may be in a bad place, we may be having life problems, everything may be going wrong for us, it happens, it’s life, most of us go through stuff that affects us negatively at least once in our lives – some far more often than once.

    How we deal with it, how we react, how we move on is the key.

  80. 80.

    Ruckus

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Everything Trump touches turns to shit, even a silly, local parade in Eureka.

    That is his one thing he does well – everything he touches turns to shit. If he could get well paid for it he’d be a multi-billionaire. I believe that’s why he got elected to office. Those that voted for him wanted him to turn the government to shit, so they could get away with things that they couldn’t before.

  81. 81.

    Jay

    @Ruckus:

    Wow, that takes a load off my shoulders,

    because shitforbrain’s can’t ever say he’s sorry means he can never flee to Canada.

  83. 83.

    Scout211

    @Baud: Yes, good news, but:

    CNN  William Jacob Parsons, 44, was arrested and charged with Going Armed to the Terror of the Public, a misdemeanor, Capt. Jamie Keever said in a news release issued Monday.

    A misdemeanor.

  85. 85.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Baud: What’s old is new again. But it does seem that America has more than its share of fake religionists, non-believers in science, gun nuts, capital punishment afficionados…

  88. 88.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Scout211: Yeah, the person apprehended for loaded guns trying to get into Trumps Coachella hate fest was let go on $5,000 bond with his appearance set for January. And a Trump supporter.

    But another assassination attempt!

  90. 90.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Baud: I meant that it would be represented as another attempt on the dear leader’s life (until found out the guy was a Trump supporter)

  91. 91.

    cope

    @Ruckus: Mrs. cope’s mom never let the kids have raw dough or batter when she was baking. From the beginning of our marriage, she has been adamant that anybody can have as much batter or dough as they’d like. The kids are long gone but the rule still stands, much to my pleasure/detriment.

  92. 92.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: ​
     

    Good Lord, that’s a horrible story. They lied in a whole bunch of different ways to the unwed mothers, who were usually pressured into giving up the babies. Many of us are old enough to remember what a huge stigma it was, sixty or seventy years ago, to be an unwed mother. (Thank goodness that has changed.) But the Church was making money off the fees they charged the adoptive parents, but demand still outstripped supply, as it were, so the Church went out looking for more unwed mothers to swindle out of their babies.

    Why do all these stories have to be dragged out of the Roman Catholic Church? Don’t they, by their own lights, need to confess and repent? Women who died because the Church refused them abortions, children who were sexually abused by priests whose superiors covered up the abusers’ tracks, and now this.

    Some days it seems like there’s some sort of bizarre contest between evangelical Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church to see which can be the more awful.

  93. 93.

    Ruckus

    @Tim C.:

    #3 is good advice. No, it’s great advice.

    I used to do a bit of weed and used to drink a bit. It is easy to like both of these and so it’s easy to slowly ease into a larger volume of each. I noticed that was exactly what I was doing. So before it got too far, I quit both. I wasn’t enough of a user to be put into even the lite abuser category but was getting there. So I went cold turkey and it was a great decision. And early enough that it wasn’t difficult at all.

    What I found out was that while I liked the results of using, it was forming a life that started to revolve around them. I was a bit less relaxed when not using, seemingly always waiting for the next hit or drink. Or both. And I was a light user and knew a few that used a lot more of each or both than I did. So I quit. It didn’t take long to notice the difference and today I’m very glad I quit. And found out that I’m actually not missing anything.

  94. 94.

    Ruckus

    @Jay:

    He’s so entitled that it’s likely at his age he can no longer see himself as anything other than what he’s thought he’s been his entire adult life – a perfect adult, the bestest ever, the smartest ever, the – I can’t type this crap any more because he’s none of the crap he thinks he is. He is deluded, depraved, the exact opposite of delightful, demented and has seemingly aged out of any sort of actual thought and concept of reality.

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