It’s been an open secret for ages that Bill Murray has a dark side. And, yet, to date, his persona has been such one of a lovable eccentric that we’ve collectively agreed to look the other way. In particular, there was the allegations of domestic abuse against him by his ex-wife and the bad blood between Murray and Lucy Liu on the set of Charlie’s Angels.
And, yet, the last year or so has not been kind to Murray. First, there was the turmoil around Aziz Ansari’s movie that Murray was set to star in. Now, as I understand it, Geena Davis has also suggested that Murray acted inappropriately with her at some point.
I don’t know what to tell you. It’s something of a conundrum because it’s easy to see Murray’s fate becoming yet another partisan issue in the woke cancel culture mob wars that we seem to be engaging in now. There will be plenty of people who are willing to forgive Murray for his transgressions because we’re all human and we all screw up. Meanwhile, there will be more Left leaning people who will want to throw the book at Murray for being a dick and HE CAN NEVER BE FORGIVEN.
We live in interesting times. It will be interesting to see what happens next for Murray. Will this bad behavior gradually be forgiven….or this it? Are we going to be in the post-Murray era?
I know we’re beyond the event horizon of either autocracy, civil war or military junta happening because of the rage I experience from my traditionalist relatives whenever we talk about politics.
Everything is so muddled and conflated in their minds that they simply can not, will not do the one thing that America needs for them to do at the moment — make common cause with center-Left people like me to defend democracy from the rise of fascist MAGA autocracy.
The white Christian men I know don’t even believe in American democracy anymore. They’re so busy being enraged by how the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to “groom” little kids and turn everyone gay that they are completely and wilfully oblivious to how MAGA Republicans are well on their way to stealing their democracy birthright.
So, in short, we’re fucked.
Starting as soon as January 2023, the United States is going to lurch into a very, very dark future. It’s well within the realm of possibility that a MAGA Republican House will not only impeach both Biden and Harris repeatedly over the course of two years, but also hold the world economy blackmail in order to gut the social safety net.
And that, of course, will be just the precursor to the massive clusterfuck that will be the 2024 presidential cycle.
I love a good scenario, so if you want my hot take on how the Secessionist Crisis of 2024 – 2025 would go down, it would be something like this. The first indication that things were going to be different would be that local MAGA controlled election boards in swing states would simply not do their job. They would balk at certifying the election of the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate.
The reason why this is so important to what happens next is would introduce a level of uncertainty into the process that could easily be exploited by because so much of the Federal bench is now made up of young MAGA hacks who will do the bidding of MAGA when the time comes. I’m well aware that this did NOT happen in 2020….but we were very lucky. It’s very possible that the process of the corruption of the administration of elections will be much farther along by 2024 and, I don’t know, the election might be closer.
Each election has a personality of its own, if you will.
Once MAGA controlled election boards simply refuse to do their jobs because they don’t like the result, then one of the great ironies of the modern age will happen — suddenly, it will be Blues who will be screaming at the top of their lungs about “Stop The Steal.”
Let me pause here to note that America is tearing itself apart in ways big and small to the point that I just don’t see us making through the passions of another presidential cycle without Something Bad happening. That Somethng Bad could be, as I mentioned, autocracy, civil war or military junta.
But back to the scenario.
Once election boards in swing states balk at doing their jobs, the clock will begin to tick as to what the fuck is going to happen. And if SCOTUS validates the “independent legislature” concept this would be the point where everything would go off the rails. MAGA controlled legislatures in swing states could simply take control of the administration of elections that that point and pretty much just do whatever the fuck they wanted.
This is the point when we would reach a crisis. Just a few days after Election Day 2024, there would begin to be talk amongst a lot of Twitter liberals about either simply voting with their feet and leaving the country for good or even giving up on trying to “Stop The Steal” and having states call up Secessionist Conventions to give at least a thin cover of legality to trying to leave the Union.
Now, remember, all of this would be happening in the context of an old as hell POTUS who could very well just drop dead in the middle of this crisis, making an already very bad situation even worse.
The key element as to any Secessionist Crisis would be, of course, California and maybe New York City. If there was such popular outrage in Blue states that the 2024 election was going to be stolen in broad daylight that election officials in the deep blue states simply could not ignore the demand to leave the Union, then well, we’re going to show.
Meanwhile, NYC would be important because that’s where Trump Tower, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post are physically located. If hordes of enraged New Yorkers sacked those places in the middle of any Certification Crisis, then, well, that would be very bad as to the continued unity of the country.
If we turned on CNN in late 2024 and saw Trump Tower in New York City in flames, then, well, that would probably prompt retaliation on the part of Reds across the country. Which would would cause a cascading series of events that would definitely turn a Certification Crisis in to a Secessionist Crisis.
And all of this would be happening in the context of Trump freaking the fuck out and demanding blood. He might go so totally nuts that he, unto himself, could push the country into not just “chaos” but an actual civil war with two governments fighting it out.
There is just so much about this scenario that I can’t game out. I’m not an expert and I can’t predict the future. So, take that into consideration.
At this point, all eyes would be on California. Either they maybe call up a Secessionist Convention just to placate enraged liberals in the state or they maybe call some sort of emergency summit of Blue governors to discuss what happens next.
Then we bump up against two crucial questions. What about “purple” states and what happens with the U.S Military?
There are a number of states, like Virginia, which are purple. Virginia, specifically, is actually two states who fucking hate each other fused together because of history and geography. So this is when something that would make a lot of people sit up and take notice would happen — not only would there potentially be coups and counter coups in state houses across the country, many, many Reds would leave Blue states and Blues would leave Red states.
All this happening virtually overnight would put ever-more pressure on the Federal government. It would begin to dawn on people that the United States, the richest most stable country in the world was about to collapse into not just “rolling political violence” like The Troubles in Northern Ireland but an honest to God civil war like the one that happened in 1861 – 1865.
This brings us to the other issue — what the fuck would the U.S. Military do?
Well, I simply can’t game this out. There is a spectrum of things the U.S. Military might end up doing. Everything from simply collapsing as the Red enlisted go one way while the Blue officer corp goes another way to some sort of martial law / military junta happening. (If you really wanted to be paranoid, the fact that bonkers Gen. Mike Flynn’s brother is in control of the U.S. Pacific Command might suddenly become VERY IMPORTANT at this point.)
I really can’t game out what happens now. Either Blue States leave the Union en mass, establish their own Federal government and military or the U.S. Military steps in and we have a military junta for a little while until passions die down.
Or Blue States could choke and we slide into autocracy, with millions of wealth Blues leaving the country for good.
So, here goes. Here’s how the individual states would handle A Second American Civil War, probably starting in late 2024 when it becomes clear that Reds are going to brazenly steal the election. I don’t think this is going to happen — I think we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy — but it is at least possible. I’m NOT going to do every state because, lulz, I don’t know the internal politics of each state well enough to do it right.
California If Blues really decide to have a National Divorce, it will be California that probably is at the forefront serving the papers. And the key issue is — war aims. I think at first the war aims of the Blues will be to simply start, say, the United States of Canada. It will only be much later in any conflict that Blues get sucked into fighting the longer-term goal of maybe establishing the United States of North America. And that would happen because Trumplandia could possible begin a Final Solution for POC within its territory and, as such, the second phase of the civil war would be one of liberation. But that’s extremely speculative on my part.
Everything will hinge on what California wants to do. If it simply wants independence for itself, that’s a lot different war than if it joins with other Blue States to establish a new, larger state. But whatever happens once the 2ACW starts, California will be the “Arsenal of Democracy.” If they want to establish a Blue Union, then California would put itself on a war footing. It would call up a few million young men and women into a new Blue Army and away we go. A lot would depend on the state of the US Military, but the case could be made that it might implode, leaving the individual states with the ability to fend for themselves.
California would quickly secure Oregon and Washington then swoop through the plains states to link up with major Blue States in the old Upper Midwest. They would crash into Texas in the south and that would be a Battle Royale, though it’s possible because Texas is shifting blue that Texas might simply implode into an intra-state civil war and Blues could secure the state a lot easier than one might otherwise expect.
But the point is — as goes California, so goes the Blue Union cause.
Texas Texas is a state that is really difficult to game out because while MAGA has turned into a Red stronghold, on the ground, the state is shifting Blue long term. As such, when our national politics finally collapses and we’re dealing with the existential it’s possible that Texas will simply implode. There could be a massive intra-state civil war that leaves it open to Blue Union forces from the West to swoop in and take it over. Or, at least, a lot of it over. But between when the civil war starts and when Blue Union troops come to the rescue, we could all be talking about the Siege of Austin as MAGA surrounds that particular blue dot in a purple state and want to wipe it off the face of the earth.
In a sense, Texas probably has the most to loose from a 2ACW. Texas would probably be the site of a huge amount of fighting as the difference between the Blue shift in the state’s practical politics slams up against the autocratic state government. Or, put another way, Texas is a lot less stable than you might think. It will likely be the source of a huge amount of domestic political refugees who will either endup in camps, or simply flee the state altogether, only to return when (hopefully) Blues win the civil war and there’s a Second Reconstruction.
Oregon The thing about this state is it’s ripe for a huge clusterfuck. Of all the places in the Union in the lead up to any potential 2ACW, Oregon is the state I could most likely see some sort of “Troubles” taking place. There could be a pretty bloody Battle of Portland as all the crazed Far Right Militia’s swoop down on the city and decide to end the “Antifa Problem” once and for all. Then, of course, there’s pretty good chance that all of that will be for naught when California troops come from the south and consolidate Blue control over the state. Not that it won’t come at a very, very blood cost. But California is just too powerful not to be able to seize both Oregon and Washington in the early stages of any 2ACW. Even if California simply wants to go it alone, the mass chaos of Oregon might pull them into the state for some sort of peacekeeping mission.
The Plains States Outside of Texas, the Plaines states may see their fates during a 2ACW largly out of their hands. They could shift from Blue to Red and back again as the two sides fight it out. They have small populations and economies and if California wants to link up with Blue States in the old Upper Midwest, then, they may see their extremely Red politics change in a rather abrupt, violent manner. These states are an example of why it would be so dumb for Red States to want a civil war — the values of small plains states are being forced upon Blue States and Blues aren’t really doing anything about it. But if there was a civil war, the Red Plains States would be forced to change their ways rather quickly.
The Old CSA (At least some of it.) At first, a number of states of the old CSA would explode into joy if there was a 2ACW. States like Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina would have you believe they are already half way out of the Union as it is because of the evil libtard “groomers” and, as such, if Blue States left the Union the populations of the old CSA states would be very, very happy. But. And this is a big but, as the war progressed and everything went to shit there would be a natural inclination on the part of white Christians in these states to make POC scape goats. There would be a rapid radicalization of the politics of these states to the point that something akin to a race war might break out. Or, if not that, then at least Nazi-style concentration camps would be established with the aim of enacting a Final Solution once and for all. This would, in turn freak the Blue States out to the point that even if they were free of the United States, they might rejoin the battle simply to stop the Final Solution from happening. This is all extremely speculative, of course, but I’m simply gaming out what already exists and then assume the worse.
Florida I used to think that Florida would break up into about three states, given how diverse it is, but no more. I think it would be a fully autocratic state under DeSantis — even if he was POTUS at this point — and a lot of young men from Florida would face up against young men (and women) from California as the war progressed and got worse and worse for everyone concerned. The already fucked up politics of Florida would grow significantly more radical to the point that it was a one party fascist state.
Georgia The thing about Georgia is Atlanta. If there was a 2ACW, then it’s possible that within the state it would be Atlanta versus everyone else. Atlanta would be a very Blue stronghold and the rest of the state would be so Red that it could all get very bloody. Of course, Blue forces from outside the state could swoop in at some point and help take stabilize the situation.
Virginia As I’ve said the last time I wrote this scenario up, Virginia is two states that hate each other. Of all the states of the Union that might find destruction as part of a 2ACW, Virginia is at the top of the list — even more so than Texas. The state would collapse into coups and counter coups. The rural Red parts of the state would go all Pol Pot on the Blue parts of the state and there would be a lot of political scores settled by extremely radicalized rural Reds who wanted to make sure drag queens of the woke cancel culture mob could never teach their kids critical race theory again. I wish I was joking or exaggerating, but I’m not.
Heartland The so-called “American Heartland” is where the worst fighting of any 2ACW would take place. States like Ohio and Indiana would be diehard supporters of Trumplandia and they just would not go down without a fight. It would be the type of fighting not seen since the end of WW2. And it would be happening in what was once the most stable country in the world. As I’ve mentioned, a lot would depend on what Blue war aims were. If they just wanted to start the USoC, then my dark fears probably won’t happen. But if, for some reason, those war aims change and the issue becomes bringing the US back together again (probably with Canada by this point) then, well, all bets are off. It would be a very bloody pitched battle.
New York City
A 2ACW might be a tale of two cities for NYC. On one hand, there’s a chance NYC could become something akin to a Free City and on the other it could get nuked by Trumplandia. Any 2ACW would probably see the city flooded with refugees, maybe even including yours truly. But one thing is for sure — the long term tension between Upstate New York and NYC will grow in the event of a 2ACW to the point that NYC may break away politically in some way. Update New York has a lot of room for political refugees and, as such, you could see the population of some of the Update New York cities might balloon as a result.
New England I think in the even of a 2ACW that New England would be flooded with political refugees to an unprecedented extent. People fleeing all parts of Trumplandia would go to New England, potentially in hopes of getting across the border to Canada. Should the Blue Union unite with Canada, then, of course, that dynamic would change.
In closing, I would note three things. There’s not going to be a 2ACW if Blues don’t have any leadership. They currently have no effective leadership, so a lot of abrupt heroes would have to bubble up to the surface once it became clear that Blues had to leave the Union. Also, all of what I’ve described above has to be taken into the context of very real possibility that WMD would be used by both sides as the war progressed. And, remember, if the United States is too busy bombing itself into oblivion, then the prospect of a “Great Reset” in the guise of WW3 is a very, very real possibility.
What the fuck is going on with this sudden surge of Russian propaganda coming from Silicon Valley Tech Bros? It’s like they all agreed, all at once, to en masse become Fifth Columnists and Fellow Travelers of the Russians.
I get much of the sentiment that these Tech Bros espouse. They look at the cold hard metrics and say that Ukraine isn’t worth risking WW3 for. I find this dubious, however, because what do they expect to happen if we don’t support Ukraine? That Russia won’t see this as weakness and turn around and go after the Baltics? Estonia has a huge Russian population and it definitely would be the prime target for Russia if it was able to crush Ukraine because the West listened to the Russian Fellow Travelers of Silicon Valley.
In fact, they have begun to deride the war in Ukraine as “Woke War III.” Which doesn’t put them in a very good light because what are they trying to say — that WW1 and WW2 were “woke?”
All this has me thinking about how, even though it’s obviously astrology for dudes that the book The Fourth Turning definitely continues to have an eerie relevancy as we careen towards 2025. The very ideas that that book talks about — how in the Third Turning, people forget what war was like and why it was fought to begin with — definitely seems to have some meaning in today’s political world.
The alarming thing is, of course, that all of this is happening in the context of a very possible Counter-Revolution in the United States as Republicans take control of at least the House, if not the Senate too in November. With Republicans in control of Congress in 2023, there’s every reason to believe every moment they’re not impeaching Biden or trying to hold the social safety net hostage they’re going to be doing everything in their power to prevent the US from helping Ukraine.
So, it definitely seems as though we’re on the cusp of a very, very turbulent moment in our nation’s history. It’s going to happen no matter what, obviously, but if the fucking fascist Republicans take the House in November, that is only going to accelerate a very, very dark trend.
I’m now formally sketching out again the “bad guys closing in” portion of this latest first draft attempt. And the thing I’ve noticed is the last time I did this I crammed a lot of big events right next to each other.
Olivia Munn is what I imagine the heroine of this first novel looking like..
The thing I’ve slowly getting the hang of is how you have to let your novel’s structure breathe a little bit. You need an ebb and flow to how things roll out so you have a big event, then a few scenes that reduce tension some and then repeat.
I’m still at a loss, in some respects, as to what makes up the investigation of the murder this novel is about. Thankfully, to date I’ve just had to distract myself and I’ve figured out how to move things along. I may have a lot — maybe a huge number — of faults, but usually when I find myself in a creative corner I’m able to weasel my way out of it and think of some new direction, some new angle to take that lets me keep going pretty quickly.
Actually, imagine Olivia Munn looking a little closer to this. Similar, but not exactly.
Really, at this point, the only issue I have is how many times I’ve done this. I’ve written and rewritten this first novel a number of times. But at least each new attempt has been significantly better than the one before. The key issue now is to try to wrap things up on a second draft by spring 2023 so I can turn around and begin querying during the autumn 2023 querying season.
One thing I’m still concerned about is this novel, while interesting, doesn’t have some of the jolting events that your usual modern thriller has. It’s just not scary (or brutal) in the way that the audience for such a genre pop novel might expect.
But I believe I can fix that particular issue in the second draft. The point of the first draft is just to get the story down pat so you can turn around, rewrite it and fix all the issues. I really have to stop daydreaming and just drifting towards my goal, however.
I’m a Very Online person and just in the last few days — maybe 24 hours even — I’ve seen a huge uptick in my exposure to bullshit Russian propaganda about Ukraine. It could be that Twitter has tweaked it’s interface a little bit so I see more Right wing echo chamber bullshit.
Which, in an ideal world, would be good because it would force me to leave my own center-Left echochamber. But what I’m seeing on Ukraine just pisses me off and I mute the person so I don’t have to tolerate it anymore.
If what I’m seeing on Twitter from the Right wing echo chamber is any indication of what is being said on the other end of the political spectrum about Ukraine….oh boy.
The MAGA Right is all-in being appeasers and apologists for the Russians. No good will come of this. If, God forbid, the Republicans take control of the House, then every moment it’s not impeaching someone in the Biden Administration for some bullshit reason it will be figuring out ways to stymie any continued military support of the Ukrainians.
Anyway, things are weirdly dark politically in the United States right now and are bound to only get better as we approach a potential “Fourth Turning” in late 2024, early 2025.
I was listening to a podcast recently that had the well-respected op-ed columnist George Will on it talking about his ambivalence about the course of the Biden Administration. Will, a very traditional conservative, bemoaned what he felt was Biden’s banking Left once he was in office.
What if Dark Brandon didn’t exist?
I struggle with any scenario where Biden didn’t do just that because he felt he needed to “dance with the one who brung him” as the old saying goes. I can only assume that Biden made a strategic political decision that MAGA was a lost cause and, as such, he wrote the entire Right off.
As such, it’s not like Will had gotten his way and Biden was a real centrist that anyone on the Right would have noticed outside of a sliver of the Right that isn’t MAGA. If Biden had tried to be a Statesman and governed straight down the middle, all that would happened is MAGA would have ignored it and the progressive base of the Democratic Party would have freaked the fuck out.
So, yes, on paper it would have been great if Biden had governed, essentially as a #NeverTrumper….that just wasn’t practical for him. The vast majority of the conservative movement is a lost cause and no amount of governing from the middle would have changed that.
I suppose it’s been so long since we had to fight fascism that the Smartest Guys In The Room think more about the cold, hard metrics of what’s going on in Ukraine with the Russians as opposed to what is just and right.
While they’re all obviously far more successful than me and probably a lot smarter, Tech Bros continue to come across as appeasers. They want Ukraine to just give up and let Putin take at least 20% of the land if not more. And, really, using Tech Bro logic, the United States should just become Fortress America, gut the social safety net and make only the Poors pay taxes because they’re rubes who don’t realize taxation is theft.
It’s all very annoying.
It’s annoying because Tech Bros should know better. They should realize that sometimes in global affairs, you have to take a stand against tyranny even if it comes at a cost.
And it was, after all, Russia who invaded Ukraine. They started and just because Ukraine is going on the offensive, doesn’t mean the United States should just throw up its hands and give up. Yes, the risk of nuclear war has increased of late, but who’s to say if we don’t support Ukraine that Putin might not go after the Baltics next, and then where are we?
We definitely would have a WW3, then, because NATO would get involved. So, there is no easy solution to what’s going on with Ukraine and Russia. The reliance on cold, hard metrics that serves Tech Bros so well, falls apart when you’re dealing with geopolitics.
While there are some alarming signs that something is brewing, I find the idea that the Russians would actually use nukes of any sort on Ukraine very dubious. Yes, a few of Russia’s close allies have told their citizens to get out of Ukraine, but that could mean anything. It doesn’t mean that something as dire as the use of tactical nukes against Ukraine by the Russians is imminent.
If the Russians did use tactical nukes on Ukraine, what would that look like?
I am not an expert, but just a back of the envelope scenario would suggest that if Russia was going to go through the trouble of breaking a 75 year taboo against the use of nukes of any sort, they would probably strike Kyiv pretty hard in an effort to decapitate the Ukrainian government. You could make the argument that what might happen is this: Russia nukes Kyiv a few times and then the Belarusian army would swoop in and take control of the city, demanding the Ukrainians sue for peace.
Also, logically, they would use a number of tactical nukes up and down the existing front line in an effort to soften it up. And, the Russians would likely, while they were at it, strike a number of other major cities across Ukraine in an effort to get their point across.
The use of any WMD by the Russians would probably start WW3 because it would set off a cascading series of events where other simmering hotspots across the globe would flair up rather dramatically.
If this all happened before the 2022 midterms, it could really change the political dynamic going into November in a rather dramatic fashion. There would be a “rally around the flag” type thing, which would probably help Biden’s poll numbers significantly.
Anyway, I don’t think we have anything to worry about.
Is Taylor Swift gay? The simple answer is, no, what the fuck are you talking about? The more nuanced answer is: she’s probably had sex with a few women and she’s such an emotional blabbermouth that she can’t keep her queer lust to herself and so she writes songs about said women.
Now, the key thing you and I as Poors and rubes have to appreciate is within the rarified heights of power and wealth that Tay-Tay inhabits same-sex relationships — especially between women — are so normalized and commonplace that, lulz, you’re telling on yourself if you think Taylor Swift fucking Karlie Kloss means squat.
Remember, the key to this particular situation are the songs that Tay-Tay swift wrote that definitely seem to be about a woman, not a man. The song “Dress” comes to mind, specifically, as a song that my gut instinct is — she’s talking about fucking Karlie Kloss.
The reason is — the song doesn’t give any sort of gender designation to the person it’s addressed to AND there is a lot of emphasis on “dress.” My writer’s mind tells me that if you were someone like Tay-Tay and you wanted to run around emotionally naked in your art banging away at the word “dress” in your lyrics is exactly the way you would convey the idea to your fans that the person you’re talking about fucking isn’t a man.
But the key thing that proponents of “gaylor” have to remember is just because Tay-Tay probably fucked a few women doesn’t mean she’s gay. She was just having fun, maybe experimenting. And that moment in her life is over now. She has a boyfriend and Kloss is married.
It’s too easy for Poors — like me — to get way, way too excited about someone as all-American as Tay-Tay banging a woman. Just because she’s experienced the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, doesn’t mean you should expect her to start publically dating Cara Delevingne.
Now, obviously Tay-Tay’s “people,” and her publicity machine have decided it’s in her best interests to mind fuck her fans by leading them to believe that she’s “queer” when she’s nothing of the sort. Tay-Tay seems quite content with her boyfriend and that’s that.
I still pretty safe in believing that I will have a beta version of this novel done by spring 2023 and that I can begin to query it as part of the fall 2023 querying season. That, at least, is the goal.
Sometimes, it feels like I’ve made every mistake possible as part of the process of working on this first novel in what is projected to be a six novel project. I suppose I should be grateful that I’ve at least gotten to the point.
Just in the last few days, I’ve figured out a really cool new element of this novel, something that is not at all what I expected for my heroine when I started this new version of the first draft. But it gives the story an edge that I think audiences will really enjoy.
To get this point, however, I’ve been forced to give really, really deep in to some of them more obscure things that happened to me way back when in Seoul. Say what you will about my adventures in South Korea, it was definitely a net plus given all the weird situations and experiences I was given in my creative toolkit.
What I imagine my heroine looks like as I write this first novel.
So, in a sense, this six novel project is really me writing my extended autobiography in a very garbled way. I suppose that’s part of where the energy to write these six novels is coming from — I’m writing about ME. The other source of energy, of course, is my white hot rage against MAGA and Trumplandia.
One thing that is interesting is this first novel is going a lot smoother because I know, in general, how this six novel series ends. I was working on the last two novels in the project when dingus Trump lost the 2020 election and I realized it might be quaint for me to rant about Trumplandia if it didn’t exist anymore.
But Trump is lurking in the darkness, ready to pop out again and steal the 2024 election, so I feel pretty confident that if we manage not to have a civil war that i’m going have more than enough energy to finish the six novels that I hope will comprise this project.
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