I was searching a reference and somehow got here.
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Robert Manne has an op-ed piece on equality and George Orwell in this morning's SMH. He ends with this observation: Orwell wrote a brief review of the most important anti-socialist manifesto of the 20th century, F.A.Hayek's Road to Serfdom. Orwell was honest enough to admit th...
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My sister Sue's husband Adam is a knockabout sort of bloke. A carpenter by trade, mostly doing heritage-style renovations around Sydney's north shore and inner west. Great husband and father, likes a few beers and the occasional joint. Loves nothing better than a good chin-wag...
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The stirring injunction that adorns the pediment of the US Supreme Court has a new resonance today - and Andrew Sullivan is ecstatic. In a 6/3 majority decision the Court yesterday struck down the gay-specific anti sodomy laws of Texas thereby implicitly invalidating all remai...
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Jason Soon's employer Henry Ergas in today's Australian newspaper: SENATOR Richard Alston's announcement that legislation will be introduced to sell off the 50.1 per cent of Telstra that is government-owned could create a more dynamic and competitive telecommunications market....
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The Senate voted to reject the Howard government's media law "reforms", with all 4 Independents as well as Labor, Democrats and Greens voting against. Margo Kingston (link via Tim Dunlop) has an excellent article on the saga. As Margo points out, no other print media are givin...
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You wouldn't think the murder of a Melbourne gangster and notorious hitman would have anything to do with constitutional law, would you? Actually, you'd be right. But there is a connection of sorts, however indirect. Jason Moran was gunned down the other day while watching his...
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HG and Roy's immortal saying " when too much sport is just barely enough " has never been truer than tonight. The Blues over Queensland in thugby league by 27 - 4, followed by Wimbledon tennis action. And in Darwin, the V8 Supercars are in town for the annual round at the Hidd...
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Sydney's new Lord Mayor, the glamorous Lucy Turnbull, has just announced the 1,458th go at cleaning-up "The Cross," since 1962. Lucy's ideal of Kings Cross seems to shape as the kind of place where a go-getting squattocratic Darling Point girl can shut her eyes and imagine her...
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I hadn't realised until now just how many crims are keen ballet fans. Bravura performances of the Dying Swan are now more common among gangsters (not to mention white collar crims) than imitations of Al Pacino in The Godfather a few years ago. Bernard Slattery , for instance,...
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Last night's ABC 7.30 Report contained a depressingly predictable story suggesting that the Catholic Church has learned little or nothing about how to handle child sexual abuse by its clergy and teachers, and remains frozen into a lawyer-driven stance of dishonesty, denial and...
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General Mike Jeffery's appointment to Yarralumla has had a curious Papal tone to it, given his stated commitment to emulating the Papacy...I mean, Governor-Generalship of Sir Zelman Cowen. Just like John Paul I emulating Popes John XXIII and Paul VI. Or John Paul II emulating...
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This morning a caller to Sally Loane's ABC Radio show raised the vexed question of the "unfair advantage" accruing to the NZ All Blacks from their pre-game Haka - 'Ka Mate! Ka Mate!' or 'Te Rauparaha's Haka.' With the World Cup looming, the caller was concerned that our nation...
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This interesting feature from the Washington Post canvasses the emergent academic field of - yes - "White Studies." Before you're overwhelmed with images of white sheet wearers, burning crosses and rousing choruses of the Horst Wessel Lied , I should offer some reassurance: Wh...
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I'll leave the detailed rugby post-mortem to Christopher Sheil or Wayne Wood. However my own immediate reaction is that, although England had a decisive victory over the Wallabies (25-14), things weren't as bad as I feared. Australia clearly needs to improve in numerous areas,...
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According to the Sydney Morning Herald (link via Tim Blair ), Communications Minister Richard Alston is on the verge of clinching a deal with the 4 Independent Senators which would see the effective abolition of Australia's current foreign and cross-media ownership laws, albei...
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It's a shame Tim Blair (blog cactus at present) is still successfully ignoring the amazing Margo Kingston. Yesterday's Web Diary piece was a monumental achievement in journalistic vacuity even by her stellar standards. Someone apparently gave Margo one of those "can do" Americ...
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I don't think I've ever until now linked a story from Channel 9's A Current Affair . Tonight, however, they had a story on an idea that's been a hobbyhorse of mine for a long time: DIY real estate sales . Having spent nearly 20 years running a private legal firm which involved...
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Bailz has a truly inspired take on Channel 9's The National Driving Test 2003 , aired earlier this week. I confess I didn't bother watching it, because it was compered by Eddie McGuire, who I find about as talented as a brick wall. As it turned out, I suspect Bailz's take on t...
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The elegant and erudite Gianna is the latest (and second last, I'm told) blogger to be granted refuge by that great blogospherical philanthropist Scott Wickstein . What with Boynton et al , the Ubersportingpundit empire may well be the only part of the blogosphere to achieve s...
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On Tuesday night I swallowed a lump of exquisitely prepared Beef Ragu and that was it. It failed to move anywhere other than my oesophagus. Given that it was still firmly lodged there at 4am, my partner, Lance, decided it was high time to get me to our local hospital emergency...
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Why does the ABC insist on showing a never-ending stream of Pommie "celebrity" chef shows, when English cuisine (as it's laughingly called) is among the world's worst? Is this the last bastion of the great Australian cultural cringe? Is there really a huge audience for the see...
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John Quiggin has an excellent post on Ross Gittins' latest column about a new ABS study on Australian working hours. Gittins effectively suggests that the union-inspired concern about Australians working longer and longer hours has been exaggerated. JQ, on the other hand, sugg...
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Gareth Parker is back on deck and blogging full steam ahead. That's a relief, I feared for a minute that we might have lost one of the ozplogosphere's leading young talents. Anyway, Gareth's too young to have a midlife crisis. Despite his blogging sabbatical, however, Gareth's...
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Many apologies to readers that this blog has been effectively out of operation for several hours. We haven't been able to post articles; in fact I lost a very long one I'd been working on for over an hour, which made me very happy indeed. Readers also haven't been able to post...
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Further to my previous post Leadership Renewal , I felt I should make a centrist endeavour to maintain blogging balance in sexuality as well as political terms. Accordingly, here's a thumbnail of Geoff Honnor's nominee for Liberal Party deputy leader - gay icon, NIDA drama stu...
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The BlogGeist seems to be in fine form at the moment. Like yours truly, Uberleftie blogger Rob Schaap has posted an item which shamelessly exploits sex. In contrast to mine, however, Rob's piece has a certain passing intellectual elegance. PS - Rob also pays out on Frog post-m...
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I see that the esteemed Bernard Slattery has joined the ranks of bloggers granted protection visas by Troppo Armadillo's warm-hearted host Scott Wickstein . And in contrast to Phillip Ruddock , cash donations are not required. I'm also given to understand that another prodigio...
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One of Australia's leading newspapers was today condemned by an eccentric Scottish tourist and media campaigner for "blatantly sensationalist tabloid journalism". "The Sydney Morning Herald featured a 'crocodile shock' story on the front page of its Internet edition earlier ye...
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While I'm on a political leadership and election strategies theme, I observed in a comment to a post yesterday that a recent speech by Labor's prize nincompoop Mark Latham revealed the ALP's intended "wedge" propaganda lines for the next election. Thinking more about it, altho...
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The most evocative scene in tonight's ABC TV Australian Story program about Simon the Unlikeable was the very last one in Crean's office earlier today, right after the leadership vote he survived seemingly in comfort. Only Simon's loyal if none too bright wife Carole was happy...
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Remarkable! A moderate, sensible, even balanced column about Muslims from Miranda Devine. No it's not an oxymoron, and I haven't been ingesting hallucinogenic substances. Read it for yourself .
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Blogging and coughing and postponing starting the day's renovations. I see from a comment by Tex that he's from Darwin. He probably won't thank me for this, but the penny's finally dropped. Tex is the brother of Mark Textor, senior federal Liberal Party pollster and John Howar...
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Contrary to Geoff Honnor's opinion, I have little respect for Dodson and I think that many of the endemic problems that beset ATSIC, are at least partly the fault of Dodson in his previous incarnation. His recent address is the same old same old; long on rhetoric, short on sol...
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Raging flu ... bad back ... aching all over ... God I feel crook ... renovation frenzy ... must finish this weekend ... God I feel crook ... no energy for blogging ... co-bloggers hold the fort ... over and out!
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It seems the Teachers Union Health Fund has got itself in a spot of bother with government regulators over some of the financial deals the TUH board has done using members funds. In an article by Colleen Ryan as a sidebar to a feature on health funds in the AFR 13/6/03 (availa...
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When David Morgan suggests (AFR 12/6/03) "...accelerating the phased increase in the preservation age for superannuation from 55 to 60....." those of you currently aged less than 50 who are anticipating (semi)retirement at 55, should be re-assessing your plans. It's most unlik...
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When you live in Darwin, the horrendous levels of violence in our indigenous community are impossible to ignore. Even more so when my wife Jenny has taught in a predominantly Aboriginal school for the last decade, and when I've spent almost 20 years doing legal work for a vari...
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A friend of mine has suggested that the ALP leadership contest is like the intrigues at your typical Italian renaissance court. The only response to that is something like, "I knew Cesare Borgia, and mate let me tell you, neither of these dudes is Cesare Borgia." But my relati...
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Perry De Havilland (via Stephen Dawson on Libertarians ) has a strange little post on Samizdata , asserting that blogging should be seen as a marketplace rather than a democratic conversation space. The reasoning seems to flow from the extreme libertarian/neo-liberal viewpoint...
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John Quiggin has an excellent post this morning on John Howard's economic policies. It provides a perfect bookend to Christopher Sheil's piece on economic rationalism (see below). I especially like Jason Soon's comment: "My reading of Howard's commitment to free market reform...
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As you'll notice from the entry immediately below, Christopher Sheil has joined the co-blogger team at Troppo Armadillo . As many readers will be aware, Chris has been a frequent and valued comment box contributor to numerous blogs over the last couple of months, and I thought...
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What do you do if you're a university student and you've just finished 2 poorly researched, sloppily written undergraduate essays, neither of which contains even a modicum of critical or analytical thought? Go to the pub and drown your sorrows? Hit the books and start studying...
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Mike Steketee has an article in today's Australian which carries forward the debate about constitutional reform we've been having in the blogosphere since John Howard announced his patently cynical proposal for reforming the Constitution's deadlock/joint sitting provisions as...
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Watching the 7.30 report the other night I was interested to see a segment on Human Growth Hormone. The pharmaceutical benefits advisory committee (PBAC) has restricted subsidy to children, thus causing anyone over 14 that reckons they need the drug to pay full price if they w...
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Alex Petridis is an eloquently acerbic Arts critic for the Guardian. Check out this wicked little critique of the Stones' concert at Olympiahalle in Munich an out-take from which I append as a teaser: When the Rolling Stones play badly, you are left with a pantomime of leather...
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Since I recently published my conclusion that historian Lyndall Ryan apparently didn't have an answer to Keith Winschuttle's accusation of fabrication of Aboriginal massacres statistics in Tasmania, I should also link to Ken Miles' recounting of a recent meeting he attended wh...
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George Williams proposes a reform measure for the Senate that strikes me as vastly preferable to John Howard's cynical proposal. Williams' idea involves fixed 4 year terms for Federal Parliament, along with a somewhat liberalised joint sitting mechanism for twice-rejected bill...
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( *Warning - long blog ahead) Longer term readers of Troppo Armadillo will know that one of my pet hobbyhorses has been the global warming debate. However, I've been a bit remiss of late. Ken Miles (the UnAustralian) has been blogging away for weeks, undertaking an admirably d...
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Bazza Jones was assuring us this morning that ALP leadership was not about beauty, it was about policy. Well, perhaps. But if he comes near you with a Knowledge Nation policy proposal, you'd be well-advised to run like fuck. Given that this wisdom echoes Simon Crean's "this is...
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Professor Bunyip is at his sardonic best this morning.
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Further to the post immediately below on Howard's "gut the Senate" referendum scam, I see both Paddy McGuinness and Alan Wood have come out in predictable lockstep support of the Dark Lord's proposal. Expect the other Wringwraiths to follow suit: Janet Albrechtsen, Miranda Dev...
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"Fresh" from an exhilarating weekend of high pressure renovation, I see John Howard has been floating a trial balloon for constitutional "reform" of the Senate to allow governments to to put twice-rejected Bills before a joint sitting of Parliament without the inconvenience (n...
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I've just completed an agribusiness project for my brother to offer to a couple of his friends who have expressed an interest in raising cattle. One is a lawyer, another an architect, both of whom have been moaning about changes to the tax laws that prohibit them from 'hobby f...
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Darwin has more than its fair share of halfwitted revhead dickheads whose idea of fun is spending all Friday and Saturday nights doing donuts, wheelies and burnouts around otherwise quiet suburban streets. The cops are never in evidence. As I lie awake for hours listening to t...
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Meika the dolebludger on belonging, alienation and "the system": To refuse to blame the system is to assume a certain power, the way a pretender assumes a royal title or titular duchy or two. Curiously you are more likely to gain employment in the system if you lie about this...
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Go to Tim Blair's blog , take the "dodginess" quiz and post your score in Tim's comment box. I was only moderately dodgy, as befits a centrist, at 7 years prison and a 7,500 pound fine. Of course, they were mostly committed when I was young and silly (as opposed to middle-aged...
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This wicked little Daily Telegraph Op Ed, by Tom Uttley , asserts that all Australian men are homosexuals and that Prince William should be appointed our next GG to "cheer up the Sheilas" and to put our nation "on the map." The opportunities for offence to be taken here, are u...
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You might notice that I've deleted the hit counter Scott stuck in my new template. It was irritating me. Nevertheless, we seemed to be running at around 400 hits per day, which is quite respectable in all the circumstances. many thanks to all the bloggers who plugged Troppo Ar...
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Emma Tom is in Darwin. Who else could visit Crocodylus Park and then write a column about croc penises (and croc sex in general)?
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Ross Gittins has a typically excellent review of Clive Hamilton's book Growth Fetish in today's SMH. I blogged on aspects of the book dealing with happiness studies some time ago, as did other bloggers including John Quiggin here and here . Gittins discusses a range of other i...
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Another Reuters piece : McDonald's has sued one of Italy's top food critics for raking its restaurants over the coals, but the critic says he has no intention of going back on saying its burgers taste of rubber and its fries of cardboard.
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The Tories certainly don't have a monopoly on humourless killjoy politicians. With Simon Crean in the news, however, you don't really need reminding of this. Nevertheless this Reuters story about the WA Labor government provides further confirmation: An Australian state has pu...
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This morning's press conferences were like a plumber's yard pitch session. Kim was concerned at "connection" problems while Simon had major issues with "destabilisation" Both could do you a really good deal on the rectification front. Simon lashed out at those who were - inexp...
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Two of the ozplogosphere's most prominent pseudonymous bloggers, Professor Bunyip and Gummo Trotsky , are having a squabble about stoning adulterous Nigerian women to death. Bunyip reckons Fairfax journo Pamela Bone (and presumably Gummo) is an inconsistent leftie and a willin...
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I apologise to long-suffering Troppo Armadillo readers for the recurring blog access problems experienced today. I must have done something truly appalling to anger the gods of cyberspace to this extent. Being a daily visitor to James Russell's Hot Buttered Death , a fellow re...
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You'd be hard placed to sell Tonga as a believable fictional scenario . An over-populated and under-resourced Polynesian island kingdom presided over by an absolute monarch who combines the strategic skills of Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria with the physique of an aging sumo wrest...
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I've just returned from the International Golden Oldies Rugby Union Festival in Brisbane (I'll try to get around to posting something on ubersport) to find that Ken has been chastised by the cyber fairies for some, as yet undisclosed, transgression against cyberfuddle. I've be...
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This piece by Matt Price in today's Australian was timely, because I too had been wondering about whether "rooster" was such a bad term of reference for a fellow Australian male. In the loose-limbed vernacular circles that I move in, it could almost be heard as affectionate -...
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Former UNSCOM boss Richard Butler has a useful opinion piece in this morning's Australian , observing that the failure so far to find WOMD in liberated Iraq " has led to serious expressions of concern around the world that the rationale for invasion may have been false or fabr...
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I see that Jozef Imrich is also back and blogging after a fairly lengthy hiatus. Jozef has a mostly European focus, combining literary with political interests. Jozef picked up on the same article on academic blogging from Chronicle of Higher Education that I mentioned yesterd...
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Last week's conviction and (weekend) gaoling of flamboyant stockbroker Rene Rivkin for insider trading, and today's conviction and sentencing to one years' imprisonment of Queensland Chief Magistrate Di Fingleton for interfering with a witness, may cumulatively be quite signif...
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Stewart Kelly is a seriously disturbed young man .
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(Via Jack Balkin ) The Chronicle of Higher Education has a feature on academic bloggers . It has a strongly American focus (being a US journal), but is well worth reading. A sample: Mr. Balkin sees this openness and pluralism as a rebuke to the argument posited by Cass Sunstei...
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That respected repository of medical wisdom, the British Medical Journal , has devoted it's current issue to the vexed question of doctor/drug company relationships. One side of this eternal argument insists that the creme de la creme of our great teaching hospitals are but pu...
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I see Scott Wickstein has announced the resurrection of Troppo Armadillo. It might have been better to wait until there was something resembling actual readable content, but que sera sera. Many thanks to Scott for granting a protection visa to this cyberspace asylum seeker, an...
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HI THERE AND WELCOME TO THE FINAL RESTING PLACE of TROPPO ARMADILLO. On first inspection, you may be thinking "Gee this site looks crap". And you'd be right too- it does look a bit like it was put up in a hurry. That is because it WAS put up in a hurry- Ken was making ominous...
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