Asbestos and guns

Asbestos is something which protects people from certain dangers, but is also inherently dangerous-- especially if mishandled. However, the greater danger comes from trying to remove it.

Guns are similar in some ways.

Guns are something which protect people from certain dangers, but they are inherently dangerous-- especially if mishandled. However, the greater danger comes from trying to remove them.

It's interesting that some people recognize the truth where asbestos is concerned, but ignore or deny the truth where guns are concerned. 

In fact, one such person wrote an entire book about misguided fears where he pointed out the facts about asbestos, but then prattled on and on about how "the real danger" to us was the availability of guns. With issue after issue, if there was a way he could find to blame "the availability of guns", that's what he did. It was awkward and kind of dumb. Politics had caused brain damage and he didn't realize it. His brain damage made him anti-science.

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Time's running out on Time's Up flags

If two Time's Up flags sell in the next week, they will remain available for at least another month. Just so you know, in case you haven't gotten yours yet.

I have to sell 2 per month or I lose money on the listing, and I haven't sold any during the past month. The 23rd is the deadline. It's up to you.

UPDATE: They'll stay up for another month, at which time I'll post another reminder (or repost this one). Thanks!

Live long enough to be a curmudgeon

My dad has occasionally said he's glad his dad didn't live to see how the world has gone. He died in the late 1960s, only a couple of years older than I am now.

He was rabidly "conservative"-- in many of the worst senses of the term. He would have hated even how leftist the 80s were, compared to his comfort zone. I would probably have had a hard time getting along with him had he lived until I was older.

I don't want to become that way. But I will speak up.

Yes, I hate how some things are going-- I despise "w0keness" with a passion when it clashes with individual liberty-- which it usually does. I dislike how political everything has become, and I understand why politics causes divisiveness-- it can't be otherwise. I hate that human rights are always on the chopping block built of "equality" (or worse, "equity"). I hate how popular communism has become-- while mostly being called something else. I hate how people seem to imagine you have to choose between being a socialist and being a copsucker, when the two have more in common with each other than with me.

But I don't want to ever be the person someone else is glad didn't live to see...whatever happens to society. I'm willing to keep pushing for liberty against all tyrants and karens as long as I can, even if it means I've become a curmudgeon.

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Politicians responsible for much loss

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 17, 2021)

It's so nice of New Mexico's political overlords to allow businesses to re-open a bit-- until they change their minds again. We should gather in the frozen fields and sing hymns to their glory. Wearing two or three masks each, obviously.

If you don't praise the bully when he beats you slightly less, you're ungrateful.

The past year has been very educational. I have learned people will tolerate anything, on the flimsiest of excuses.

They will allow politicians to destroy their businesses, cripple their social lives, dictate what they wear, and imprison them in their own homes without even a show trial, as long as there's a new cold virus for justification. Unbelievable!

I can't even blame one political party over the other-- they are both guilty. This was sold to the public as "Science!" and no one wanted to appear to be against science. Yet, when even the tiniest bit of politics is mixed with science, you've tossed science out the window. You're left with only politics.

America will never get back the liberty it lost to the politicians and politicized experts over the past year. Sure, the restrictions will be scaled back temporarily-- as permitted business re-openings have shown-- but politicians have seen what they can get away with. Next time they'll test their limits again. Each time the liberty they allow us to have back will be slightly less than it was before. Incrementally you will be enslaved, and most people won't notice until it hurts them, personally.

If you think I disliked people who use politics against their fellow humans before, that was nothing compared to how I feel about them now.

Even though I lost most of my income over the past year, due to other people losing theirs, I fared better than many people did. I was ready for supply chain disruptions. Other people weren't. Many people may never recover financially, and those who harmed them-- just as surely as looters or arsonists would have-- will never be held accountable.

It's a shame the practice of tarring and feathering politicians has gone out of style. Otherwise, I don't think politicians could have gotten away with what they did to America over the past year.

We'll have to wait and see where this goes. Unless America changes direction completely and Americans start to value liberty again, it's not going to go well.

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Is your compliance all used up?

I think the government overreach of this past year drained my "compliance bladder" of all its stored compliance fluid. I'm pretty much empty now. At least for nonsensical (or what I see as nonsensical) stuff.

I know some people have feared that humans are being trained to be compliant over the past year, but I wonder how many recoiled the other direction. There's always an opposite reaction and unintended consequences.

It's difficult, because I do try to respect store managers' signs requesting (or communicating the state's demand to wear) masks. But recently, I've been forgetting more and more. I just can't care anymore. Not even a little. I never cared much to begin with, but what little I did care has been used up. They pushed too far and too long.

As I've said from the beginning, I'm agnostic about the masks. Yeah, they may help a little in some way. Probably not enough to justify being a karen about them. And making them mandatory was pure evil. Masks aren't my line in the sand though, especially since I kind of like their "facial recognition" defeating utility.

The state on one side of me has ended all Corona mandates--the state on the other side of me still has all the silliness in force with no end in sight. But a lot of businesses still demand masks even though they aren't forced to do so anymore. Like the caged bird that doesn't realize the cage is gone.

I never "social distanced" other than staying away from those who were trying to do so. I've done as little as possible to accommodate the Branch Covidians. I have observed and learned from their behavior, and have taken measures to protect myself from their craziness.

I just can't see myself going along with any new orders-- regarding anything-- unless a Blue Line Gang thug is looking at me. Then I might, to avoid being murdered.

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Invalid claims on you

If you imagine government's claims on you are valid because of maritime law, birth certificates, social security cards, the Constitution, lords and feudalism, the US being a corporation under obligation to the monarch of England (or the Rothschilds), or anything of that sort, then you are free to believe it. 

But none of the claims on you are valid regardless of what you believe. You have just fallen under the spell of government-supremacism. Who has the right to decide such things? Where does this authority come from?

I'm not with you on this runaway train. I don't care what any government believes now or believed in the past. I don't care what agreements between governments say. To believe in any of that requires a belief that political government is legitimate and I don't-- I can't-- believe that.

Yes, I realize delusional people will act on their beliefs to the contrary. A crazy person might also shoot me because he believes I'm a dinosaur, but that just means he's crazy, not that he's right.

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The Dr. Seuss divide

I would really like my readers to weigh in on something. Something that I'm not sure I'm right about.

The newspaper editor disagrees with me about the Dr. Seuss situation. His take: "... I think [the Dr. Seuss company] ha[s] been unfairly criticized. End of the day, they made marketing decisions they think will increase sales. God bless profitable America."

Thomas Knapp lumped those like me (and Claire Wolfe) who don't think this was a good move with the "deplorables".

If the company (corporation?) did this to boost profits, I hope it hurts them financially in the long run. I don't want censors to prosper, especially when they make their decisions based on "someone was/might be offended". It doesn't matter to me if they had the "legal right" to do what they did-- that's a statist notion.

I think this shows the flaw with IP generally and with copyright, specifically. 

Dr. Seuss didn't make this decision about his works, someone else who was entrusted (by whom?) to manage his legacy has decided to vandalize it, instead-- in my opinion. 

If they won't publish those books, I think it would be perfectly ethical for someone else to publish them-- especially if they used some of the profits to support causes Dr. Seuss would have supported. I can't imagine him supporting cancel culture, but maybe he would have-- I know he was a flawed human being.

But what do you think? Is this something they have a right to do and I am being anti-market if I object? Which side of the divide do you find yourself on?

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Do you believe government has rights or authority?

If you believe government has a right to do anything, you are a government-supremacist.

If you believe government has authority to do anything, you are a government-supremacist.

Individuals-- and only individuals-- have rights. A group of individuals has no rights that each individual doesn't already have. More rights can't be created by banding together with others. 

Only someone who imagines that government is superior to the individual could believe that a government has the right to do anything to any individual. Such a description fits a government-supremacist-- they believe government is superior to the individual. To them, government is supreme.

Authority, when used to talk about government, is not real. The belief that political authority is real qualifies as a superstitious belief. The Most Dangerous Superstition, according to Larken Rose-- and I agree. 

Only someone who considers government superior to the individual could imagine that such a group has authority to violate the natural human rights of any individual. Such a person would necessarily imagine government is superior to the individual. To them, government is supreme.

Do you believe government has rights or authority? If so, why? How would you explain and justify these beliefs?

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Free will

I don't know if free will is real or not. It certainly feels real, but I also understand the arguments against it-- although I believe quantum physics' uncertainty provides a place for free will to hide.

Scott Adams has repeatedly said he doesn't believe in free will, but he believes "we" have to pretend it's real so "we" can punish criminals and maintain civilization. Why? That is only necessary if you imagine that revenge ("punishment") is necessary for justice, and it isn't. Government-supremacism can cloud your thinking as badly as any other mental problem.

Self-defense and restitution don't depend on why someone does something, only that they did. Their action created a debt; justice requires this debt to be paid (or payment to be attempted).

If you have no free will to avoid archating, it's the same as your having no free will to choose to fall upward into the clouds. There are still consequences. You've still become part of a chain of events, one of which could be restitution or death at the hands of your intended victim. The lack of free will doesn't change this.

If you do have free will and you used it to choose to archate, you chose to create a debt. Even if you pretend you didn't choose this debt, your actions created it. Again, free will is irrelevant to the outcome.

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Politics not a good look on anyone

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 3, 2021)

Politics has a strange effect on people.

I'm stunned at how many people can't let go of Donald Trump. They cling to him like a life raft in an ocean of uncertainty.

I'm not talking about Trump's supporters, but about those who hate him passionately. Those who suffer from what is known as "Trump Derangement Syndrome".

Most Trump supporters have moved on. They accept the reality he'd be too old for the presidency in four years. He'd be seventy-eight by then, and no one that age should be subjected to the pressures of the presidency. This includes the current seventy-eight-year-old White House occupant.

But the dedicated Trump haters can't move on. They obsess over revenge fantasies which they dishonestly call "justice". Against Trump, and everyone they believe wasn't sufficiently anti-Trump while he was in office-- or now.

Without Trump to hate and focus on, they'd have to look closely at what they put in the White House, which would not be comforting. They don't dare take off their anti-Trump spectacles and look with objective eyes.

Pointing this out gets me called a Trump supporter, which shows the depth of their self-deception.

On the "other side" are those who can't let go of "Q". If you aren't familiar with "Q" don't dig in to it unless you have spare time and mental health to waste.

No matter how badly the Q predictions missed, those who are desperate to believe in "The Plan" only remember the predictions which-- by coincidence and sheer numbers-- appear to have been right. In other words, it is like a carnival psychic or a horoscope. You'll see whatever truth you fool yourself into seeing and forget about the misses.

Even outside these extremes, politics makes otherwise normal people support things they'd never consider doing personally because of their morals.

This isn't new. It's been the same as long as people have entertained the belief that it's OK to try to govern each other in addition to themselves.

Politics doesn't look good on anyone. There must be something addictive about it, though. People keep trying it on in various guises. The strange political obsessions of this year will fade away, only to be replaced with different strange beliefs in future years.

People will continue to imagine their own political beliefs are reasonable and the political beliefs of others are delusional. It's as predictable as the tides

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Dumb experts

It's so fun to be scolded for "denying science" by Branch Covidians.

It's hilarious to be lectured on economics by people who have fake economic credentials based on Keynesian "economics".

It cracks me up to be told what "real anarchy" is by people who learned the word from government schools, the mainstream media, socialists, or other government-supremacists.

It's silly to be "educated" about guns by people who used guns (and bombs) to promote the US feral government's agenda in foreign countries and who, because of this experience, "know" that an AR15 is a "weapon of war" that no one should be allowed to own.

Some people's "expertise" (or submission to "the experts") makes them dumb.

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Renouncing citizenship seems pointless

Why would anyone bother to renounce "their" citizenship? I'm not going to assume you are the property of a government-- a "citizen"-- unless you publicly affirm that you are. Who would do otherwise?

How can a person renounce something they never explicitly agreed to or embraced? 

If a crazy person imagines she owns me, is it necessary for me to publicly confirm that she doesn't?
If someone imagines I'm a dog, do I need to renounce my status as a dog?
If someone has gotten it into their head that I'm a brain surgeon, do I need to file papers proving I'm not one?

Now, if the crazy person is going around announcing to everyone I know that I am their slave it might inspire me to say "No, I'm not", but if the delusion exists only inside their head what is it to me until they act on it?

If someone else gets the idea that I belong to Crazy Cora or a government, or that I'm a dog, the problem is obviously theirs until or unless they act on it. Other people's craziness isn't my responsibility.

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Being "polite"

On various issues, Scott Adams has long been harping on doing what one side (usually the Left-Statist side) demands because he says doing otherwise is "impolite". He says, why be impolite when you can just be polite?

Well... Because "polite" is as subjective and imaginary as "fairness", which he has criticized as a concept invented so that idiots and children could feel like they are participating in the conversation. In all but a few cases, "polite" is exactly the same. 

Sure, almost everyone would consider it impolite to sneeze in someone's face or sit there picking your nose enthusiastically across the breakfast table from someone, but the issues where he calls for politeness aren't nearly so clear-cut. 

Being polite is going to mean different things to different people; sometimes things that are directly incompatible. One person's "polite" is another person's "rude".

Scott believes that historical statues are impolite; while I believe demanding that someone take down a statue to soothe your feelings is impolite-- even if the statue is of someone I consider a monster, like Hitler, Lincoln, or FDR-- any military or political figure, for that matter. Yuck! But they neither break my leg nor pick my pocket by existing.

He considers it impolite to not use incorrect or made-up "gender" pronouns and to not validate someone's opposite sex cosplay, while I consider it impolite to police (sometimes literally) the words people use when they are simply trying to communicate in an obvious, truthful way using words that have been standard speech all their life. I consider it impolite to demand that someone lie.

It's the same with many other sorts of words. No matter what words you use, soon someone will decide to change the acceptable words so that they can condemn you for the (now) "rude" words you use. It's a Red Queen situation where you have to keep running as hard as you can just to stay in place. Ridiculous in the extreme.

He has suggested it would be impolite to not edit Dr. Seuss's books to fit a modern sensibility. I think it is impolite to judge them by the w0ke standards of today.

I consider it very rude to impose mandates and legislation to enforce someone else's idea of politeness. Now, I don't intend to be rude, but if you can't satisfy someone no matter how much you bend for them, I say it's past time to stop trying.

Politeness is a trap. A better metric is archation. Don't violate the life, liberty, or property of-- don't initiate force or property violations against-- anyone. Politeness is fuzzy; archation is concrete.

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Texas flirts with liberty

The Texas governor announced he is ending the coronapanic shutdown in Texas next week. Finally! 

Since he didn't have the right or the imaginary political "authority" to impose any shutdowns in the first place, it would have been great to have never gone along with it, but better late than never.

Now he needs to end the criminal ban on "constitutional carry" in Texas, too. By pressuring whoever needs to be pressured to finally stop being a criminal state (at least on that dimension) and be compliant with the law.

It's always good when government decides to stop violating the natural human rights of the people.

Of course, those in the Cult of Covid are weeping, wailing, and gnashing their teeth. They are acting as though this means they won't be allowed to wear a mask anymore. I haven't seen that suggestion anywhere. (Surely they are all Californian imports.) They are presenting "Beto" as the "hero" Texans need to hold us prisoner longer. I don't need a governor other than myself. They can keep Bob'O; I'll keep my guns and my liberty.

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The Wisdom of knowing when to keep quiet

These days it feels like it's hard for most people to have pleasant social interactions with others who "believe" differently. 

I think a large part of that is due to people feeling it's OK to make everything political, and to air their every belief. You know they believe differently because they feel the need to rub it in your face.

Just imagine how it would go if everyone you interacted with on a daily basis felt the need to tell you what kind of crime they commit regularly. You meet someone and one of the first things they tell you is how much they enjoy burglarizing houses. Or that their hobby is shoplifting. Or rape. 

And then they expect you to just go ahead with whatever you were going to be doing with them?

Sure, you'd pare down the number of people you willingly interact with that way, getting rid of some deadwood in the process, but wouldn't it look a lot like what I see happening now?

Personally. unless someone admits to being a murderer/politically-inclined person, I'll assume they are OK. Most of the time, if I need to interact with them anyway, I'd rather not know the worst things about them unless I'm going to be living with or working with them. You are a kitten-stomper? As long as you don't brag about it I won't know. You support Politician X or Z? Keep this horror to yourself and I won't feel the need to ridicule you or run away from our casual interaction.

Some might claim that there's no comparison, but they'd be lying. If you advocate using any application of the political means against others, any difference between you and any other monster is only a matter of degree (if that). It would be best to not go around yapping about it unless you want people to treat you differently based on what you admit to.

This is my problem when most celebrities (including "science" celebrities) start interjecting politics into their public statements. It's also the same with anyone I know casually. I don't want to know how horrible or stupid you are. Why would you want me to know? And once I know, do you really expect me to have no reaction to this revelation? 

Dragging your politics into the open cripples society.  It's anti-social and shameful.

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YOU can do great things if you ignore those who would hold you back

Those who see "racism" in math, science, grammar, general excellence, and ethics are using those things as a mirror. They are only seeing their own reflection.

I believe anyone of any "race" is perfectly capable of great things. And by "great things" I mean things that improve the lives of humans in general (and sometimes other life-forms, too) without archation.

To imagine that doing great things means you've accepted the "superiority" of one "race" or its ideas is to belittle yourself. It's not "colonialism" to embrace good ideas. To hold back the lives of anyone tragic enough to listen to you express this sick belief is to be the worst enemy they have.

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Can do without Biden's 'unity'

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for January 27, 2021)

John Brennan, an ex-CIA director from Obama's administration, claims the federal government is targeting "religious extremists", conservatives, and libertarians for extra scrutiny. All these people are said to be potential domestic terrorists.

He recently stated on MSNBC, “[M]embers of the Biden team ... are now moving in laser-like fashion, to try to uncover as much as they can about what looks very similar to insurgency movements that we’ve seen overseas, where they germinate in different parts of the country and they gain strength, and it brings together an unholy alliance frequently of religious extremists — so authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, and even libertarians,"

What scary company!

For people who only want to leave everyone else alone, libertarians sure to seem to attract a lot of powerful enemies. The worst things libertarians do are exercise the natural human right of self-defense and engage in non-compliance when legislation violates human rights. Not terrorist behaviors, but behaviors for which the government-supremacists hate and fear us. Maybe it's because we-- along with conservatives-- are the ones with most of the guns.

The truth is, John Brennan should look in a mirror.

Brennan and his sort are the authoritarians; the people who crave and worship imaginary political authority. According to fellow liberty advocate and author, Larken Rose, belief in political authority is the world's most dangerous superstition. I think he's correct.

How can Brennan fear fascists? Political government is always fascistic as well as being socialistic. Does he fear himself?

I would say Brennan is also a religious extremist, only his god is the state. Look who and what he is willing to sacrifice for his religion. Anyone who doesn't buy the leftist narrative is seen as a danger. You're probably an infidel, just like me, and liberty-- which he appears bigoted against-- must be treated as blasphemy.

If what he says is true, the Biden administration seems to agree with him.

Will Joe Biden wait for Congress to make up legislation to target us, or will he squeeze out yet another executive order? I wonder if they'll give Brennan the job of going after these "dangerous" people. Time will tell.

I wasn't a supporter of Trump, nor a supporter of any president or even of the office, but I like Trump as a person a lot more than I like Biden. So far, Biden's notion of "unity" is one I can do without.

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"Just test it small"

You can't just judge slavery and say it's bad. You need to test it in some limited way-- or region-- and see how it works out. 

The same goes for genocide. It's small-minded to just come out against it until you test it and see if it's right for some state or city. You're just not a smart person if you automatically say it's wrong to commit genocide.

Sure, these things have been tested multiple times and found to be awful (maybe the tests were flawed), but this time might be different. Right...?

This is the government-supremacist justification for anti-gun legislation, for $15 per hour minimum wages and other government economic interference, and for climate legislation. Until you've tested every idea, how can you credibly criticize it? So why pretend you can just pre-judge those other things I listed at the beginning?

Because you're smarter than those who believe anyone has a right to test such things.

If a plan would violate the life, liberty, or property of any individual, it would be just as wrong to "test it small" as it would to impose it on the entire population of Earth. It doesn't matter whether it works. It doesn't matter if you really want to know how it would turn out. There are things no one has the right or the imaginary political "authority" to do. You don't need to test them to figure that out-- just have worthwhile ethics.

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Politics destroys civility

Do people really have to wonder why politics divides people and makes them angry? I've explained it before, but I still see people who seem confused over the mechanism at work here.

How can they not understand? Or is it a matter of not understanding what they don't want to understand?

If you constantly call for government violence to be used against anyone who doesn't believe the same way you believe-- which is the nature of all politics-- you are dividing people. You are going to be making these other people angry. You are threatening them with deadly force-- threatening to take their life, liberty, and property, so what do you really expect? 

You are showing yourself to be an anti-social simpleton who can't get along with others because of your desire to control them.

It doesn't matter if you imagine you are "right" or "left"-- government-supremacism is government-supremacism. Government can have no "rights" or imaginary political "authority" to do anything. Trying to cheat the system and act as though it does is going to make you the cause of division and anger. Every time.

If you're going to decry the lack of civility; the anger and division, with one breath, and then call for government violence to be used against other people with the next, I can't take your concern seriously... but I may still take your threats seriously.

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In which I toy with an anonymous troll-wanna-be

A few days ago I got called a "Randbot" for saying "Government is garbage" in response to a post pointing out some horrible thing a government had done to a population.

The articulate argument against my point was "Not all government is garbage", and then he spent hours trying to find ways to insult me, saying I'm in the Trump cult and various other nonsensical things. Just totally off the rails, was he. 

I pointed out that Rand was a government-supremacist who believed in the legitimacy of the "night watchman" government-- and that I don't. So he kept trying to move the goalposts to find an insult that would stick. He never succeeded.

I don't know who he thought he was trying to attack, but he was wrong.

It was kind of amusing seeing someone double down on being wrong and looking dumb over and over. I don't know if I've ever seen one person so dedicated to so many scattered positions, and all of them wrong. It was quite the spectacle.

He even said I probably see myself as a "patriot", just before he went off against guns. For some reason, he was very offended when I pointed out there's no such thing as "assault rifles". He said I should check a dictionary and didn't like it when I said that if a dictionary said an "assault rifle" is semi-auto and includes such firearms as the AR15, then the dictionary is wrong. 

Oh, but he owns a gun he tells me! So he's an expert, doncha know!

I don't know why it's so hard for people to accept that dictionaries can be wrong, since they often only tell you how words are used, not what they really mean.

One thing he kept harping on was that I had posted a link to one of my shirt designs, and he hated that I was using the internet to try to make money selling my "sh***y shirt designs". Trying to make money really triggers some people. I think there's a word for people who hate the market... He said I should be able to find a real job now that half a million people have died of... I mean with... The Corona, leaving jobs vacant. (I wonder how many of those who are said to have died with Covid actually had jobs.) 

Anyway, I got busy with life and wasn't able to check back in for several hours to see what his next point was going to be, but when I was able to check in, he had faded off into the woodwork without another word. I was content to let him go.

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