The Peak of The Oil Lies - 2

"Everyone loves the stuff"

In the first post of this series we watched and listened to some expert observers discussing government "spin" about the peak of oil.

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has several ongoing series which deal with various aspects of the issue of dependence and addiction to dirty, polluting oil.

You might want to check out or review some of these few examples taken from a long list (The Peak of Health And The Peak of Oil, The Peak Of The Oil Wars, A Peek At The Peak Oil Catastrophe, and Iraq: World's Number One Oil Producer?).

We have also discussed why addiction to this toxic oil "drug" is more critical than the issues involved with other drugs, which the "war on drugs" is concerned with, because of what becomes instantly clear when one hears what the U.S. Department of Energy thinks of oil:

A website of the federal government tells us:

"Oil is the lifeblood of America’s economy."

(Department of Energy [they removed it, so here is The Wayback Machine copy of that page: Department of Energy]). Which is the same thing as saying you are economically dead without your blood, your oil.

The struggle for economic life then, would be the struggle for oil would it not?

Bush II put it in the cowboy language during a state of the union address to congress, saying that "America is addicted to oil".

(The Fleets and Terrorism Follow The Oil). The official government understanding is that the U.S. is economically dead without oil.

It is not difficult to see, then, why they conceive the issue as being a matter of national security.

But their "solution" is to change drug dealers, rather than kicking the habit, as we pointed out in a recent post:

Consider that one similar theme at the two [presidential election] conventions was "let's get off foreign oil", that is, let's use local oil instead of foreign oil so that we will be more secure.

This theme will eventually give rise to "all oil is local", but how does that help with the addiction to dirty oil, because we must still ask "is local oil clean, is local coal clean, and is local pollution clean?"

Additionally we must ask "is the big issue concerning oil addiction who the dealer is?"

If we simply become our own oil drug peddler, does that heal our oil addiction?

Are we brazen enough to think that our oil is not addictive, our oil does not pollute, in effect saying "our you know what does not stink?"

The only sane way to look at this issue is of course to grasp the reality of the damage which the addiction does, and to stop using the drug no matter who is selling it, because not using the oil drug anymore is the only solution ...

(New Drug Dealer - Same Addiction). So in today's post we are taking off the kid gloves because in the end these lies about oil addiction are going to end up costing many, many lives:

Analysts at a New York-based research firm believe that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (Opec’s) global oil reserve statements could be inflated by as much as 70%.
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He explained certain Opec members were deliberately increasing their stated oil reserves to flout Opec regulations, which allowed oil-producing countries to only produce oil at a rate calculated as a certain percentage of its total reserves.

“We now know that the numbers are significantly inflated. The model we have built from available data shows that Opec reserve statements could be overstated by as much as 70%,” Nariani said.

Nariani, who is co-authoring a report, ‘The Race to Replace Reserves’, which is due for publication during the next couple of weeks, told Mining Weekly Online that the official figures did not add up. He said that given certain new discoveries of oil, such as in Venezuela and certain technological advances which allow for previously uneconomical known deposits to be exploited, many Opec countries continued to increase their oil reserves, without announcing any new discoveries, and, all that while producing significant amounts of oil.

Nariani and report co-author Brent Giles believe global oil reserves would be depleted much sooner than thought.

(Engineering News, 10/4/2012, emphasis added). That would mean that "the lifeblood" of the U.S.eh?, and even civilization itself, has not been as secure as was once faithfully believed.

It also explains all the propaganda in the media lately about the availability of oil here in North America, the "drill baby drill" mantra promulgated by The Private Empire, and President Obama's personal involvement to help with Shell's Arctic drilling efforts.

To simplify the explanation, these mentioned activities are simply panic now, because we reached The Peak of Sanity a while back, but didn't notice then.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post is here.

MOMCOM: The Private Parts - 3

The Private Empire - a complex network

In this series Dredd Blog has been on the trail of the 1%, a.k.a. the private empire that pulls the strings controlling the military, the oil industry, and the media industry of MOMCOM (see MOMCOM - A Mean Welfare Queen).

Were it not for the fact that everyone acknowledges that civilians run the military in the U.S., then the inclusion of the military as a portion of MOMCOM might be puzzling or questionable to some.

Remember that the President is Commander-In-Chief of the military as mandated in the U.S. Constitution, therefore no one should doubt that the Office of The President is a civilian office.

Thus, we can keep in mind that all segments of MOMCOM are ultimately controlled by "private" civilian entities.

Also don't let yourself forget that The Private Empire is a powerful structure that strongly influences or controls our Western Civilization today.

Those in military uniforms in the U.S. serve that private empire because, for one thing, the military does not have what it takes to directly manage and run the other segments of MOMCOM (oil and media industries), even though the thought of doing so may cross the minds of some military high ups from time to time (as it has in nations where military coups have taken place).

So, in today's post we will emphasize that MOMCOM is controlled by a private international entity, a private international empire, with key portions located in those nations where those key portions can exert the most efficiency and power.

Nevertheless, sub-segments of those entities are also spread out in other nations making it difficult to identify or subvert the whole empire from just one nation, for example the military:

The military portion of MOMCOM has from 800 to 1000 bases around the world ... [maybe more, some of it is classified]

(MOMCOM - A Mean Welfare Queen, ibid). The next entity in the construct we call MOMCOM is likewise spread out across the globe:

The oil portion of MOMCOM ... is exemplified by author Coll's quote of the CEO of ExxonMobil: "I am not an American company."

(see MOMCOM - A Mean Welfare Queen and MOMCOM: The Private Parts, links above). Which brings us to the remaining portion of the MOMCOM trinity:

The media portion of MOMCOM is the Mainstream Media (MSM).

(MOMCOM - A Mean Welfare Queen, link above). The media control is clearly in the hands of the private empire (see GE Serves The Pentagon On TV Near Yoo).

One other essence of this trinity has not yet been discussed very much in any previous Dredd Blog post.

That particular essence is the "COM" in MOMCOM, meaning "complex."

The complex nature of MOMCOM is alluded to in the video at the end of this post, where Dr. Peter Phillips of Project Censored discusses "a network" of international companies, composed of individuals who are the cream of the 1% crop.

Many of those international companies in that complex network are also named by Dr. Phillips in the video.

These companies are composed of individuals who sit on the governing boards of various other international corporations / businesses, which comprise a complex network of generally cooperating entities.

They encapsulate military power, oil power, and media power structured as a complex that has global reach and influence, thus "MOMCOM".

The important nucleus of each portion of MOMCOM is placed where it will tend to have the maximum performance possible, and can therefore organize and control those sub-segments which are distributed around the world to control local matters where MOMCOM is focusing.

For example, the military portion has been centrally located in the U.S., which spends more on military machinations than all the other nations combined.

You pay for that military with your tax dollars.

It is located here because that is where it can be of the greatest service to The Private Empire that controls MOMCOM.

The media portion of MOMCOM has been able to create a Wartocracy mentality within the U.S. political infrastructure and in the public mind through propaganda, which The Private Empire uses to control oil through such tactics as gunboat diplomacy and other aspects of imperialism.

Check out the video if you are interested in some information about international corporations that have influence or control over the government in various degrees:

A University of Zurich study 'proves' that a small group of companies - mainly banks - wields huge power over the global economy.

The study is the first to look at all 43,060 transnational corporations and the web of ownership between them - and created a 'map' of 1,318 companies at the heart of the global economy.

The study found that 147 companies formed a 'super entity' within this, controlling 40 per cent of its wealth. All own part or all of one another. Most are banks - the top 20 includes Barclays and Goldman Sachs. [Bank of America is in the top 25]

(Daily Mail, the actual report is: The Network of Global Corporate Control, PDF format). Dr. Phillips talks (~15 minutes) about that report and the private empire:

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The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

The Elections of Pontius Pilots - 3

I Will Ask Congress To Turn Lead Into Gold

In this series regular readers know that Dredd Blog has been discussing what we think is becoming more and more a modern day form of ancient alchemy: U.S. Elections.

In the first post we discussed, among other things, the original Pontius Pilate and the interesting meaning of his name.

In the second post we discussed a cruise ship that had been run aground by its captain and crew, pointing out some similarities between the captain and crew of that ill-fated vessel, who abandoned their passengers to save their own skins, and those who want to be the captain and crew of our own ship of state.

In this post we will focus on the reality that our elections, and therefore what we call our republic or our democracy, are not what they are purported to be.

Rather, any such election is more of a money making/losing drama, depending on what part you play, like a Broadway production that is choreographed in full accord with The Onion Script written by McTell News, the mouthpiece of MOMCOM.

This gala democratic nova has evolved to become symbolized by last night's presidential debate, where The Shape Shifter tells his latest form of lies ("reinventing himself"), and the other is Mr. Nice Guy, calmly saying nothing that would appear to be extreme:

In this film ... the ... main character is born in Chicago and is raised poor. After seeing the violence of crime on the streets he becomes a hitman for [the Wartocracy] a local gang.

(Mr. Nice Guy, Wikipedia). Meanwhile, The Shape Shifter is going around saying "I don't get no respect from 'McTell News'", or alternately has his wife do it for him.

The basic plot of the play concerns the ability to nuance the two actors as the debutante and the crumpet, together with the scripted argument about who is who, i.e., who is the debutante and who is the crumpet.

The Brits have always claimed to be able to see through this, at least ever since the Beatles song "I'm Looking Through You", and still claim it today:

Both Obama and Romney are very intelligent men.
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Neither of them [in the debate] says a serious word about the causes of the financial crisis; the lack of prosecution of banks and bankers; sharply rising inequality in educational opportunity, income and wealth; energy policy and global warming; America's competitive lag in broadband infrastructure; the impact of industrialized food on healthcare costs; the last decade's budget deficits and the resultant national debt; or the large-scale, permanent elimination of millions of less-skilled jobs through both globalization and advances in robotics and artificial intelligence.

(America's Duopoly). At the end of the play on opening night, the biased in the U.S. scriptorium (McTell News) snort, chuckle, and exude what they call savvy words a la American Idol, encouraging each actor to plod on to the finish, while at the same time urging the actors to spend more money on advertising ... on their network of course ... lest they lose the race.

In closing, we are likely to see, then, business as usual until the final curtain, which is the alchemy, mentioned in the opening sentence of this post:

Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners' claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base metals into the noble metals gold or silver, as well as an elixir of life conferring youth and immortality. Western alchemy is recognized as a protoscience that contributed to the development of modern chemistry and medicine. Alchemists developed a framework of theory, terminology, experimental process and basic laboratory techniques that are still recognizable today. But alchemy differs from modern science in the inclusion of Hermetic principles and practices related to mythology, religion, and spirituality.

(Alchemy, Wikipedia). Let's focus on that alchemy, by describing our part in this play, which is the voting we will do as the final act, the bit part we the audience will finally play, because "it's all we got":

Election priests will write official words on a piece of paper called 'a ballot', we will then take that piece of paper and put additional marks on it, selecting either The Shape Shifter or Mr. Nice Guy, and then drop our ballot into a ballot box, comforting ourselves by thinking "this will solve the problems we face."

Global warming induced climate change will subside, wars will end, prosperity will return, and peace will guide the stars.

Lead will be turned into gold, "so we are told."

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy - 7

This series about the U.S. plutonomy within the U.S. Plutocracy, combined with the series about the plunder of the treasury (see "PLUNDER" on the Series Posts page) have laid out how the middle class and poor have been plundered since 9/11.

These series point out, among other things, that one event which made the plunder of the citizenry possible was the eradication of various consumer protection and/or banking laws which had made the old style robber baron machinations of the last century illegal, and that the removal of those good laws gave rise to another age of plunder (see the series Bush II Eradicated The Robber Barons).

Today we will look at some of the evidence and expert testimony to show what the banksters have said behind closed doors and in public.

One piece of that evidence has caused quite a stir, including threats from large law firms, is "The Plutonomy Memos", which will be quoted from in today's post.

Additionally, the video at the bottom of this post features expert William K. Black adding his perspective concerning these memos and related issues.

Before we view some quotes from the memos, let's remember that the street name for the U.S. Plutocracy is "1% vs. 99%", made into a household name by the Occupy Movement, but originally made infamous by CitiGroup:

Well, here goes. Little of this note should tally with conventional thinking. Indeed, traditional thinking is likely to have issues with most of it. We will posit that: 1) the world is dividing into two blocs - the plutonomies, where economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few, and the rest. Plutonomies have occurred before in sixteenth century Spain, in seventeenth century Holland, the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties in the U.S. What are the common drivers of Plutonomy?

Disruptive technology-driven productivity gains, creative financial innovation, capitalist-friendly cooperative governments, an international dimension of immigrants and overseas conquests invigorating wealth creation, the rule of law, and patenting inventions. Often these wealth waves involve great complexity, exploited best by the rich and educated of the time.

2) We project that the plutonomies (the U.S., UK, and Canada) will likely see even more income inequality, disproportionately feeding off a further rise in the profit share in their economies, capitalist-friendly governments, more technology-driven productivity, and globalization.

3) Most “Global Imbalances” (high current account deficits and low savings rates, high consumer debt levels in the Anglo-Saxon world, etc) that continue to (unprofitably) pre-occupy the world’s intelligentsia look a lot less threatening when examined through the prism of plutonomy. The risk premium on equities that might derive from the dyspeptic “global imbalance” school is unwarranted - the earth is not going to be shaken off its axis, and sucked into the cosmos by these “imbalances”. The earth is being held up by the muscular arms of its entrepreneur-plutocrats, like it, or not.
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4) In a plutonomy there is no such animal as “the U.S. consumer” or “the UK consumer”, or indeed the “Russian consumer”. There are rich consumers, few in number, but disproportionate in the gigantic slice of income and consumption they take. There are the rest, the “non-rich”, the multitudinous many, but only accounting for surprisingly small bites of the national pie.

(The Plutonomy Memos, part 1, pages 1-2, emphasis added). Those four points are not all of the points set forth in that memo, but they backup the gist of this Dredd Blog series.

A series that has attempted over and over to show readers that the discussions in the media about the "economy" might as well be taking place on the planet Mars, because in the U.S.eh? we do not have an "American economy", we have a plutonomy within a plutocracy (e.g. Who Are The Job Creators?).

In closing this post, note that the statement in the above quote (#4) that the "earth is being held up by the muscular arms of its entrepreneur-plutocrats" is the express philosophy of Ayn Rand, mentor of V.P. candidate Paul Ryan (see Ayn Rand: Patron Saint of The Plutocracy and Ayn Rand: Patron Saint of The Plutocracy - 4).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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“Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.” – Claud Cockburn

The U.S. Plutocracy and Plutonomy is discussed by former bank regulator William K. Black (begins at 1:11 after introduction):

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No Milk Today

I am working on a couple of series ... researching ... including listening to my new copy of Tempest, Bob Dylan's new album, which my partner gifted me.

So, tomorrow we ride again.

Meanwhile, since there is no milk today, listen to the song in the video below: "No milk today", by Herman's Hermits.

And by all means, try to notice how the American and British English languages have really changed since that time.

Notice the phonetics "turrist house in a back street part of town", as well as "the company was gay", "my love reigned as Queen", "we turned night into day", and other words that catch your ear.

The words I mentioned do not mean what they mean today compared to what they meant then.

Word morph ... be diligent to keep your vocabulary alive.

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Inside Job: $CAD With Money - 2

One of the mysteries that people claim to well understand is why banksters have been given tons of taxpayer money as a reward for their plunder of the treasury.

It is almost the mother of all conspiracy theories following Bush II doing a heckuva job on "the turrisstsss."

A law was even passed which was touted as the tip of the spear that would jab them with justice.

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog recently re-visited "White Collar Fraud Legislation Passed - 2" to review all the prosecutions of the plunder barons that have taken place under that law.

Some time back we also began a series that considered such bankster plunder to be a state crime against democracy, a "SCAD".

Here is the text of the Dredd Blog post on this date in 2010:

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The use of the word "$CAD" in the title (a take off on "SCAD") means State Crimes Against Democracy conducted by theft of the public fisc.

The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC yesterday was a mind blower to many folks, because it focused on the issue.

Dylan had on a guest who created "Inside Job", a documentary about the banksters who plundered the treasury, and who are still doing so wantonly.

This is another one of those situations where the government is complacent in some degree, clearly making this a broad based State Crime Against Democracy (SCAD).

Dredd Blog takes that position because it is a federal crime to steal public money by deception or similar means:

§ 648. Custodians, generally, misusing public funds

Whoever, being an officer or other person charged by any Act of Congress with the safe-keeping of the public moneys, loans, uses, or converts to his own use, or deposits in any bank, including any branch or agency of a foreign bank (as such terms are defined in paragraphs (1) and (3) of section 1(b) of the International Banking Act of 1978), or exchanges for other funds, except as specially allowed by law, any portion of the public moneys intrusted to him for safe-keeping, is guilty of embezzlement of the money so loaned, used, converted, deposited, or exchanged, and shall be fined under this title or in a sum equal to the amount of money so embezzled, whichever is greater, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both;

(Cornell Law School). A creative U.S. Attorney could use these statutes to prosecute what has happened on Wall Street for a decade, but there are even more statutes to contemplate:

§ 653. Disbursing officer misusing public funds

Whoever, being a disbursing officer of the United States, or any department or agency thereof, or a person acting as such, in any manner converts to his own use, or loans with or without interest, or deposits in any place or in any manner, except as authorized by law, any public money intrusted to him; or, for any purpose not prescribed by law, withdraws from the Treasury or any authorized depositary, or transfers, or applies, any portion of the public money intrusted to him, is guilty of embezzlement of the money so converted, loaned, deposited, withdrawn, transferred, or applied, and shall be fined under this title or not more than the amount embezzled, whichever is greater, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both;

(Cornell Law School). The scope of federal law reaches far, down into state banks and other banks that participate in utilizing public funds:

§ 656. Theft, embezzlement, or misapplication by bank officer or employee

Whoever, being an officer, director, agent or employee of, or connected in any capacity with any Federal Reserve bank, member bank, depository institution holding company, national bank, insured bank, branch or agency of a foreign bank, or organization operating under section 25 or section 25(a) of the Federal Reserve Act, or a receiver of a national bank, insured bank, branch, agency, or organization or any agent or employee of the receiver, or a Federal Reserve Agent, or an agent or employee of a Federal Reserve Agent or of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, embezzles, abstracts, purloins or willfully misapplies any of the moneys, funds or credits of such bank, branch, agency, or organization or holding company or any moneys, funds, assets or securities intrusted to the custody or care of such bank, branch, agency, or organization, or holding company or to the custody or care of any such agent, officer, director, employee or receiver, shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both; ...

As used in this section, the term “national bank” is synonymous with “national banking association”; “member bank” means and includes any national bank, state bank, or bank and trust company which has become a member of one of the Federal Reserve banks;

(Cornell Law School). The little roots of federal law even go deep into the lending and insurance systems across the nation:

§ 657. Lending, credit and insurance institutions

Whoever, being an officer, agent or employee of or connected in any capacity with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, National Credit Union Administration, Office of Thrift Supervision, the Resolution Trust Corporation, any Federal home loan bank, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Farm Credit Administration, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, the Secretary of Agriculture acting through the Farmers Home Administration or successor agency, the Rural Development Administration or successor agency, or the Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation, a Farm Credit Bank, a bank for cooperatives or any lending, mortgage, insurance, credit or savings and loan corporation or association authorized or acting under the laws of the United States or any institution, other than an insured bank (as defined in section 656), the accounts of which are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or by the National Credit Union Administration Board or any small business investment company, or any community development financial institution receiving financial assistance under the Riegle Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act of 1994, and whoever, being a receiver of any such institution, or agent or employee of the receiver, embezzles, abstracts, purloins or willfully misapplies any moneys, funds, credits, securities or other things of value belonging to such institution, or pledged or otherwise intrusted to its care, shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both;

(Cornell Law School). Any attempt to cover up or misrepresent the value of assets ("toxic assets") would fall into the financial criminal statutes as well:

§ 1005. Bank entries, reports and transactions

Whoever, being an officer, director, agent or employee of any Federal Reserve bank, member bank, depository institution holding company, national bank, insured bank, branch or agency of a foreign bank, or organization operating under section 25 or section 25(a) of the Federal Reserve Act, without authority from the directors of such bank, branch, agency, or organization or company, issues or puts in circulation any notes of such bank, branch, agency, or organization or company; or

Whoever, without such authority, makes, draws, issues, puts forth, or assigns any certificate of deposit, draft, order, bill of exchange, acceptance, note, debenture, bond, or other obligation, or mortgage, judgment or decree; or

Whoever makes any false entry in any book, report, or statement of such bank, company, branch, agency, or organization with intent to injure or defraud such bank, company, branch, agency, or organization, or any other company, body politic or corporate, or any individual person, or to deceive any officer of such bank, company, branch, agency, or organization, or the Comptroller of the Currency, or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or any agent or examiner appointed to examine the affairs of such bank, company, branch, agency, or organization, or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; or

Whoever with intent to defraud the United States or any agency thereof, or any financial institution referred to in this section, participates or shares in or receives (directly or indirectly) any money, profit, property, or benefits through any transaction, loan, commission, contract, or any other act of any such financial institution — Shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

(Cornell Law School). The creator of the documentary Inside Job was asked by Dylan Ratigan why not one, zero, nada, of the banksters had been prosecuted for the criminal enterprise that brought our economy down, that took millions of homes, millions of jobs, along with security and peace of mind from millions of American men, women, and children.

He said because Eric Holder is not willing to prosecute the criminals because he is soft on these types of crimes against democracy, which converts the situation into State Crimes Against Democracy due to complacency.

Here are a few Dredd Blog Posts on, or related to, this subject:

State Crimes Against Democracy - 5

Hood Robbin' From Poor Givin' To Rich

When Accountability Is A Plague

In conclusion, the banksters were said to be "too big to fail", but as it turns out they are Too Big To Jail.

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Break up the banks ...

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Last Day of September

Try To Remember

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh
so mellow.

Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember and if you remember
then follow
follow.

Try to remember when life was so tender
When no one wept except the willow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
When dreams were kept beside your pillow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
When love was an ember about to billow.
Try to remember and if you remember
then follow
follow.

Deep in December it's nice to remember
Although you know the snow will follow.
Deep in December it's nice to remember
Without a hurt the heart will hollow.
Deep in December
it's nice to remember
The fire of September that made you mellow.
Deep in December our hearts should remember  and follow
follow.

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