WatchThe ultra-rich (including corporations and unions!) complain that publicly funded Congressional campaigns and ban on private campaign donations would violate their right to free speech.
What they really mean is that a public campaign funding and ban on private campaign donations would limit the ultra-rich to having only as much free speech as anyone else. Unacceptable to them! They want to have more influence over elections than you or I do, so that they can continue to write laws that enhance their own profits, and then hand their laws to their bought-and-paid-for congressmen to sign.
The ultra-rich do have a right to free speech, but they should not have a right to drown out the speech of others with their cash.
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I usually hear references to Freakanomics from right-leaning sources.
That doesn't mean everything in it is wrong, but it's probably worth some "due diligence" before accepting everything in the book at face value.
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"If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal. "
Emma Goldman.
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Airtime for debates provided free on public airwaves should be the only campaigning allowed. All candidates for office donate their worldly belongings to the government when they get on the ballot, take a vow of poverty, and receive the median income for a pension when they leave office. Anyone giving them anything gets shot for treason.
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wthrfrk80 says
Really?
I generally tend to avoid discussions where left/right and liberal/conservative are proffered as Things With Meaning, but given my understanding of the two I find it strange that the "right-leaning" people would cite studies from a group who are regularly carried on "liberal" NPR and whose published work implies that national access to safe and legal abortion is the primary factor in the dramatically falling crime rates since the 1990s.
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Patrick says
Thanks Patrick. I read this editorial today and I usually don't like Richard Cohen's writing very much (a tool of the Empire), but he got this exactly right: "The liberal Obama that never was"
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/the-liberal-obama-that-never-was-um62aa6-162110755.html
"The left, not the right, gets Obama. It faults him for what he is not now and never was: a left-winger. They note that he has not closed Guantanamo and that he kills terrorists with drones - American citizens included - and that his health care plan adopted the mandate once favored by Republicans and used by Gov. Romney in Massachusetts. As for his stimulus packages, liberals find them unstimulating - not audacious enough to really lift the economy and send everybody shopping. This is all true enough.
Yet from the right comes this caricature of Obama as a wild-eyed barricade breacher straight out of "Les Misérables." But for all their duress, the rich under Obama have remained rich and there is nothing in his rhetoric to suggest that that will change much. From everything Obama says, it's clear he doesn't want to destroy the Hamptons or even buy there. Knowing him, he would split the difference and rent."
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cc0 says
That wouldn't surprise me. In the old days, abortion was called "military service." It was very very late term abortion.
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cc0 says
Yeah, people are all very good at selective memory when something suits their agenda.
I'm surprised anyone from the right would find the time to read it. They probably quote it from someone else's quote of Freakonomics (like NPR: which they deny listening to).
The right ignores the abortion facts, and the left ignores the education facts (that children just grow up according to examples set by adults, not by forcing them into 'education' camps).
Nobody wants to allow such things as facts to interfere with their particular model of the universe (the place they live in their head). In other words, people hate it when reality intrudes into their 'cave'. Modern consumerism has thrived on selling people a cave to hide their cave in a cave. (A vinyl couch in a "man cave" inside a 5000 ft^2 drywall shanty wrapped with vinyl).
It's so close to the people in Philip K. Dick's novel "The Penultimate Truth" that it is just sad. We don't need a nuclear war to make people live underground and get fed contrived information through closed circuit TV: they do it willingly.
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Auntiegrav says
Very true.
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aurelius says
My first reaction is, "of course". Any set of observations which run contrary to intuitive conclusions will solicit an array of "opinions" to the contrary. Just try reading anything about what gravity actually is right now and you run into the same sort of thing -- and that's not even political (though I'm sure someone here will tie a comment about gravitational theory to liberal Obamacare or conservative righteousness evangelism).
What I can conclude from the work cited in Freakonomics and independently repeated and verified numerous times now is that the popular reasoning about the causality between money and election outcomes is wrong. Now whether campaign finance reform could be useful or not is an entirely separate consideration. But, it wouldn't be because of the reasons most people are thinking.
For another such failed model refer to the empirical data on the cause-effect relationship of mandatory term-limits on state-level legislative offices.
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I have to leave another comment so I have 100 (YAY ME !!) comments.
One dollar, one vote.
This is the fundamental system of American democracy as it stands now. The failure of leadership lies in its complete waste of money trying to influence votes and increase cash flows, rather than spending government power to decelerate the dollars (sales tax instead of pandering with income tax 'breaks' to acclerate self-destruction).
Our 'nation' consists of a network of cashflows; not intelligent, mindful people (solving technical problems isn't necessarily an act that is mindful of its future effects..think "raccoons"). The people are irrelevant except as a subspecies of the dollars now. Knowing this is what keeps those who do manipulate cash flows on the top and those who play at being 'voters' on the bottom.
"Politics is the art of delaying a decision until it is irrelevant." We've delayed regulating the cash until we are irrelevant to our own lives.
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Randy H says
You get a special "like" for the gravity reference ;-). (Auntiegrav doesn't have to do with any parent's sister..)
Tho--here's the twisted part you're prescience felt in The Force: Obama's campaign promise of open government was probably thwarted when he was briefed about the actual status of our black projects, secret government, and somnambulant society in relation to many things: one of them would probably have included gravity science.
(If such a thing existed..of course.)
;-)
P.S. Not that anyone would be concerned with such things as investigative reporting, but a couple of references:
"The Hunt for Zero Point" by Nick Cook
"Area 51" by Annie Jacobsen
"Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins
The question is not whether there are any government conspiracies, but "What gets done in government WITHOUT one?"
"Trust No One" is exactly what makes it GO(such as it is).
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Auntiegrav says
Agreement. So then the problem is where do dollars come from, and how do people acquire them?
Take myself for instance. I came from nothing, and after dropping out of college, i filed for bankruptcy. So every dollar i can ever get my hands on, i have to work for. I'd be more then happy to compete in a world where all men were created equal, dollar wise, but how can i compete with the trust fund babies that are born into a ginormous rent stream from government protected monopolistic ventures? That's what you's guys call Crapitalism?
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Patrick says
Personally, I'm a promoter of the Random Party:
We just pick representatives through a lottery system of some type. No elections at all, and no worries about campaigns. We would have a more representative government, and probably fewer felons in office than we have now.
Throw in a move to an abandoned air base in Nebraska or someplace more centralized to the geography of the country, and put a fence around them and don't let them out for 4 years. Maybe some kind of Witness Protection program and false names while they are in office. How many people really KNOW who represents them, anyway (other than car dealers, CEO's and hookers)?
Next problem?
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Yes, I had not heard of that idea until recently. It's called "sortition":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
Probably does select pretty good people on average. Some problems though:
* Even if there was no campaign at all, random reps can still be bribed with promises of plum jobs after service.
* People selected may not want to serve. It might kind of like being on a jury for 2 or 6 years.
* The general level of literacy means most of our reps would not be capable of reading and understanding the laws they are voting on. Not that this is so different from the current situation, where the reps don't read the laws anyway. They just vote based on knowing which campaign contributors would be happy with their vote.
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errc says
A dollar is a representation of some value. Value is determined by the future usefulness of a thing.
The current idea that a dollar itself represents value is confused in that people believe that if they have a lot of dollars, they have the ability to buy anything they want, and so, by devaluing the dollar, a government lets people think they are more valuable than they are to the future. The value of people lies in their ability to contribute more to the future of their offspring than they consume in resources. If the economic model is one of Consumerism, then people consume more resources making dollars to buy more resources than they contribute labor toward improving or creating.
The 'Boom' cycle of competitive capitalism always leads to a bust because it doesn't consider the needs of the future: only the desires of the present. Future people don't exist, so it's OK to steal from them: even to steal from our future SELF (by borrowing money, whether or not our future self will be happy about it).
Additional dollars (inflation) are created in the partnership of debt: when you borrow money, you are promising to consume resources in the future to pay back money that is printed for you in the present. Government debt (at a tax rate of 25%) is a promise to put a gun to 4 times as many people in order to pay back money borrowed from a bank.
If you start out thinking in terms of barter systems, you understand what value is. The next step is understanding what money does to a barter system (accelerates the use of resources through efficiency of trade). Debt is a turbocharger for the consumption of resources. Government debt is a rocket sled to Hell, where no amount of money can be valuable because the resources are no longer available for the people demanding goods to make such goods. "Potatoes will get you through times of no gold better than gold gets you through times of no food."
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Patrick says
These are simply problems to solve when compared with what we have now (especially when considering the wasted resources involved).
In order:
Anonymity and isolation, limited to one term (minimal exposure to contractors and opportunities).
Everyone gets one "bye" to beg off and another person is chosen randomly. One year from notification to get affairs in order, if necessary. Most actual time spent by our representatives is actually minimal, so they could have plenty of time to run their lives between votes on legislation. Their time presently is spent on bullshit for campaigns and bribe opportunities, not actual debate or discussion of real issues.
Laws would, like military forms, end up being simplified and simpler. The current state of complex laws and budgets are a result of the lobbyists and their lawyers. Illiteracy can be solved like it always has: they get to call a friend they trust for advice or have a budget to hire someone. The difference is that the advice of their friends wouldn't be based on raising money for the next campaign.
So they get a job offer for knowing what they did. No big deal. They aren't going to have access to the NEXT randomly selected person except very rarely when it turns out to be someone they know.
Sessions would be short as most people would probably not want to waste each other's time.
Sure, it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be representative of an illiterate nation that would be forced to recognize real needs and actual results. Any one of us would have to face our neighbors when we came home again.
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errc says
Why do you hate freedom?
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wthrfrk80 says
wthrfrk80 says
wthrfrk80 says
Good question, I've never given it much thought, but since you bring it up, I figure its because I'm a bigtime RACIST
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The randomness idea is terrible. Fun to think about, but it would be an unmitigated disaster in practice. Talk about a race to the bottom.
but how can i compete with the trust fund babies that are born into a ginormous rent stream
Life ain't fair. Never has been, never will be. What makes you think the idealized equilibrium state could even ever really exist? Do a little mind experiment:
Go back to a time before money existed, when people were living in small clans of a few families. Success in that world probably equated to survival, defense of hunting territory, and pre-existing resources. If you happened to be unluckily born into the smaller clan which was on crappier turf lying in indefensible terrain you'd probably bemoan the "unfair fortunes" to those born into lush lands with naturally defensible barriers. ... if only we all lived in a world where I didn't have to compete against their monopoly on all the gazelles...
People misunderstand Capitalism. Capitalism is really just a system of motivations. In the above thought experiment, you might have decided, instead of whining about your poor lot in life, to innovate some creative raiding tactics so that you could figure out how to take some of the incumbent's lush lands away from them. Or perhaps you'd take a peaceful route and figure out how to improve your standard of living by finding or making something useful to those guys and trade for the gazelle meat.
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Randy H says
Actually, no. Life is a system of motivations and actions according to those motivations.
Capitalism is a belief system. It is a belief that accumulation of wealth is most important. Whether someone comes up with a rationalization for it (e.g. "Accumulating wealth lifts all members of a society.") or not, it is still a belief, and there are systems put in place to support or counter that belief.
It is not Humanism, which is the belief that what is good for humans is good for everything else, and that everything else is subservient to the desires of humans (another imagined 'morality').
Unfortunately, humans as we are led to believe do not exist. They have in the past, before homogenized Capitalism took over as the primary activity, but the actual actions of what we call "people" reflect that they are a subspecies of Homo Consumptus: no smarter than yeast, and as mischievous as raccoons.
The biggest and most aggressive raccoons are the ones that get first chance to stick their hand in the jar, and they break the jar to take whatever shiny thing was put there by nature.
This predicament is what leads to collapse in societies and the invention of new government systems to moderate the bullies (for a while). What we keep forgetting is that what makes humans most useful is the systems they put in place to keep them from being TOO human. It's called "moderation". Sometimes it goes too far and needs to be moderated itself (the barbarians are necessary to remind us to keep changing and adapting).
Pure capitalism has never worked because it assumes that people will act in their own best interests, and when they don't, it makes huge profits on 'deregulation' and 'economic stimulus' and claims that the Invisible Hand Job will step in "sometime" and make the people act better. The IHJ never actually shows up, and we get busted instead, and start over again, following a few people who got very rich (or the first psychopath with some charisma) and then believing everyone should do what they did (accumulate and then deny resources to others..raising prices). The result is a repeating process of bully vs. bully until the biggest bullies are standing on top of a pile of dead bodies and wondering where to find more resources to exploit.
No. Life ain't fair. It's fucking random. We need to get over the concept that we can beat the randomness in the long term with anything other than our own forms of randomness (diversity, adaptability, service to the future rather than consumption of it).
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The best we can hope for is the extinction of the human species before some psychopath (or military) invents a mind control device. Nothing could have stopped the invention of the atomic bomb (military one-upmanship will never end) and nothing will stop the invention of mind control except technological/scientific limitations.
Then again, we already have a mild form of "mind control." It's called mass media. Particularly Fox News and AM Radio. And we have plenty of their mind-controlled drones trolling the Patnet forums each day.
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I find the Fox News and AM radio mind control really interesting. It works only on people who are already afraid and angry, usually people who don't have a very good education. You can often tell by the words they misspell.
They are right to be afraid and angry because the 0.1% has shipped off all their jobs to China and is systematically trying to undermine Social Security, Medicare, etc too. So they are slowly but surely being impoverished by the 0.1%.
But then they are convinced by Fox News and AM radio to blame themselves. Or to blame Mexicans, even though they wouldn't do the jobs Mexicans do. Or to blame "liberals", or blacks.
It's just divide and conquer. And it's working really really well for the 0.1%.
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Patrick says
I agree about public financing of elections.
But it can't be really clean, therefore it wouldn't be simple.
For example what's to stop people from getting articles or editorials written representing their bias or preference in an election ?
I think you have to allow money to be spent backing reasonable ideas, policies, and candidates, and I don't think the answer is simple.
It just has to be very limited somehow.
MAybe the key is to have campaign funds (that is entities that mange the comapign finances) for each candidate, where the contributions are very well defined (who the contributors are and how much they contributed) and then have a fairly low cap on it, depending on the office.
(then you actually need government oversight of this - which is a pain - but worthwhile)
What's needed are mostly is 2 things:
1) Make the price of being a politician low enough that they don't end up spending all their time raising money and whoring themselves out to the highest bidders.
2) Eliminate the possibility of unlimited campaign dollars going to an opponent thus allowing koch bros to say "do such and such or else !!"
(note that eventually under our current system ultimately the rich and powerful won't even have to spend gobs of money. Just the threat of them taking you out of office will be enough for them to get their way)
Reform won't be simple, or completely clean, but it's somewhat amazing that there aren't even forces at work really to bring about reform. So our government follws it's natural trajectory towards fascism.
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wthrfrk80 says
Amateurs. When you consider that religions have spent thousands of years refining their marketing processes to sell a product that never has to be delivered, Fox and Talk Radio are just Johnny-Come-Latelies with electronics and half-baked science.
Modern marketing puts something shiny or noisy in the bottom of the clear jar for the raccoons to grab for.
Religion gets the raccoon/lemmings to BELIEVE there's something in a lead jar in the bottom of a poisoned, muddy river.
Somewhere between Religion and Capitalism lies the Patriotism of Empire and Brand Loyalty and Packer Fans wearing cheeseheads just before they sign up for a chance to fight over whether they should jump for the Jesus jar or the Mohammed jar.
And all along the way, God, country, apple pie and Chevrolet are with them: paying interest to the same banks that Achmed is when he buys AKs, Toyotas and cell phone IEDs.
"Would you like to know about our family plan with a free smart phone for your wife?"
We don't have to worry about the robots taking over. We ARE the robots. Why all of the bother about "freedom" when everyone is mindless?
I agree with Randy H. The random election idea is terrible. Why bother with the pretense that people are intelligent at all? Just put them in the barn and milk them to death. That would be the most efficient thing.
If we skip the barn, it's already a done deal called "eBay."
And with that, my friends, I am back on the tractor to stir up this dust that used to be farm.
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Auntiegrav says
Wow!
You should win some kind of award for that one.
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Vicente says
Ha ha! Yeah, "Commendation for Outstanding Dipshit Robot". With that and 4 bucks, I can get an iced mocha.
I write what I know I've fallen for, I guess.
Don't get me started on Teddy Roosevelt. Have you read "The Imperial Cruise" by James Bradley?
Tractor ran out of gas as I pulled up to the shed. How lucky is THAT in this random universe?
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Just as long as your airplane doesn't run out of gas as you fly it toward the airport.
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Patrick says
Blame Liberals it is!
Lawmakers Want ‘Made in China’ U.S. Olympic Uniforms Burned
Lawmakers were outraged Thursday after an ABC World News report revealed that the U.S. Olympic team’s opening ceremony outfits are made in China. Some suggested making a bonfire with the outfits, which include berets and blazers.
“I think they should take all the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them and start all over again,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said when asked by ABC News today, “If they have to wear nothing but a symbol that says USA on it, painted by hand, that is what they should wear.”
so who made the Uniforms.... Ralph Lauren a Democrat... ever dawn on anyone what they were doing ?
http://www.campaignmoney.com/biography/ralph_lauren.asp
olitical Campaign Contributions by Ralph Lauren (1999 to Present) - $30,100
DEMOCRAT: 100.00% REPUBLICAN: 0.00%
Contributed To Party $ Amt Date
DNC SERVICES CORPORATION/DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE Democrat 5,000 06/25/2009
OBAMA VICTORY FUND Democrat 2,300 10/24/2008
OBAMA VICTORY FUND Democrat 2,300 10/24/2008
DRISCOLL FOR CONRGRESS Democrat 2,000 10/06/2004
JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC Democrat 1,000 07/29/2004
JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC Democrat 1,000 07/29/2004
A LOT OF PEOPLE SUPPORTING TOM DASCHLE INC Democrat 1,000 03/25/2004
FRIENDS OF SCHUMER Democrat 500 12/04/2003
FRIENDS OF SCHUMER Democrat 2,000 12/04/2003
JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC. Democrat 2,000 06/03/2003
KERRY COMMITTEE Democrat 1,000 11/04/2002
NEW YORK SENATE 2000 Democrat 10,000 09/28/1999
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thomas.wong1986 says
The Communists used to talk about how Capitalists exploit the workers. They were wrong. Capitalists exploit everything and anything: not just workers. A system that protects workers and exploits the resources that the workers need doesn't work either.
Isn't it time we stopped letting people do the Left/Right blame game when we all know the game is rigged for those with the money to rig it?
We are ALL under the thumb of debt, climate, extraction economics and a lot of false fears. We are all at least partly to blame for it, too. The race to the top (or the bottom) is a result of our failure to be the self-disciplined, honorable and decent beings we tell ourselves we are.
We have created systems in the past to make us follow our own ideals even when we are drunk on success. Whether those systems were economic, political, cultural, or religious; the trick is to pay attention to the basic wisdom that is embedded in them, and try to cooperate with those who also are trying to find their own forms of wisdom to make a better future.
Beating each other up over what we've done wrong (or what you don't like about their lifestyles) doesn't find the right way to git 'er done.
The future belongs to people IN the future, and we don't have a right to any of their resources unless we come up with something that replaces those resources.
You can't make a profit with sick, angry or dead workers, and you can't consume your way out of overconsumption (see Easter Island).
So, go ahead and tally up the crooks and liars who are all supporting the corporatism of the Empire as it decays. See how those add up against the 'invarromintallists who write articles or letters to Darth Vader asking him not to destroy planets with the Death Star or get run over by whaling ships in their Quixotic quests against profits.
Our societies and leaders are all very very sick right now. Maybe the useless reporters and political hacks are just waiting for it to die and see if they are in the will, but I don't think anyone believes their particular champagne party will ever end as badly as it does.
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Auntiegrav says
my answer to you is NO!
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wthrfrk80 says
Lots of planes flying over on the way to OshKosh these days. I hope they don't run out here, either.
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Capitalism is an emergent system. It's that simple.
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Auntiegrav says
Yes you can. It's the American way.
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wthrfrk80 says
RACIST
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errc says
homophobe!
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wthrfrk80 says
Assuming that is a success over the long term...which it doesn't look so good from a resource standpoint right now (climate stability is a resource).
There's another way that a species can consume its way out of consumption: it's called "extinction".
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errc says
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/kipling.asp
Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
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Auntiegrav says
That's the best-case scenario for humanity. The worst case is living under mind-control, which *will* eventually be invented. For the same reason that the atomic bomb was eventually invented. Military one-upmanship isn't going away anytime soon.
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wthrfrk80 says
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Yea mama !!