If All You See…

By William Teach April 12, 2023 – 1:00 pm

…is wonderful bamboo, which is a great alternative biomass source of energy from fossil fuels, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Jo Nova, with a post on the plague of mental illness in teen girls

Read: If All You See… »

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Surprise: China Is Struggling With Lab Safety

By William Teach April 12, 2023 – 10:30 am

The Washington Post isn’t quite ready to lean toward the notion of COVID19 having leaked from the Wuhan lab yet, though

China’s struggles with lab safety carry danger of another pandemic

In the summer of 2019, a mysterious accident occurred inside a government-run biomedical complex in north-central China, a facility that handles a pathogen notorious for its ability to pass easily from animals to humans.

There were no alarms or flashing lights to alert workers to the defect in a sanitation system that was supposed to kill germs in the vaccine plant’s waste. When the system failed in late July that year, millions of airborne microbes began seeping invisibly from exhaust vents and drifting into nearby neighborhoods. Nearly a month passed before the problem was discovered and fixed, and four months before the public was informed. By then, at least 10,000 people had been exposed, with hundreds developing symptomatic illnesses, scientific studies later concluded.

The events occurred not in Wuhan, the city where the coronavirus pandemic began, but in another Chinese city, Lanzhou, 800 miles to the southeast. The leaking pathogens were bacterial spores that cause brucellosis, a common livestock disease that can lead to chronic illness or even death in humans if not treated. As the pandemic enters its fourth year, new details about the little-known Lanzhou incident offer a revealing glimpse into a much larger — and largely hidden — struggle with biosafety across China in late 2019, at the precise moment when both the brucellosis incident and the coronavirus outbreak were coming to light.

Multiple probes into both events by U.S. and international scientists and lawmakers are spotlighting what experts describe as China’s vulnerability to serious lab accidents, exposing problems that allowed deadly pathogens to escape in the past and could well do so again, potentially triggering another pandemic.

China has had many leaks leading to smaller pandemics, such as SARS and swine flu. Wuhan was working with coronaviruses in bats just up the road from the wet market. Their security has been known to be lax, and you know they are working on these for biowarfare.

Beijing has embarked on a major expansion of the country’s biotechnology sector, pouring billions of dollars into constructing dozens of laboratories and encouraging cutting-edge — and sometimes controversial — research in fields including genetic engineering, and experimental vaccines and therapeutics. The expansion is part of a government-mandated effort to rival or surpass the scientific capabilities of the United States and other Western powers. Yet, safety practices in China’s new labs have failed to keep pace, a Washington Post examination has found.

But

Whether lab safety was a factor in the coronavirus outbreak remains unclear. The World Health Organization and the U.S. intelligence community both continue to point to a possible lab accident as one of the two ways that the pandemic may have started. In an updated intelligence assessment revealed publicly in February, Energy Department analysts joined the FBI in concluding that a lab leak was the most likely cause, although some other U.S. agencies continued to side with scientists who think a natural spillover from infected animals — perhaps raccoon dogs, sold at a Wuhan market — is to blame. Advocates of both theories expressed only low or moderate confidence in their conclusions.

Despite all the Washington Post research, they aren’t quite willing to truly think that a lab leak is the most likely source for Wuhan flu. Despite a long, long piece on lab safety issues in China, you know they don’t want to embrace the most likely scenario, because Trump pushed it, and so do Republicans.

Read: Surprise: China Is Struggling With Lab Safety »

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Chicago Is Invested In Dealing With Climate Apocalypse

By William Teach April 12, 2023 – 7:15 am

Priorities!

Fighting climate change in the Windy City

From the start of his quest to become mayor of Chicago, progressive Brandon Johnson made environmental justice a personal issue.

The former Chicago public school teacher talked about his own battles with asthma — “I grew up with asthma. I still suffer from it.” — a condition known to be exacerbated by pollution. And everywhere Johnson went, he talked about how he was raising three children in Chicago’s Far West Side neighborhood of Austin, a majority-Black area that is ranked as one of the most polluted areas in the Windy City.

“For too long our communities have been seen as dumping grounds for waste and materials that no one seems to know what else to do with,” Johnson said at a mayoral forum held in the heavily Latino neighborhood of Pilsen.

Those sound like environmental issues, nothing to do with Hotcoldwetdry.

Johnson’s first test would be how much he could deliver on the building emissions ordinance that Chicago’s green groups have long waited for. The mayor-elect promised “a climate justice buildings ordinance” — which would tackle emissions but keep tenants’ energy bills low — as a top priority of his administration.

If passed, the ordinance would compel buildings and historic skyscrapers in the nation’s third-largest city to choose between reducing emissions — or paying a huge fine. The idea is to create “pollution-free” homes and buildings in the city, where such structures are responsible for 69 percent of the city’s total emissions. (Buildings account for a majority of emissions for most big cities — 70 percent in New York City and 80 percent in St. Louis.)

I wonder how well that will work out

(WGN) Walmart plans to close four stores in Chicago by mid-April, the company announced Tuesday.

Officials with the department store cited profit margins as the reasoning behind the closing.

“The simplest explanation is that collectively our Chicago stores have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago – these stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year, and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years. The remaining four Chicago stores continue to face the same business difficulties, but we think this decision gives us the best chance to help keep them open and serving the community,” a press release stated.

All four stores are in high crime areas of the city. The violent crime rate is over double the Illinois and national rates.

(Illinois Policy) Theft is driving the overall increase in crime. Car theft is up 114% since 2018, and other thefts increased by 32% since 2018. Just last year, motor vehicle theft increased by 102% and theft by 56%.

In 2021, Chicago saw more than 45,000 people stop calling the city their home. Only two other big cities had more residents move away compared to Chicago. New York and San Francisco both experienced greater populations losses than Chicago, with New York losing over 305,000 people.

What happens when the mayors silly focus on ‘climate change’ drives out tax paying citizens and businesses, especially as the city continues to avoid dealing with the crime?

Read: Chicago Is Invested In Dealing With Climate Apocalypse »

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SNL’s Michael Che Solves Gun Crimes Or Something

By William Teach April 12, 2023 – 7:00 am

The Daily Beast thought this was a totally awesome idea from Che. This is the type of serious thought you’d expect from the gun grabbers

Michael Che Just Solved Gun Violence With One Instagram Post

Comedian Michael Che has a history of deleting his social media posts. But he might want to keep his latest one up.

On Tuesday, the co-anchor of Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” posted a message on Instagram that read, “ya kno… a lot of people are not drinking bud light, cause the company used a trans person in their ad.. and these mostly right wing bud light customers have tossed all their bud lights in the trash in a blind rage.. and it got me ta’thinkin.. just hear me out..”

On the next slide, Che concluded the thought with, “what if we got trans people.. hear me out.. to do ads for guns..?” (snip)

Che’s post, meanwhile, received enthusiastic praise from celebrities like comedian Patton Oswalt and The Roots bandleader Questlove, as well as trans pop star Kim Petras.

“Did you just end gun crimes?” one follower wrote in response. “I think so.”

Hmm, did Michael consider that the building they film SNL in has armed security? Does he really think that firearms makers will have some mentally deranged trans nutter do their ads? And, would this make any difference, since the criminals couldn’t give a damn, but, they’d really love if Americans disarmed themselves?

Meanwhile

(Breitbart) Kentucky House Rep. Morgan McGarvey (D) pushed for more background checks Tuesday, the day after a portfolio banker shot and killed five people with a gun he acquired via a background check at a local gun store in Louisville, Kentucky.

Breitbart News reported that Metropolitan Louisville Police Department Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said the portfolio banker got his gun “legally” from a Louisville dealer on April 4, 2023. Passing a background check is a federal requirement for getting a gun from a dealer.

Another Breitbart piece notes that 29 different mass killings made after people passed a federal backgrounds check. So, expanding them would do nothing. Perhaps if the laws were followed and people with issues were reported via the system so that they would fail a background check? Of course, right after the gun grabbers say they aren’t trying to gun grab they’ll say the U.S. needs to ban all private ownership of guns.

Read: SNL’s Michael Che Solves Gun Crimes Or Something »

Posted in 2nd Amendment, Barking Moonbats | 21 Comments | Trackback URL

Climate Doom Is A Bigger Emergency Than Wuhan Flu Or Something

By William Teach April 11, 2023 – 3:00 pm

The climate cultists certainly wouldn’t use what they believe is a climate emergency to implement all those same controls and more as during the COVID emergency, right? Lockdowns, movement restrictions, closing certain businesses, closing churches, forcing people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do, etc

Climate emergency is the biggest health crisis of our time – bigger than Covid

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is a grim, yet unsurprising, reminder of the catastrophic effect global heating is having on our planet. The message from leading climate scientists is clear: action is needed now. Not tomorrow, not next year, not by the end of the decade.

If memory serves, the IPCC says this every year. And then they have tens of thousands take fossil fueled travel, and many take private jets, to the IPCC conference in November each year.

Even drastic carbon reduction today that limits temperature increases to the 1.5C agreed in Paris will alter the world we live in for ever. The IPCC concludes that every fraction of a degree more will edge us towards tipping points that will leave deep scars on our planet.

“Scars.” The world has been warmer several times during the Holocene. And much hotter for quite a bit of the history of the Earth

While much has been said about the damage to weather patterns, crop yields and coral reefs, less well understood is the effect a hotter world has on our health. The reality is that the climate crisis is the biggest health crisis of our time, bigger even than Covid-19.

Heat-related deaths are expected to treble by 2050. Currently 7 million people die prematurely each year from air pollution, more than the death toll during the entire pandemic.

What if they don’t triple? Who is held responsible for this scaremongering? Further, air pollution is not ‘climate change’. It is not from greenhouse gases. The cult is distracting from dealing with real environmental issues.

There has been a rise in chronic diseases linked to air pollution, and evidence suggests it is driving up cancer rates, too. Lung cancer and respiratory-related deaths linked to air pollution are up 160% over the past 30 years and it causes genetic mutations in some lung cancer-linked genes.

Again, not climate. I wish I could find that article I read last week about the cult distracting from real environmental issues.

The toll on loved ones, public health and the economy is large and rising. It has been estimated that poor health costs the global economy 15% of global GDP. It is not only oil companies, carmakers and airlines at fault. Healthcare alone contributes 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, up to 8% in advanced economies.

ZOMG, healthcare is also bad for the climate emergency!

Like it or not, regulatory requirements are moving towards stopping companies selling products that are not sustainable. In Japan we have converted paper leaflets to e-leaflets for all our products, reducing costs, simplifying operations and saving 180 tonnes of waste and 30m tonnes of paper – the equivalent of 4,500 trees.

But companies cannot act alone. Together we must make public health more resilient, so that it can cope with change and become truly accessible. A forum such as the Sustainable Markets Initiative established by King Charles when he was Prince of Wales, convening stakeholders from across industries, is a good example of collaboration to take shared action at scale.

In other words, authoritarianism.

Read: Climate Doom Is A Bigger Emergency Than Wuhan Flu Or Something »

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If All You See…

By William Teach April 11, 2023 – 1:00 pm

…is a field that would be perfect for a solar farm, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Political Hat, with a post on designated oppression.

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Brandon Admin Looks To Push Allies To Up Pressure On Russia Over Ukraine Or Something

By William Teach April 11, 2023 – 10:30 am

Do people really care that much anymore? It’s barely in the news and people have other concerns. What’s happening in Ukraine really doesn’t affect them that much

U.S. aims to rally allies to up pressure on Russia, shore up Ukraine support

The U.S. government will seek to rally allies this week to ratchet up economic pressure on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, and shore up support for Kyiv, a top U.S. Treasury official is slated to say on Monday.

I love how it’s “the US government”, rather than the Biden administration. It’s almost like the media forgets who’s president

Treasury Undersecretary Jay Shambaugh will underscore the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine in a speech at the Brookings Institution as global finance officials gather in Washington for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, according to excerpts obtained by Reuters.

It’s wavering. We The People have mostly checked out on sending money and arms

Shambaugh, who traveled to Kyiv with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in February, said current inflationary pressures could not be separated from the war and its economic spillovers.

It barely makes a difference for the U.S. All that money could have been used to help Americans. Well, except for quite a few of the sanctions on Russia, which do not really seem to be hurting Russia, just nations that deal with Russia.

“The United States is redoubling our efforts to rally our global coalition of allies at the Spring Meetings on Treasury’s two lines of effort as part of the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine,” he said in the prepared remarks. That means “shoring up economic support for Ukraine’s government and people, and … continuing to deny (Russian President Vladimir) Putin the revenue and military equipment he needs to further his illegal war.”

In other words, the allies in this are getting squishy.

“Looking ahead, Ukraine will need support from a broad set of donors as its recovers and rebuilds. As an international community, we can coalesce around meeting the most urgent and concrete needs — high-impact areas that can help Ukraine restart its economy and bring home displaced Ukrainians as conditions permit,” he said.

Um, Ukraine hasn’t won, and they are nowhere close to winning. Not by a longshot.

Read: Brandon Admin Looks To Push Allies To Up Pressure On Russia Over Ukraine Or Something »

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We Must Ban Superyachts To Stop ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach April 11, 2023 – 7:00 am

The NY Times is all in a lather over the superyachts of billionares. Of course, what would actually happen is that the fossil fueled boats of the average person would end up being banned

The Superyachts of Billionaires Are Starting to Look a Lot Like Theft

If you’re a billionaire with a palatial boat, there’s only one thing to do in mid-May: Chart your course for Istanbul and join your fellow elites for an Oscars-style ceremony honoring the builders, designers and owners of the world’s most luxurious vessels, many of them over 200 feet long.

The nominations for the World Superyacht Awards were all delivered in 2022, and the largest contenders are essentially floating sea mansions, complete with amenities like glass elevators, glass-sided pools, Turkish baths and all-teak decks. The 223-foot Nebula, owned by the WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum, comes with an air-conditioned helicopter hangar.

I hate to be a wet blanket, but the ceremony in Istanbul is disgraceful. Owning or operating a superyacht is probably the most harmful thing an individual can do to the climate. If we’re serious about avoiding climate chaos, we need to tax, or at the very least shame, these resource-hoarding behemoths out of existence. In fact, taking on the carbon aristocracy, and their most emissions-intensive modes of travel and leisure, may be the best chance we have to improve our collective climate morale and increase our appetite for personal sacrifice, from individual behavior changes to sweeping policy mandates.

Does anyone really need to own one of these? Who cares? It’s none of anyone else’s business, but, members of the climate cult feel the need to tell Other People who to live their lives and spend their money. But, I will give Joe Fassler, a food and environmental issues “reporter” credit for noting that it’s time to take on the “carbon aristocracy” and their climahypocrisy.

Joe goes into all the megayachts and private jets owned and taken by the Elites, leading to

But this misses a much more important point. Research in economics and psychology suggests humans are willing to behave altruistically — but only when they believe everyone is being asked to contribute. People “stop cooperating when they see that some are not doing their part,” the cognitive scientists Nicolas Baumard and Coralie Chevallier wrote last year in Le Monde.

As the old Glenn Reynolds saying goes “I’ll start believing it’s a crisis when those who tell me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis (to which I add) in their own lives.” The Elites keep telling us we need to Do Something, preferably by government fiat, yet, they’re the worst offenders

Whether we’re talking about voluntary changes (insulating our attics and taking public transit) or mandated ones (tolerating a wind farm on the horizon or saying goodbye to a lush lawn), the climate fight hinges, to some extent, on our willingness to participate. When the ultrarich are given a free pass, we lose faith in the value of that sacrifice.

If you’re doctor tells you to lose weight, yet, he or she is fat and smokes, do you listen? I’ll still give Joe points for going after the Elites, but, he loses a few for pushing government authoritarianism. However, this is all a bunch of mule fritters when it comes to climate apocalypse. However, when it comes to real environmental issues, yest, they are very much polluting.

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Gun Grabbers Push Gun Grabbing Immediately After Leftist Nutjob Kills People

By William Teach April 11, 2023 – 6:45 am

The Lexington Herald Leader noted the timeline of the murders

8:38 a.m.: Louisville Metro Police officers received a call of shots fired at 333 East Main Street in downtown.

8:41 a.m.: Officers arrived at the Old National Bank where they encountered the shooter who was actively firing. Police immediately opened fire on the shooter, who died at the scene. Police are working to determine if the shooter’s cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound, or the result of police gunfire.

10 a.m.: It was determined there was no longer an active threat to the public.

And at 1142am in the same paper

After Louisville shooting, it’s time to get out our bullhorns. We’re sick of gun deaths. | Opinion

Have we had enough yet?

Exactly two weeks after a deranged shooter killed six people in Nashville, three of them precious, innocent children, a deranged shooter killed four people in Louisville (the shooter also died), and sent eight more to the hospital.

Yes, a Democratic Party voting transgender wackjob

How many dead bodies ripped apart by bullets are enough? Does this have to go on until every family in America has lost someone to gun violence? Maybe that could be a high enough threshold for the insane death cult started by the National Rifle Association and upheld by so many of our elected officials.

So when will we have had enough? America, the great and good superpower, looks less and less exceptional on every front, but most of all it’s because any public or private space can at any minute turn into a shooting gallery. Why is that ok with so many people?

Connor Sturgeon, the Louisville murderer, uses he/him in his social media stuff, and

https://twitter.com/SebGorka/status/1645467439763685393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1645467439763685393%7Ctwgr%5E0e15a7c8d5d490a0b419f13c4b47ea0206536485%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fsamj-3930%2F2023%2F04%2F10%2Falleged-social-media-of-louisville-mass-shooter-connor-sturgeon-he-him-very-telling-screenshots%2F

Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville was one of the rare dissenters. On Monday she tweeted: “It is time to address common sense gun legislation. KY requires all guns confiscated in the state to be resold on the open market. Will not even discuss red flag laws in the legislature. No office of gun safety. Thoughts and prayers are not enough! It is past time for action.”

Red flag laws didn’t do a damned thing trans wacko in Nashville.

It’s not about anything else, not mental illness, not gender identity, not politics, not social media.

It’s the guns. Right now, we have almost 400 million weapons in this country. That’s more guns than people.

If it was the guns and the people who lawfully own them, you’d know it. It is the wackos.

Americans want more common sense gun control measures, like better background checks, but the corrupt figures at the NRA have too much power over our politicians. When two Black representatives in Tennessee took to the House floor with a bullhorn to bring attention to this fact, the GOP majority expelled them.

The NRA is made up of American citizens, and the background checks system fails on numerous occasions: how will an expanded system work? Why don’t they just come out and say it: they want to ban the average American from owning a firearm. Again, I’m not against certain measures. I’m even for expanding the waiting period so that a proper, Constitutional background check can be performed. But, everything the Democrats propose are just small steps towards banning and confiscation.

Also, if they want to save lives, well, at least 3-5 times more die from alcohol. Why not enforce the existing laws on firearms? Heck, the same people screeching for gun control have let Hunter Biden, who lied on his firearm application, off scott free. The same people have gone completely soft on criminals.

More: The paper has ideas for gun grabbing, er, common sense gun reform, to go with banning private ownership of “assault rifles” and large capacity magazines

Read More »

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Posted in 2nd Amendment, Democrats, Unhinged Tools | 19 Comments | Trackback URL

Judge Rules Hawaii DOT Must Face Youts Climate Cult Lawsuit

By William Teach April 10, 2023 – 3:00 pm

I just have to wonder, why is Hawaii building new roads in the first place? The state went climahysteric over a decade ago….oh, right, they’re still loving all those tourists coming in via fossil fueled flights, and, since the state produces almost nothing, they have to import most items, which requires fossil fuels and roads

Hawaii DOT must face kids’ climate lawsuit, judge rules

A judge in Hawaii has rejected a bid by the state’s transportation department to dismiss a lawsuit filed on behalf of 14 young people who claim it is violating the state constitution by failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Judge Jeffrey Crabtree in Honolulu ruled on Thursday the youth plaintiffs could pursue their claims. He said the Hawaii Department of Transportation is shirking its duty to protect the environment by promoting and funding highway projects that lead to more fuel consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions.

Crabtree rejected the state’s argument the plaintiffs had no tangible injuries on which to base their case since they claimed climate change effects are “already baked in.”

“Transportation emissions are increasing and will increase at the rate we are going,” Crabtree said. “In other words, the alleged harms are not hypothetical or only in the future.”

That looks more like a judge ruling in the case, rather than just saying the case can go to trial. I wonder how the judge gets around the state? How about the kids? Have they stopped using fossil fuels?

And what do the youts want?

The young plaintiffs were between the ages of nine and 18 when they filed the lawsuit in June, claiming the department is violating a provision of the state’s constitution that guarantees a right to a clean and healthful environment.

They said investments in infrastructure like highways run counter to state goals to reduce emissions to zero by 2045.

The lawsuit asked the court for a declaration that the Department of Transportation is violating their constitutional rights, as well as a court order telling the department to take unspecified but “concrete action steps” to reduce emissions and appointment of a special master to oversee those changes.

So, they do not really know what they want? Isn’t that rather necessary for a lawsuit? It’d be funny if the jury/judge require the kids to stop taking fossil fueled travel. Or ban the use of fossil fuels to bring in tourists and goods. Ban fossil fueled vehicles, which would destroy tourism.

BTW, where is the money coming from to pay for the lawsuit and all the lawyers? Earth Justice is a huge “non profit” Group that had over $100,000,000 in revenue last year. They made $3 million alone from their investments and they hold over $90 million in mutual funds. They’re swimming in money. It’s basically an astroturfed suit, for which Earth Justice will most likely profit.

Meanwhile, cleaning out the Pocket folder

‘I cut my home’s carbon footprint to zero – and my energy rating went down’

On paper, Christine Asher’s buy-to-let is a net zero dream. Her cottage in Dingwall, Scotland may be off-grid but it does not rely on heating oil, instead meeting its energy needs using only electricity. In 2021, Asher, 71, swapped out the property’s storage heaters for electric radiators.

“The new tenant told me how good they were,” she says. “Meanwhile the tenant in the attached house next door, still on the system of old storage heaters, said his house was never as warm as my cottage.”

When the tenant moved out, Asher decided it was time to check she had done all she could to make her home energy-efficient.

Guess what? She spent a lot of money, and her rating did not go up at all. And would cost a lot of money to make it rise. And this same issue is causing a lot of issues for a lot of landlords.

Climate change adding 50 homers a year in MLB, study says

Climate change is making major league sluggers into even hotter hitters, sending an extra 50 or so home runs a year over the fences, a new study found.

Hotter, thinner air that allows balls to fly farther contributed a tiny bit to a surge in home runs since 2010, according to a statistical analysis by Dartmouth College scientists published in Friday’s Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. They analyzed 100,000 major league games and more than 200,000 balls put into play in the last few years along with weather conditions, stadiums and other factors.

“Global warming is juicing home runs in Major League Baseball,” said study co-author Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth climate scientist.

Sounds like slight warming is making the game fun. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with stronger players, better conditioning, could it?

Read: Judge Rules Hawaii DOT Must Face Youts Climate Cult Lawsuit »

Posted in Climate Cult, Global Warming | 6 Comments | Trackback URL
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