The Obama Card

Ht Kyle Sisk

Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing (Live)

How Mark Knopfler's not in the Rock and Roll Hall of fame, I'll never know.

I guess he needs to wear a bustier. That's how Madonna got in.

Fox Panel weighs in on Gates controversy

The wisdom of the minimum wage hike

I'm still waiting for someone who believes in a minimum wage hike to tell me why we should(n't) make it twenty dollars an hour.

After all, that's more money for people to spend according to the guy in this video.

Gigantic Slingshot

Who says your creativity suffers when you drink?

Shea-Porter: "Many of my constituents would LOVE to wait in line for medical care"

Thought for the day

From reader Bernie......

90 people get the Swine Flu and everybody wants to wear a mask.

A million people have AIDS and no one wants to wear a condom.

Someone grab their crack pipes

From the old cliche "those who can do, those who can't teach....."

We need to change that to "Those who can do, those who can't run trade organizations......"

That's because those who can don't have time to sit around in meetings with trade organizations like the AMA, ABA, AICPA etc.

As a result, the leadership in these organizations become defacto liberals.

Need an example how about the head of the Women's Chamber of Commerce who welcomes a hike in the minimum wage.......

Business owners across the nation are welcoming the July 24 increase in the federal minimum wage from $6.55 to $7.25. National business leaders and small business owners in states where workers are getting a raise say the increase will boost consumer buying power and promote economic recovery.

“A minimum wage increase at this time could be the most important factor in powering our economy out of the recession,” said Camille Moran, owner of a paralegal service and Christmas tree farm in Louisiana. “The higher the wage an employee receives, the more income he or she has to purchase goods and services for their family, which is indeed ‘the best medicine’ for our economy.” More than 8% of workers will be affected by the minimum wage increase in Louisiana.

Richard Ketring, president of VHS Cleaning Services in Ashland, Wisc. said, “When we raise the incomes of the lowest paid employees the money is immediately spent and flows instantly into the economy. The increased income can also make for more reliable workers as it reduces the stress that many minimum wage workers experience as they work extra jobs, juggle day care, work when sick or don’t receive needed medical care -- causing further distress later. I support the minimum wage increase not only because it is the right thing to do, but it is good for business.” More than 7% of Wisc. workers will receive a raise.

U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce CEO Margot Dorfman said, “Now, more than ever, it’s imperative that employees are paid a fair minimum wage. It is an unsustainable and dangerous downward spiral to push American workers into poverty and expect taxpayers to pick up the bill for the consequences. Minimum wage laws guarantee to taxpayers that businesses are playing fair and compensating workers at responsible levels.”

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The Blue State Meltdown

I don't consider myself a man of many qualities but I do have one quality that seems to be lacking in every liberal I've ever known, read, met, heard, etc...

That is the quality of self assessment.

For instance, don't you think that at some point in time a liberal or two might have the self reflection of "Wow, how is it that every thing we run is a bankrupt, shit hole!"

Somehow, that reflection seems to be missing among those of us who claim to be "progressive".

Here's a piece from the The American Enterprise Institute on the meltdown in Blue State America................

On the surface this should be the moment the Blue Man basks in glory. The most urbane president since John Kennedy sits in the White House. A San Francisco liberal runs the House of Representatives while the key committees are controlled by representatives of Boston, Manhattan, Beverly Hills, and the Bay Area—bastions of the gentry.

Despite his famous no-blue-states-no-red-states-just-the-United-States statement, more than 90 percent of the top 300 administration officials come from states carried last year by President Obama. The inner cabinet—the key officials—hail almost entirely from a handful of cities, starting with Chicago but also including New York, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco area.

This administration shares all the basic prejudices of the Blue Man including his instinctive distaste for “sprawl,” cars, and factories. In contrast, policy is tilting to favor all the basic blue-state economic food groups—public employees, university researchers, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Wall Street, and the major urban land interests.

Yet despite all this, the blue states appear to be continuing their decades-long meltdown. “Hope” may still sell among media pundits and café society, but the bad economy, increasingly now Obama’s, is causing serious pain to millions of ordinary people who happen to live in the left-leaning part of America.

For example, while state and local budget crises have extended to some red states, the most severe fiscal and economic basket cases largely are concentrated in places such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Oregon, and, perhaps most vividly of all, California. The last three have among the highest unemployment rates in the country; all the aforementioned are deeply in debt and have been forced to impose employee cutbacks and higher taxes almost certain to blunt a strong recovery.

Read the rest of this thoughtful yet powerful piece here......

Chris Rock - How not to get your a** kicked by the police!

An oldie by Chris Rock that Dr. Gates needs to watch.....

Rated R for profanity

Those redneck, racist cops

Since the president seems to have an opinion (without all the facts) on the Gates dust up, I'll throw mine in with a similar experience of the Gekko's.

One afternoon, while I was still dating the lovely future Mrs. Gekko I set off her home alarm system and I couldn't turn it off before the police arrived.

When the officers arrived they asked both of us for our ID's. Since I was not a "secured" person on the alarm system, one officer went through the house looking for suspicious activity while the other asked us questions. Then they asked the lovely Mrs. Gekko out of the house while I remained inside.

After the lovely Mrs. Gekko was outside, the cops asked her if she was under any duress and her relationship to me; the cop questioned me about my relationship to the lovely Mrs. Gekko.

I asked a cop buddy of mine what the deal was with that and he said that when cops show up they don't necessarily know who should be in a residence and who should not. By asking the lovely Mrs. Gekko to provide ID they knew was an appropriate resident but they didn't know if she was being held against her will by me.

Since my ID did not have the residence address they wanted to separate the lovely Mrs. Gekko to make sure I wasn't a threat to her.

Instead of getting all indignant and copping an attitude, I thanked the officer for handling the situation. It took all of a half an hour and the problem (that I created mind you) was handled.

In my mind, the cops played this one straight. They show up on a call made by a neighbor who saw suspicious activity. They weren't out looking to roust a bunch of black guys.

The cops show up and ask for ID to make sure this guy was a resident of that house. How did they know this guy wasn't just saying he was a resident in the middle of a robbery? Especially given the call they received. In addition, the cops also didn't know if Gates or a family member was being held against their will by people who had broken into his house.

If Gates would have simply provided ID to the cops and explained that it was him causing the disturbance it would have been a done deal. Cops head back to the donut shop.

Instead Gates decides to play a classic case of "Do you know who I am?".

"Yes sir, you are an asshole."

Here's what I know now. If I'm a criminal, I'm targeting Gates' house since I don't think the police are going to be all that aggressive to roust a real criminal out of his place. After all, you wouldn't want to be known as a racist by asking for someone's ID.

Related articles tipped by Jeremy......

Here

and Here

What Party are They?

Thanks to reader Mark for the tip.........

The mayors of three New Jersey cities, two state legislators and several rabbis were among more than 40 people arrested Thursday in a sweeping corruption investigation that began as a probe into an international money laundering ring that trafficked in goods as diverse as human organs and fake designer handbags.

Among 44 people arrested Thursday were Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano III, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini, state Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith and state Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt.

Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez, who is also an attorney, is charged with agreeing to accept an illegal $10,000 cash payment for his legal defense fund.

The number of arrests was noteworthy even for New Jersey, a state that has seen more than 130 public officials plead guilty or be convicted of corruption since 2001.

"New Jersey's corruption problem is one of the worst, if not the worst, in the nation," said Ed Kahrer, who heads the FBI's white collar and public corruption investigation division. "Corruption is a cancer that is destroying the core values of this state."

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Erin Andrews gets the Palin treatment

Who better to attack a woman in a largely dominated male field than another woman..........

The controversy over the videotaping of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews in her hotel room, has ricocheted around the internet in every form.

ESPN has banned anyone from the New York Post from appearing on the network after the paper ran Andrews photos.

USA TODAY columnist Christine Brennan has gotten a strong reaction to her postings on her Twitter account with the tweets linked to Facebook.

Tweeted Brennan:

Women sports journalists need to be smart and not play to the frat house. There are tons of nuts out there.

Erin Andrews incident is bad, but to add perspective: there are 100s of women sports journalists who have never had this happen to them.

So Andrew's biggest sin is to be smokin' hot? Hey Christine, there's a reason no one's ever sent a fiber optic camera into your hotel shower; no one really wants to see it.

Nothing like a woman to blame the victim. Brennan must be a liberal. After all, since Erin Andrews doesn't really look like a babe you'd see at your average NOW convention, she's not allowed on the feminist team and that's how it plays for libs like Brennan.

I'll have to check over at Bitch magazine to see their mainstream feminist opinion on the matter.......

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Saving Healthcare

They called it paradise

They called it paradise
I don't know why
You call some place Paradise
Kiss it goodbye

It’s no wonder the state of California is bankrupt.

CALPERS, the California Public Employee Retirement System, is now paying annual retirement benefits of more than $100,000 to 5,115 employees, including nearly $500,000 to the most highly-compensated former employee.

This idiocy will only get worse, because the state government has grown so dramatically in the last few years. More current grossly overpaid bureaucrats lead directly to more more future grossly overpaid retired bureaucrats.

CALPERS’ most highly-paid retiree is Bruce Malkenhorst, former city administrator of Vernon, California, whose pension pays $499,674.84 per year.

Never heard of Vernon, California? Well, no wonder. It the smallest incorporated city in Southern California with a population of just 91. Yes, you read that correctly. 91 total residents. The city is best known for sprawling industrial facilities and massive corruption. Malkenhorst was paid $600,000 per year to manage a city with 91 people. But that apparently was not enough for Malkenhorst, because he’s been charged with misappropriating $60,000 of city funds for his personal use.

(One of the largest firms headquartered in Vernon is Claugherty Packing’s “Farmer John” company, which made the news yesterday for landing a “stimulus” contract that paid far above the going rate for ham.)

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Life in "Progress" state

From the state of Michigan, who hasn't had a conservative run the state since Antony was dealing on Cleopatra...............

The Michigan Democratic Party is considering asking voters to raise the state's minimum wage to $10 an hour.

The minimum wage currently is $7.40 an hour.

The potential 2010 ballot initiative was among a few discussed Wednesday by party chairman Mark Brewer.

The Democratic Party also is researching ballot proposals to reduce utility bills, require employers to provide health care and impose a one-year moratorium on home foreclosures.

You go Michigan. Let's see what happens on that little social experiment.......

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Who did they vote for? #4176

Three people have been accused of letting rats bite a 6-week-old girl and chew off her toes at their cluttered Ohio mobile home.

Pike County prosecutor Rob Junk says the baby's toes on one foot were gone when sheriff's deputies went to the home Sunday after receiving an anonymous tip.

The baby is in fair condition at a Columbus hospital.

A married couple and the 18-year-old boyfriend of the baby's mother are charged with felony child endangering. They were in court for an initial hearing Tuesday. They're jailed pending a plea hearing in two weeks.

The prosecutor says they all lived in the mobile home west of Piketon, a village noted for its old uranium enrichment plant.

He says the baby's mother is a juvenile. He won't identify her or say if she'll be charged.

Last November did these folks do their civic duty and vote for the Messiah or The Maverick? Why?

Story here

Life in "Progress" State

The Golden State of California, who hasn't had a conservative leader since Rome fell......

Less than 24 hours after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders announced a plan to close California's massive budget deficit, Los Angeles County officials moved to sue the state, a union for government workers said it might strike, and Republicans threatened to back out of the deal over a provision to cut the number of prison inmates by 27,000.

The governor largely stayed out of sight, except for posting a brief video on Twitter in which he played with a big knife and talked about autographing state property to be sold at auction to raise extra money. Legislative leaders, meanwhile, began to brief their members, and staff started compiling a formal proposal in anticipation of a vote that could occur Thursday.

But as those preparations went ahead, the leader of the Republicans in the state Assembly reacted angrily to news posted on The Times' website about the deal's effect on prisons. Under the plan, some inmates would be allowed to finish their sentences on home detention, new incentives would be created for completion of rehabilitation programs, and parole supervision would be scaled back for the least serious offenders. The prisons now hold 168,000 inmates.

They'll be releasing approximately 16% of their prison population.

So what's more important to a "Progressive", funding the EPA or having criminals roam the street?

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Liberal suicide watch

David Brooks (RINO, NY) on the democrats death wish..........

We’re only in the early stages of the liberal suicide march, but there already have been three phases. First, there was the stimulus package. You would have thought that a stimulus package would be designed to fight unemployment and stimulate the economy during a recession. But Congressional Democrats used it as a pretext to pay for $787 billion worth of pet programs with borrowed money. Only 11 percent of the money will be spent by the end of the fiscal year — a triumph of ideology over pragmatism.

Then there is the budget. Instead of allaying moderate anxieties about the deficits, the budget is expected to increase the government debt by $11 trillion between 2009 and 2019.

Finally, there is health care. Every cliché Ann Coulter throws at the Democrats is gloriously fulfilled by the Democratic health care bills. The bills do almost nothing to control health care inflation. They are modeled on the Massachusetts health reform law that is currently coming apart at the seams precisely because it doesn’t control costs. They do little to reward efficient providers and reform inefficient ones.

The House bill adds $239 billion to the federal deficit during the first 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It would pummel small businesses with an 8 percent payroll penalty. It would jack America’s top tax rate above those in Italy and France. Top earners in New York and California would be giving more than 55 percent of earnings to one government entity or another.

Nancy Pelosi has lower approval ratings than Dick Cheney and far lower approval ratings than Sarah Palin. And yet Democrats have allowed her policy values to carry the day — this in an era in which independents dominate the electoral landscape.

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Buzz Aldrin punch ( not-edited )

Obama Rap: "Just a little bit of Obama Drama"

Obama: Transparency Will Be Touchstone

A rock star in the making

My nephew Justin, working his axe.....

Party of the rich

A group of Democrats elected in recent years from some of the country's richest congressional districts have emerged as a stumbling block to raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for President Barack Obama's ambitious health-care overhaul just as the plan has begun to meet increasing resistance over its cost.

Friday, two freshmen representatives -- Dina Titus, from suburban Las Vegas, and Colorado's Jared Polis, representing Boulder, Vail and some of the tonier suburbs of Denver -- joined Republicans to vote against Mr. Obama's top-priority health-care overhaul when it faced a vote in their House Education and Labor Committee. One reason was a one-percentage point-surtax on couples earning between $350,000 and $500,000 -- gradually increasing to 5.4 percentage points on earnings more than $1 million -- to pay for it.

The bill passed the committee anyway, but if the number of Democratic defectors grows it could pose a serious obstacle to the president.

Also on Friday a busload of freshmen Democrats went to the White House to plead their case against sharp tax increases with the president and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. The organizer was Rep. Gerald Connolly, the president of the freshman class whose Northern Virginia district is the richest in the U.S. as measured by median household income.

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Shovel ready? LOL

If you're shoveling BS...........

Under the Obama administration's economic stimulus plan, needy communities were supposed to be first in line for money to rebuild highways and jump start the economy.

It hasn't worked out that way.

The rules required that states give priority to counties considered "economically distressed." Yet less than half the federal highway money announced so far is directed toward those high-unemployment, low-income areas, according to an Associated Press analysis of more than $16 billion in spending announced by the U.S. Transportation Department.

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The problem is that some of these areas don't have meat processors where they can buy canned ham for $500,000/lb.

Life in "Progress" City

From the city of New York, who hasn't had a republican run the city since RINO Guiliani..........

For years, top Manhattan public schools have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from parents to independently hire assistants to help teachers with reading, writing, tying shoelaces or supervising recess. But after a complaint by the city’s powerful teachers union, the Bloomberg administration has ordered an end to the makeshift practice.

Principals have been told that any such aides hired for the coming school year must be employees of the Department of Education, their positions included in official school budgets.

But such employees can command nearly double the pay of the independently hired assistants, and several schools on the Upper East Side either have told current employees they will probably not have jobs in the fall or have put off hiring new employees. That has incensed many parents, who see the aides less as a perk than as a necessity to cope with growing class sizes in well-regarded schools like the Lower Lab School for gifted children, where the average class size is now 28, and Public School 290, where broom closets are used as offices and the cafeteria doubles as a gym.

What's so "Progressive" about illiteracy?

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Stimulus fail

$550,000 a pound for frozen ham.........

I'm feeling that same stimulation I felt during my last prostate exam.

read more here

Life in "Progress" City

From the "progressive" city of San Francisco we're a republican hasn't run the city since Judas was an accountant.....

The number of San Francisco retirees or their survivors knocking back $100,000 or more a year in city pensions has grown to 709.

That's 229 more than last year. It's also 124 more than for all of Los Angeles - a city with more than four times San Francisco's population - according to figures freshly provided to the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, a pension reform group.

Those in San Francisco who have earned a ride on the golden highway include six former police chiefs, four former fire chiefs or their widows and a slew of former department heads.

The highest pension - $242,000 - goes to former Police Chief Earl Sanders. He got a $20,000 bump this year, thanks to a cost-of-living increase.

Geez I wonder why a working stiff making a measly 100k a year doesn't want to pay more to support these stiffs.....

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Penn Jillette discusses health care on FOX's Glenn Beck

Obama: Raise Taxes, Capital Gains - "For Purposes of Fairness"

It doesn't matter if the economy sucks as long as we're all equally poor.

Hey, it's a matter of fairness............

Liberal Utopia aka California

They called it paradise
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun
Sinking in the sea

Making cardigans fashionable again

From an unlikely critic; The Washington Post....

From a lousy cap-and-trade bill awaiting death in the Senate to a health-care reform agenda already weak in the knees to the failure of the stimulus to deliver promised jobs and economic activity, what once looked like a hope-tastic juggernaut is showing all the horsepower of a Chevy Cobalt. "Give it to me!" the president egged on a Michigan audience last week, pledging to "solve problems" and not "gripe" about the economic hand he was dealt.

Despite such bravura, Obama must be furtively reviewing the history of recent Democratic administrations for some kind of road map out of his post-100-days ditch.

So far, he seems to be skipping the chapter on Bill Clinton and his generally free-market economic policies and instead flipping back to the themes and comportment of Jimmy Carter. Like the 39th president, Obama has inherited an awful economy, dizzying budget deficits and a geopolitical situation as promising as Kim Jong Il's health. Like Carter, Obama is smart, moralistic and enamored of alternative energy schemes that were nonstarters back when America's best-known peanut farmer was installing solar panels at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Like Carter, Obama faces as much effective opposition from his own party's left wing as he does from an ardent but diminished GOP.

And perhaps most important, as with Carter, his specific policies are genuinely unpopular. The auto bailout -- which, incidentally, is illegal, springing as it has from a fund specifically earmarked for financial institutions -- has been reviled from the get-go, with opposition consistently polling north of 60 percent. Majorities have said no to bank bailouts and to cap and trade if it would make electricity significantly more expensive.

Obama's making cardigans and mom jeans fashionable again. And I thought he was supposed to be cool...........

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More signs of global warming

The high temperature of 70 degrees has been by far the coolest high temperature on record for July 18, according to the National Weather Service's Wilmington Office.

The old record, set in 1938, was 75.

Saturday morning's low temperature also tied the record.

That had been set in 1924, at 54 degrees.

Al Gore must be in town

Obama vs Obama on the Stimulus

Yes, they can run health care

Just like they've run student loans........

Anyone who still doubts that Obamacare would lead to a government-run health-care system should take a look at Obama’s plans for student loans. Those plans got a big boost this week when Rep. George Miller, the California Democrat who chairs the House Education Committee, introduced legislation to replace federally subsidized private lending with a government-run program, leaving only a sliver of student lending to the private sector and completing a journey to nationalization that began 44 years ago. Compromisers take note: This journey also involves a detour onto the “public option” turnpike.

In 1965, Congress created what became known as the “Stafford loan” as part of the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). Almost anyone who has attended college has heard of Stafford loans, and most people know that the federal government insures these loans against default risk — that is, the government reimburses the private lender for 97 to 99 percent of the loan’s value if the student defaults. What most people don’t know is that the government also protects lenders from interest-rate risk. Stafford loans are provided to students at a low fixed rate set by law. Fluctuations in commercial interest rates can expose banks to losses on these loans if their borrowing costs rise too high. So to smooth out their returns, the government pays the banks a subsidy when interest rates rise. Conversely, when rates fall below the Stafford rate, lenders must remit the difference to the government. Lenders are also guaranteed a percentage to cover administrative costs.

Read the rest.......

Are you feeling stimulated yet?

How about that porkulus plan...........

At an elaborate signing ceremony in Denver Feb. 17, Mr. Obama said the stimulus bill would "create or save"" 3.5 million jobs, starting right away. He also said then that he expected to be held accountable for the results.
With unemployment in June at 9.5 percent, and with the President himself now acknowledging the unemployment rate is likely to exceed 10 percent before year's end, it's pretty bizarre for Mr. Obama to say, as he did in his radio address July 11, that the stimulus bill "has worked as intended."
A report from New Hampshire suggests why the stimulus bill hasn't stimulated the economy much.
According to the state office responsible for tracking the money, New Hampshire has received so far $413.6 million in stimulus funds, which have resulted in the creation of 50 jobs, all in government, most of them temporary and only 34 of them full time. That comes to a cost of $8.32 million per job, or nearly $10 million per full time job, if we assume that two of the part-time jobs equal one full-time job.
The Obama Administration claims the stimulus bill has "saved" jobs, but there is no way statistically to verify this, and the state government hasn't reported any in New Hampshire.

Pass me another cup of coffee.....

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Let's negotiate with these guys

From the American Thinker............

This may be the most sickening thing you've ever read about the Islamic thugs who are now the object of our president's diplomatically amorous pursuit.

This article in the Jerusalem Post by Sabina Amidi features an interview with one of the hated Basij miltiamen who details the incredible thuggery of his mates during the recent demonstrations.

But it is this heartless monster's actions when he was younger that exposes the Iranian theocrats as monsters the likes of which have not been seen since Hitler's Germany:

He said he had been a highly regarded member of the force, and had so "impressed my superiors" that, at 18, "I was given the 'honor' to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death."

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a "wedding" ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard - essentially raped by her "husband."

"I regret that, even though the marriages were legal," he said.

Why the regret, if the marriages were "legal?"

"Because," he went on, "I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their 'wedding' night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.

"I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over," he said. "I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her."

Such inhumanity may be routine in Iran but it is still shocking to read someone's words who tells the story so dispassionately.

But hey, at least they're not republicans.........

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