Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Alabama bluesman Little Jimmy Reed. Enjoy!
Lil' Jimmy Reed - You Got Me Running
“Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.”
-- Herbert Marcuse
News and Opinion
Ukraine says it controls Donetsk airport after fighting leaves dozens dead
Ukraine has said it has regained control of the airport in the eastern city of Donetsk after a day of punishing air strikes and fierce fighting with pro-Moscow separatist gunmen left dozens of people dead.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, immediately called on Ukraine to end its "punitive" operation in the rebel-held east and for talks between Kiev and the insurgents.
The battle for the main transport hub in Ukraine's industrial heartland erupted on Monday just hours after the president-elect, Petro Poroshenko, vowed to take a tough stand against the "terrorists".
"The airport is under our full control. The enemy suffered heavy losses. We have none," the interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said in a statement.
He said, however, that the military was continuing its operation at the airport, and journalists reported hearing sporadic gunfire and explosions during the morning.
An insurgent rebel claimed at least 30 fighters' bodies had been brought to a hospital. The rebel, who would not give his name to the Associated Press because of security concerns, said 30 bodies had been delivered there following clashes in which government forces used combat jets against pro-Russia rebels.
Will Election Unite Ukraine? Dozens Killed in Airport Battle as President-Elect Vows Russia Talks
Fighting rages in eastern Ukraine city, dozens dead
Ukrainian forces fought with separatists in the city of Donetsk for a second day on Tuesday after inflicting heavy losses on the rebels and the government vowed to press on with a military offensive "until not a single terrorist" was left.
Pro-Russian rebels said more than 50 of their fighters had been killed. The mayor of Donetsk, an industrial hub of one million in eastern Ukraine, said the death toll in the clashes which erupted on Monday stood at 48, including two civilians.
A Reuters correspondent counted 20 bodies in combat fatigues in one room of a hospital morgue, some of them missing limbs. Rebels said they had all been killed in a truck that came under fierce attack by the army. ...
Ukraine used air strikes and a paratroop assault on Monday to clear rebels from Donetsk's international terminal and had pushed the separatists out of the complex by the end of the day.
But shooting continued through the night and on Tuesday the road to the airport bore signs of fighting overnight and heavy machinegun fire could be heard in the distance in mid-morning.
3 civilians killed in shelling of Slavyansk residential area
At least three civilians have reportedly been killed and several wounded when the Ukrainian Army launched a mortar attack on the town of Slavyansk in eastern Ukraine. One of the shells fell near a local teachers college, according to Ridus news portal.
Residential blocks were ruined as a result of the assault by Kiev's forces on Monday, the Ridus correspondent reported from the scene. At least two apartment blocks were damaged and “at least two people – a man and a woman – were killed,” the reporter said.
“We came up to look at the man but he was already dead. A shell had fallen right next to a 9-storey apartment block, all the glass was out. The man’s head was bleeding, his arms and legs were broken. When we went further, we found a dead woman near a teachers college, a shell hit there too,” a local told RT, adding that after that a third man was found nearby.
Alarm in Donetsk as people brace for Ukrainian forces attack
People are clearing shelves in Donetsk city shops, fearing a new wave of attack and storming of the city by Ukrainian troops. Fighter jets are buzzing overhead in the sky, as self-defense prepares for a fight in the occupied administrative buildings. ...
Many shops, banks and cafes have already been closed, and there are few people and cars seen on the streets, Itar-Tass reports. Schools are being evacuated and bomb shelter addresses are being distributed in the city’s districts. The Kiev forces have blocked almost all roads to and from Donetsk, the agency says. ...
Following the start of the latest wave of Kiev’s offense, workers at several mines in Donetsk have gone on strike. The action has been launched indefinitely in protest of the military operation carried out by government troops against anti-Kiev forces. ...
The industrial region of Donbas is strongly associated with mining and metallurgy, and the miners are believed to be a powerful driving force there. There have only been a few incidents of strikes at the mines since the start of the Ukrainian crisis, with workers being under pressure of losing their jobs and wages if they walk out.
On Sunday, hundreds of people in Donetsk besieged the residence of oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, who owns much of eastern Ukraine’s industrial companies, demanding that he take the side of the protesters and start paying taxes to DNR, instead of Kiev. Akhmetov, who initially issued statements against the military operation, has recently taken Kiev’s side, reportedly pressing his employees to start taking part in “anti-separatist” rallies.
Nigel Farage: EU to blame for Ukraine crisis
Exxon and BP Strengthen Ties With Russia
Ignoring the potential threat of further sanctions, both Exxon and BP have strengthened ties with Russia’s state-controlled oil company, Rosneft, in deals that can also only be seen as bad news for the climate.
Exxon’s and BP’s actions will also be frowned upon by Ukraine’s fledgling government.
Despite the fact that Rosneft’s chief executive Igor Sechin is on the US blacklist, this did not stop Exxon and BP signing agreements with him at Russia’s equivalent of Davos, an international economic forum in St. Petersburg. At the forum, Sechin laughed off sanctions saying they “don’t seem so threatening any more”.
The US State Department had asked Exxon to stay away from the international forum in Putin’s hometown.
Syrian rebels describe U.S.-backed training in Qatar in new documentary
WASHINGTON — With reports indicating that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad are gaining ground in that country’s brutal civil war, moderate Syrian rebels have told a visiting journalist that the United States is arranging their training in Qatar.
In a [Frontline] documentary to be aired Tuesday night, the rebels describe their clandestine journey from the Syrian battlefield to meet with their American handlers in Turkey and then travel on to Qatar, where they say they received training in the use of sophisticated weapons and fighting techniques, including, one rebel said, “how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush.”
The interviews are the latest evidence that after more than three years of warfare, the United States has stepped up the provision of lethal aid to the rebels. In recent months, at least five rebel units have posted videos showing their members firing U.S.-made TOW anti-tank missiles at Syrian positions. The weapons are believed to have come from Saudi Arabia, but experts on international arms transfers have told McClatchy that they could not have been given to the rebels without the approval of the Obama administration.
Despair and dread grip Syrian refugees on election’s eve
A little over a week ago, Syrian refugees began to notice men going around the camps in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, asking who wanted to vote for president and taking down names.
The men identified themselves as members of a Lebanese political party allied to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.
Their presence was a reminder to the more than one million Syrian refugees in Lebanon that they are still within the reach of a Damascus government that has appeared increasingly confident in its ability to handle a three-year-old rebellion.
"Even here in Lebanon, they’re following us," said a 35-year-old refugee using the name Abu Mohammad al-Binshi, sitting in a tent of sticks and plastic sheets about nine miles (15 km) from the Syrian frontier.
A week before a vote all but certain to give Assad a third term, many of Lebanon’s refugees are coping with the realization that a conflict they thought would end in months could grind on for many more years. ...
Abdallah al-Araj, a 21-year-old former student from Raqqa, a northeastern city now controlled by an al Qaeda splinter group, described his disillusionment as the revolt turned from protest movement to civil war after a government crackdown.
"This is not a revolution, this is the destruction of the country," he said. "We would've definitely stood with something that realized the demands of the people in a peaceful, civilized way. But once the situation got dragged into armed revolution, once it became militarised, it was bound to fail."
Turkish court seeks military arrests of Israelis over ship killings
A Turkish court has issued arrest warrants on Monday for four former Israeli military commanders who are on trial in absentia over the 2010 killing of nine Turks on a Gaza-bound aid ship, Turkish media reports said.
The move came after months of negotiations between Turkey and Israel to end a diplomatic crisis over the Israeli commando raid on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship challenging Israel's naval blockade of Palestinian-run Gaza Strip in 2010.
Eight Turks and a Turkish-American died during the operation and a Turkish man, Suleyman Ugur Soylemez, died in hospital on Friday night after four years in a coma since the raid.
The court ordered the arrest of former Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, ex-Navy Commander Eliezer Marom, ex-Air Force Commander Amos Yadlin and ex-head of Air Force intelligence head Avishay Levi, the newspaper Hurriyet said on its website. ...
Although the indictment was handed up in 2012, no arrest warrants were issued then. The court said on Monday it would seek the issue of Interpol 'red notices' for the arrest of the four former generals.
Vietnam, China trade barbs after Vietnamese fishing boat sinks
Vietnam and China traded accusations on Tuesday over the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat not far from where China has parked an oil rig in the disputed South China Sea, as tensions fester between the two countries over the giant drilling platform.
Hanoi said some 40 Chinese fishing boats surrounded the Vietnamese craft on Monday before one of them rammed it and it sank. Vietnamese fishing boats operating nearby rescued the 10 fishermen on board, the government and the coastguard said.
China's official Xinhua news agency, citing a government source, said the vessel capsized after "harassing and colliding with" a Chinese fishing boat.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Vietnam caused the incident with its "insistence on forcefully disrupting China's normal operations and its dangerous actions on the seas.
"We urge the Vietnamese side once again to immediately stop all disruptive and damaging (activities)," he added.
Scores of Vietnamese and Chinese ships, including coastguard vessels, have continued to square off around the rig despite a series of collisions this month after the platform was towed to the site. Each side has blamed the other over those incidents. Until Monday, no ship had sunk.
Glenn Greenwald Details The 'Fireworks Show' NSA Leak That He's Saving For Last
“As with a fireworks show, you want to save your best for last,” Glenn Greenwald told GQ recently. “There's a story that from the beginning I thought would be our biggest, and I'm saving that. The last one is the one where the sky is all covered in spectacular multicolored hues."
That finale involves the names of U.S. citizens targeted by NSA surveillance, according to an interview Greenwald gave to the Sunday Times. He told GQ that the last of the big stories based on the documents he received from Edward Snowden would be published this summer.
"One of the big questions when it comes to domestic spying is, 'Who have been the NSA's specific targets?,'" Greenwald told The Sunday Times. "Are they political critics and dissidents and activists? Are they genuinely people we’d regard as terrorists? What are the metrics and calculations that go into choosing those targets and what is done with the surveillance that is conducted? Those are the kinds of questions that I want to still answer."
China demands halt to 'unscrupulous' US cyber-spying
Chinese report says US has breached international laws, infringed human rights and put global cyber-security at risk
China has called for a halt to what it describes as unscrupulous US cyber-spying, saying that an investigation has concluded that China is a major target. ...
The report by China's Internet Media Research Centre mentioned media reports of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's leaks and said a subsequent investigation by Chinese authorities "confirmed the existence of snooping activities directed against China", the official Xinhua news agency said.
"As a superpower, the United States takes advantage of its political, economic, military and technological hegemony to unscrupulously monitor other countries, including its allies," the report said.
"The United States' spying operations have gone far beyond the legal rationale of 'anti-terrorism' and have exposed its ugly face of pursuing self-interest in complete disregard of moral integrity."
It said the operations had "flagrantly breached international laws, seriously infringed upon the human rights and put global cyber-security under threat. They deserve to be rejected and condemned by the whole world."
This is an excellent (and somewhat lengthy) essay, which covers much of the material from Eben Moglen's recent lecture series. It's well worth a read if you missed his lecture series.
Eben Moglen: Privacy under attack: the NSA files revealed new threats to democracy
The empire of the United States was the empire of exported liberty. What it had to offer all around the world was liberty and freedom. After colonisation, after European theft, after forms of state-created horror, it promised a world free from state oppression.
Last century we were prepared to sacrifice many of the world's great cities and tens of millions of human lives. We bore those costs in order to smash regimes we called "totalitarian", in which the state grew so powerful and so invasive that it no longer recognised any border of private life. We desperately fought and died against systems in which the state listened to every telephone conversation and kept a list of everybody every troublemaker knew.
But in the past 10 years, after the morality of freedom was withdrawn, the state has begun fastening the procedures of totalitarianism on the substance of democratic society.
There is no historical precedent for the proposition that the procedures of totalitarianism are compatible with the system of enlightened, individual and democratic self-governance. Such an argument would be doomed to failure. It is enough to say in opposition that omnipresent invasive listening creates fear. And that fear is the enemy of reasoned, ordered liberty.
It is utterly inconsistent with the American ideal to attempt to fasten procedures of totalitarianism on American constitutional self-governance. But there is an even deeper inconsistency between those ideals and the subjection of every other society on earth to mass surveillance.
Egypt's anointing of Sisi will lay bare west's battle between interest and values
Western governments will have to come up with some tortuous language when Abdel Fatah al-Sisi becomes Egypt's president. No one doubts that the former field marshal will win this week's election by a handsome margin, thanks to a combination of genuine support, boycotts by Islamists who have been banned and persecuted, and the absence of credible rivals. Victory is no less assured than it is for Bashar al-Assad, facing his date with Syria's destiny next month – though that exercise has been widely condemned as a parody of democracy.
Washington, London and Brussels are already finalising carefully-crafted statements about the will of the Egyptian people and pressing forward with the promised "democratic transition". There will be euphemistic calls for "inclusiveness" and widening the country's "political space". There may even be some critical words about justice and human rights. But there will be congratulations for Egypt's new strongman.
Behind these circumlocutions and evasions lie the unmistakable reality that this republican coronation puts an end to the hopes that were generated by the biggest upheaval of the Arab spring. Sisi is able to claim the mantle of Gamal Abdel-Nasser and other soldiers-turned-presidents because he and his fellow generals removed the democratically-elected Mohamed Morsi last summer in a move that was undoubtedly popular but was still a coup by any definition. ...
In private, western government ministers and officials admit that Sisi's "road-map" cannot include the aspirations that accompanied the fall of Hosni Mubarak. But in the battle between interests and values, interests win hands down: these include fighting jihadis in Sinai, keeping the peace with Israel, and economics.
Iran readies plant needed to fulfill nuclear pact with powers
After months of delays, Iran appears to be finalizing a plant to convert a large amount of low-enriched uranium gas into an oxide form that would be less suitable for processing into nuclear bomb material, a U.N. watchdog report shows.
Under last year's landmark accord with six world powers to curb Iran's nuclear program, it needs to take action by late July to limit its stockpile of uranium gas refined to a fissile concentration of up to 5 percent. It was one of the terms of the interim deal that won Tehran some sanctions easing.
To be able to do that, it has been building a facility near the central city of Isfahan for turning the gas into powder. A new U.N. nuclear agency report said its commissioning - final preparations originally expected last year - had now begun.
In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran had transferred 4.3 tonnes of low-grade uranium gas to the site from its Natanz enrichment plant. It did not say when conversion into oxide would get under way. ...
The powers negotiated the six-month deal with Iran to buy time for talks on a final settlement that would remove the risk of a new Middle East war over Iran's nuclear aspirations. Those talks began in February and are due to resume in June.
Brazil's graffiti art in support of World Cup protest
Brazilian graffiti artists join demonstrations against the Brazil World Cup, using the streets as a canvass to express their discontent. Protesters are angry about the government spending billions on World Cup infrastructure rather than basic public services.
Will The Supreme Court Kill Public-Employee Unions?
The gravest threat today to public-employee unions—which represent cops, firefighters, prison guards, teachers, nurses, and other city and state workers—is a Supreme Court case named Harris v. Quinn, which could be decided as early as this Tuesday. ...
The origins of Harris date to July 2003, when the Illinois legislature passed a bill recognizing certain home-care providers as "public employees" and designating a Midwest branch of SEIU to exclusively represent those workers. ... When the Illinois labor bill passed in July 2003, no home-care worker was forced into SEIU. But if they chose not to join, the union still was allowed to deduct a small amount of money from their paychecks. Why? It was the union's responsibility to represent every home-care worker impacted by the new law. To pay for representing union and non-union home-care workers, the union began taking what it calls a "fair share" fee. ...
In April 2010, a group of Illinois home-care workers, led by plaintiff Pamela Harris, filed a class action arguing that the state had infringed on their First Amendment rights by forcing them to be represented by a union and pay fees. (The suit named two unions, SEIU and AFSCME, as defendants.) A district court and the US Seventh Court of Appeals each dismissed the case. The case lay dormant until last October. That's when, at National Right to Work's urging, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Harris. ...
Abood v. Detroit Board of Education is the 1977 Supreme Court decision that, in effect, upheld the constitutionality of the public-employee union model. The majority in Abood said these unions did not infringe on the First Amendment by collecting representation dues and collectively bargaining on behalf of public workers. ... The Supreme Court's decision in Harris could cut several ways. It could affirm the lower court's decision—a big loss for National Right-to-Work. It could issue a more narrow opinion, saying, for instance, that Illinois home-care workers aren't public employees and shouldn't be unionized without touching Abood. Or the high court could take that kill shot: Eviscerate Abood and gut public-employee unions.
Is Financialization Necessary for a Modern Economy?
The Impossibility of Growth - Why collapse and salvation are hard to distinguish from each other
Let us imagine that in 3030BC the total possessions of the people of Egypt filled one cubic metre. Let us propose that these possessions grew by 4.5% a year. How big would that stash have been by the Battle of Actium in 30BC? This is the calculation performed by the investment banker Jeremy Grantham.
Go on, take a guess. Ten times the size of the pyramids? All the sand in the Sahara? The Atlantic ocean? The volume of the planet? A little more? It’s 2.5 billion billion solar systems. It does not take you long, pondering this outcome, to reach the paradoxical position that salvation lies in collapse.
To succeed is to destroy ourselves. To fail is to destroy ourselves. That is the bind we have created. Ignore if you must climate change, biodiversity collapse, the depletion of water, soil, minerals, oil; even if all these issues were miraculously to vanish, the mathematics of compound growth make continuity impossible.
Economic growth is an artefact of the use of fossil fuels. Before large amounts of coal were extracted, every upswing in industrial production would be met with a downswing in agricultural production, as the charcoal or horse power required by industry reduced the land available for growing food. Every prior industrial revolution collapsed, as growth could not be sustained. But coal broke this cycle and enabled – for a few hundred years – the phenomenom we now call sustained growth. ...
The trajectory of compound growth shows that the scouring of the planet has only just begun. As the volume of the global economy expands, everywhere that contains something concentrated, unusual, precious will be sought out and exploited, its resources extracted and dispersed, the world’s diverse and differentiated marvels reduced to the same grey stubble.
The Evening Greens
Should CEOs Get Jail Time For Oil-By-Rail Accidents Like Lac Megantic?
On May 12th, a heavily armed SWAT unit stormed the home of Thomas Harding and threw Harding, his son and a visitor to the ground. Harding was then handcuffed, arrested and taken for interrogation. ...
No one is claiming that Harding intentionally caused the accident — however, he is the one facing charges that could result in life in prison.
Meanwhile, the oil industry has knowingly shipped explosive Bakken crude oil and, in the case of Lac-Megantic, misclassified the oil to make it appear less explosive than it actually was. ...
There is a good reason why these companies continue to intentionally misclassify Bakken crude. Fines are not a deterrent. Jeffrey Wiese of PHMSA stated as much last year during an industry conference, when he said:
“Do I think I can hurt a major international corporation with a $2 million civil penalty? No.” ...
This past week in New York state, Albany County Executive Dan McCoy made the same point when he announced his intention to introduce new legislation to make it a crime for rail companies not to report accidents in a timely manner. A recent derailment of a Bakken crude train in Albany that was not reported properly cost Canadian Pacific a fine of $5,000.
“That fine doesn't mean anything to a big corporation. I want to introduce jail time,” McCoy said. “It is the only way that you will get their attention.”
Koch brothers’ company files to develop oil sands project
The Canadian oil arm of the conglomerate owned by the U.S. billionaire Koch brothers has begun initial regulatory work on a multibillion-dollar oil sands project after an asset-sales effort two years ago left it holding a number of leases.
Koch Oil Sands Operating LLC, the Calgary-based unit of Koch Industries Inc., has made an initial filing with Alberta regulators and has been in consultation with the nearby Fort McKay First Nation regarding the proposed development.
“We intend to develop a bitumen recovery project identified as the Dunkirk In Situ Project and have submitted the proposed Terms of Reference for an Environmental Impact Assessment to Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development,” Paul Baltzer, spokesman for the Wichita, Kan.-based company, said in an e-mail.
U.S. officials cut estimate of recoverable Monterey Shale oil by 96%
Federal energy authorities have slashed by 96% the estimated amount of recoverable oil buried in California's vast Monterey Shale deposits, deflating its potential as a national "black gold mine" of petroleum.
Just 600 million barrels of oil can be extracted with existing technology, far below the 13.7 billion barrels once thought recoverable from the jumbled layers of subterranean rock spread across much of Central California, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. ...
The problem lies with the geology of the Monterey Shale, a 1,750-mile formation running down the center of California roughly from Sacramento to the Los Angeles basin and including some coastal regions.
Unlike heavily fracked shale deposits in North Dakota and Texas, which are relatively even and layered like a cake, Monterey Shale has been folded and shattered by seismic activity, with the oil found at deeper strata.
Geologists have long known that the rich deposits existed but they were not thought recoverable until the price of oil rose and the industry developed acidization, which eats away rocks, and fracking, the process of injecting millions of gallons of water laced with sand and chemicals deep underground to crack shale formations. ...
"From the information we've been able to gather, we've not seen evidence that oil extraction in this area is very productive using techniques like fracking," said John Staub, a petroleum exploration and production analyst who led the energy agency's research.
Oyster farmers and ocean acidification
“The ocean is so acidic that it is dissolving the shells of our baby oysters,” says Diani Taylor of Taylor Shellfish Farms in Shelton, Washington. She and her cousin Brittany are fifth-generation oyster farmers, and are grappling with ocean waters that are more acidic and corrosive than their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers knew.
Could This Lawsuit Ignite A Solution To Climate Change?
As we all make plans for our grandchildren to own seafront property in Indiana, one of the more intriguing lawsuits working its way through the system these days is occurring in Illinois. The Farmers Insurance Company is suing 200 cities and towns around Chicago. The lawsuit is based on the company's contention that these communities were negligent in that they failed to properly improve and maintain their infrastructure to deal with the increased rainfall and the increased severity of storms due to global climate change. The suit is a result of massive flooding in Illinois during April of 2013 that resulted in the federal government's paying out $218 million on 64,000 claims. Farmers, presumably, got socked with a similar bill. So the company is suing the communities to get back the money it paid out to individual policyholders.
This action is partly because insurance companies are infested with greedy gombeens who never like to pay out their money. But said gombeens are not stupid. They see the damage already being wrought by the Great Climate Change Hoax because it's costing them money, which is the most basic American measure of them all. And, while part of me sees some very shrewd rich people who have found yet another way to turn a buck speculating on futures in human misery, another part of me wonders if this might not be the best way to get the general public -- and then, theoretically at least, the country's politicians -- to take the problem seriously. After all, thanks to the legalized influence-peddling in our elections, and its celebration in the highest court in the land, we live in an entirely corporatized political universe. But even the 1% will drown if the water gets high enough. Maybe homeowner's insurance can win where tree-hugging has failed. At this point, I'll take anything.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
European elections: six countries that went left, not right
The Russia China Axis continues to form
Geithner and Obama both slandered FDR's reputation
Calls for effective Civil Rights protections
A Little Night Music
Lil' Jimmy Reed Band - Honest I Do
Little Jimmy Reed - I'm In Love With You Baby
Lil Jimmy Reed - Alabama the place to be
Little Jimmy Reed - Baby How Blue Can You Get
Little Jimmy Reed - Rock Me Baby
Little Jimmy Reed - Hoochie Coochie Man
Little Jimmy Reed - School's Out
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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