Way back in 2009, Barack Obama declared that his administration, unlike that of George "Everything Is His Fault" Bush, would be about "ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology."
Which should make for some pretty interesting non-political decision making now that climate scientists have declared that there has been no global warming in the past 15 years, and we seem to possibly be entering a new mini-Ice Age owing to a downturn in solar activity. Some scientists believe that we're in for colder temperatures, shorter growing seasons, and harsher winters for the next half-century or more.
Fortunately, the entirely non-ideological man in the Whitehouse has been busily making science-based decisions to help Americans cope with the extreme cold wave heading our way. Not by allowing more fossil fuels to be mined or drilled, of course. Nor by allowing additional exploration for such fuels. And of course, he's against pipelines which might bring much-needed oil to our refineries.
Instead he continues to dump large quantities of taxpayer money into "green" technologies which will keep us all toasty and warm...if any of them can be made to work before we freeze to death.
Oh sure, the president's huge gamble with Solyndra went belly up in a hurry, but fortunately he'd also had the foresight to invest our tax money in Evergreen Energy - which remained robustly healthy until they'd finished spending our cash and went out of business last week.
But knowing that a "Plan A" and a "Plan B" can both fail, Mr. Obama had also funneled our money into "Plan C" - a company called Ener1 which made batteries for electric cars like the Government Motors Exploding Chevy Volt...until they declared bankruptcy last week.
In fairness, the president's high-tech green energy investments haven't all gone bankrupt. Amonix Inc - yet another maker of solar panels - announced that thanks to $5.9 million in stimulus funds, they were able to keep their doors open for a full seven months before laying off two thirds of their workforce last week.
With all of these shutdowns and breakdowns in the last seven days, you'd think the president would have said something in his State of the Union speech about green energy. And in fact, he did - recommitting himself to dumping billions more of our tax dollars into wind, solar, and other esoteric technologies in order to create energy sources which will definitely not cause the Earth to warm.
No matter how much we'll wish they could.
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39 comments:
Ok, not a fan of GM in general nor the Volt in particular (even before da Prez got involved) but in all fairness, the Volt is SAFE, it's NHTSA that will kill you (ie, failure to follow procedure to DRAIN the batteries caused the fires, THREE WEEKS LATER, **not** any issue w/ the battery pack themselves). Are battery packs bad news? Yes. Are they an eco-nightmare in the making? YES! Is the volt remotely "dangerous"? Truly, I think not.
Seriously.
If you're going to beat this dead horse, have the decency to a) use a /sarc tag, b) acknowledge the government entity truly at fault. Not QUITE along the same lines as blaming Bush for the housing bubble, but yeah, along those lines.
Apols for the rant, but they ARE actually still made HERE, and it's a tender spot for some of us in this locale.
And yeah, the subsidy on hybrids is such total craptastictude...
Wait, so Obama's using unsound scientific data as a rationale to continue to pump our money into futurific alternate energy companies to ostensibly break the Full Nelson grip that foreign oil has on us? And all this time it appeared to me as if he was just doing it to pad the bank accounts of his pals so that they could donate all that taxpayer money into his reelection coffers. Just goes to show that you can't always judge by the obvious. Damn these lyin' eyes of mine! Thanks, Stilt, I owe you one.
Given the amount of sheer BS coming from this Administration, I don't understand why there hasn't been a rush to invest in flatulence-based alternative energy generation.
He still believes it was all those amazing progressive ideas and schemes that got him into the White House in 2008. He need only double down on them now to insure his reelection. Eight years of incessant attacks on GW, cruelly empty promises, catchy slogans and the novelty of a half-black president had nothing to do with it. Nope. Nothing at all. You just keep humping that chicken, Barry. The media will do everything they can to keep your leaky raft afloat, even while theirs sinks below the waves.
Good news! Though NASA scientists were a bit concerned bout how quiet the sun had become - and for how long - the sun had one of he most intense solar storms they have seen, and sent a big ol' cloud of radiation and photons our way just last week! So now the GOrons should be able to slink out of cover and start spouting their "The End Is Near - AND Warm!" gospel once again, and the mini-ice age has been averted. Phew! Glad THAT is over! (Go over to NASA's site to see some of the photography of it - quite stunning! Not big enough to pull the norther lights to Mexico as happened some 50 years ago, but they say it is nearly as strong as those storms...)
The year - the very moment - they listed the polar bears as endangered, their environment INCREASED. It was later exposed that the whole of the polar bear crisis was one of extremely poor journalism and extremely opportunistic photography. I have no faith in ANY environmentalist, and view ALL of their initiatives with extreme prejudice.
And, apologies to my friend and neighbor Pete: though the Volt is built in Hamtramck, it is clearly *not* a product of Detroit, but one of WDC and our tax dollars. I can give no pass to those people, no matter how many Detroiters' jobs may have been saved by their costly tomfoolery. A job saved at what expense? The jobs of thousands of others due to the burden these products have placed on the economy? No thanks. I will not deign to save my own at the expense of more than are "saved".
I had been a GM buyer for years and fan for half a century. I will buy GM again (but never a Volt - don't have a death wish) once they've restored all the shareholders and GM dealers who were totally screwed over by Obama and the Dems. Until then, bite me, GM. That goes for Chrysler too.
The only pictures you can find of the supposedly thousands of m.m.global warming drowned polar bears are liberal editorial cartoons.
-But some of them are very realistic.
I'm with Pete(Detroit) re: the Volt fires - sorta. Yes, "The fires occurred hours to weeks after the tests", and yes, NHTSA should have known better. However, in the real world expecting every Bubba with a tow truck to know the proper procedure for handling battery packs and coolant is unreasonable. Someday somewhere someone is going to tow and store a side-impacted Volt in a garage and start a fire.
And I'm definitely with Emmentaler Limburger. Regardless of the fire issue, a subsidized price tag of $250K per car is absurd.
@Pete(Detroit)- You make an entirely fair criticism, and it wasn't my intent to mock the Volt so much as the influence of the Government part of "Government Motors" in my description. But they don't blow up, and only a few have burned. On the other hand, the subsidies are ridiculous and make the Volt dangerous (at least economically) to taxpayers. Every car has $250,000 of taxpayer support which isn't included in the sale price.
Personally, I'd love to see Detroit carmaking bounce back in a big way - but I can't help but wonder if the meddling of Big Government is making that more likely or less likely in the long run.
@Randy S- Yes, it turns out that the most abundant source of alternate energy is graft. Who knew?
@Coon Tasty- The problem with using BS as an energy source is getting EPA approval to build so many pipelines coming from the Whitehouse.
@Angry Hoosier Dad- Obama really exemplifies the idea that "if at first you don't succeed, then spend, spend again."
@Emmentaler- If you read the article at the link I included in today's commentary, you'll see that some climate scientists still argue that the sun's output doesn't really have much effect on global warmth. Specifically, these would be the climate scientists who are idiots.
Returning again to the subject of the Volt, one really does have to wonder at the logic of putting so much tax money into a vehicle with low consumer demand. Granted, it costs a lot more to develop a technology at the front end, and costs can come down a lot in the future. But I personally question how much environmental good comes from an electric car which depends on electricity which comes from burning fossil fuels.
I do want technological process, and I'm not against paying for basic research and development. But I'm not at all convinced that the government's current system of "picking winners" is anything but a political game.
@My Dog Brewski- It was truly shameful (and entirely transparent) when the government seized GM, screwed the shareholders and dealers, and then gave the spoils to the Unions. This would be that "political game" I was just talking about.
@mlester101- Not only are liberal editorial cartoons of drowning polar bears very realistic, many of them are quite recent. Because liberal cartoonists have to draw something and they sure as hell can't illustrate any of Obama's newsworthy successes.
@CenTexTim- The burning Volt story also got kicked up a notch (fairly or not) by the government's apparent delay in letting the story come out. There is a profound and growing distrust in what this administration says and does, and personally I don't want any car, insurance policy, or solar panel which carries the Obama seal of approval.
It's one thing for the gov't to do basic research -- NASA, NIH, DARPA, etc, etc, are (were) fairly good at basic research -- but it's quite another (bad) thing for the gov't to be investing in companies that would have had ample access to venture capital if only the gov't wasn't busy taxing the venture capital out of the economy to give to bureaucrats to hand it to companies more on a political basis than a sound financial basis. The gov't simply has no business investing in any business, ever. Perhaps a constitutional amendment to address that is needed; I've yet to hear any current Republican call for such an amendment, alas.
Meanwhile, I find it ironic that when GM said decades ago that "what is good for GM is good for America" the liberals screamed to high heavens, and they continued to lambaste GM for having made the statement; for decades it was a complaint about GM. Something about the "arrogance of capitalism." And then Lo, the One got into office, and of a sudden it seemed that "what is good for GM is good for America" is the very Liberal-socialist motto of our times.
And too, I recall in the mid-70s to early-80s that there were breathless warnings in the NY Times about a coming ice age, and of course, only "massive gov't intervention" could solve the problem. And now, well, a bit of fluctuation in the weather, and of course, only "massive gov't intervention" in the economy is necessary to stop the farce of global warming -- and yet, be assured, if a new ice age is a-coming, the liberals will immediately shift gears and scream "only massive gov't intervention" will be the only "solution" to what no human has a blessed chance of ever changing or affecting. Warmer, colder or solidly stable, and I'm sure the One and his crowd will see a need for "massive gov't intervention" to do something.
Back in the earliest days of the automobile, it was presumed that electric would be the way to go. Steam power was unwieldy and dangerous - it took quite a while to build up a head of steam from a cold start, and you had better keep an eye on those gauges while you puttered along at jogging speed. The earlier internal combustion engines utilized open bowl gravity carburetors; extremely volatile gasoline trickled from the tank into the bowl, where the vapors would get sucked into the intake port, hopefully without backfiring... early motorbikes, especially, were prone to catching fire. And, of course, there were the dangers associated with hand crank starting. It would appear that Cadillac first successfully utilized the electric motor in a production vehicle in 1912, in just about the only useful way at that time; as a starter. In over one hundred years, though battery technology has advanced quite a bit, the thrust to weight ratio hasn't improved at nearly the same rate as the internal combustion engine. There are some pretty basic laws of physics at play here - chemical to electrical conversion processes have never been the most efficient. I've often found myself arguing with boneheads who claim that "they" aren't doing enough research into improving battery performance or exploring new technologies. When I press them as to who, exactly, "they" are, I get the usual happy horsecrap about Big Auto and Big Oil ignoring promising new possibilities as they chase down easy profits on established ones. Gads. Might as well demand flying unicorns in every garage.
Now, can you imagine where we would be if the current bunch of progressive environmental monkey turds had the last word back in 1910? We would be, well, back in 1890. Where they get the term "progressive" is beyond me. But then, lying is what they seem to do best.
Stilton: Want to see heads explode? Just ask this of those idiots who claim that solar output has little effect on climate: what happens to our climate if the Sun goes out, or explodes?
Stilt, I can only feel that 'gummint intervention' is killing the autos. Several popular vehicles (Ranger, Aerostar, and soon full sized vans)have been dropped merely due to regulations that were too expensive to meet. And do we really NEED tire pressure sensors to tell us our spare tire is going soft? It 'only' adds about $800 / vehicle... and airbags. Remember in the early 80s, they passed a 'passive restraint' law because people too stupid to use the (mandatory) seat belt were being killed? Rather than bow to the obvious Darwinism, the Feds decided they 'needed to *do something*' and passed a regulation. The companies felt that $800 airbags would not be popular, so developed all kinds of interesting seat belt designs (including motorized 'attack belts') to comply. After a few years, people said 'screw it, we'll pay to avoid these annoying belts'... and the cost of cars went up. In a 'fair' world, MPG would be a factor in which car you CHOSE to buy, not what vehicle is AVAILABLE to buy...
And I think we ALL agree that subsidies are poor product planning.
And yeah - you take coal and burn it to make steam (at a loss), convert it to motion (at a loss), convert it to electricity (at a loss), transmit it through wires (at a loss), to charge a battery (at a loss), to transmit to a motor (at a loss), to convert back to motion (at a loss) and this has a smaller 'carbon footprint' than burning gas in the engine? Maybe if you're using Hydro or Nuke power, (or Wind - KoffKoff) but COAL? Puh-leeze!
And don't EVEN get me started on the eco nightmare of waht to do w/ the used batteries when they fail and need to be replaced in (x) years...
As for climate change, hello, that's what it DOES. Over the past 400,000 years, the earth's climate has been 'temperate' for 40 - 50 thousand of them. What we think of as 'normal' is a 10 - 20% aberration. The 'normal' state of things is glaciation. Just sayin'
Alot of discussion about the earth "changing". Here's the problem: the earth changed (evolution) in order to usher in the "AGE OF THE ADDARROASS" -or the advanced arrogant asshole to walk the earth. That's happened / happening and that's it.
We've only been waiting for this day since the dawn of time. If you're not deferential to and accepting of their superior intellect, recycling/composting rules, grocery bag choice and eating local dictates then they are allowed to wipe their superior asses not w/ one sht. of t.p. but w/ you. Get used to it.
Off topic, but over at The Macho Response, Crack Emcee managed to weave 5 of your cartoons into one of his typical "stream of consciousness" posts. Check it out. I give him credit for exposing Hope n' Change to more readers.
By the way, you must have motivated David Rees out of "retirement" (he retired his "Get Your War On" clipart cartoon at Rolling Stone when Obama was elected - said "his work was done"). Now he's doing "Get Your Vote On".
@ Mike Porter:
So, why do modern trains burn diesel to create electricity? Does it have to do with torque required to move a train or some other reason?
Brewski: it has a lot to do with traction control - with an electric motor, you can get full torque at even zero RPM - and no clutch required. Also, though the engine-generator-controller-motor path does incur loss, it's nothing like chemical-electrical-chemical conversion schemes, and the energy source here is diesel fuel. Here we're talking bang for the buck in energy sources. If your automobile gets 20 miles to the gallon, then try this thought experiment: push that pup at sixty MPH for twenty miles with the drivetrain engaged. Now imagine a battery that weights as much as a gallon of gasoline... you might just be able to start your car. Hope it runs on gas.
@Pete(Detroit),
I loved your analysis of coal power.
It reminded me...Nissan is running TV ads for the Leaf bragging about it being a zero emissions vehicle. I mean, you just plug it in like your electric razor and, POOF, you're driving around making ZERO EMISSIONS, and burning NO FOSSIL FUELS.
Every time I see this ad, I want to scream. Your typical 99 percenter must think that electricity coming to his house comes from unicorns or fairy dust.
Try and imagine what the cost of electricity would be if there were about 50 million Leafs and Volts running around out there. Think about what the government's push for ethanol did for food prices and corn shortages.
My Dog Brewski and Mike Porter...
not to mention that a train gets 468 mpg per ton of freight! But they run on diesel, so they MUST be evil.
@Jim Hlavac- I agree that government shouldn't be investing in businesses and, by default, competing against private sector businesses. It's hard to stay profitable when your competitor has access to all the tax money in the world (which is not technically the case with GM, but you get my point).
And yes, liberals seem very comfortable with finding something abhorrent in conservatives, but loveable when they do it themselves.
Finally, whether the climate is too hot, too cold, or just right, massive government intervention is called for. I think Obama called this churning process "Change."
@Mike Porter- Interesting discussion of the physics involved in engines, and the paranoid faction that believes there's a conspiracy keeping us from enjoying electric cars that can run on AAA batteries.
And I'm just dumbfounded that anyone could doubt that the sun's output doesn't have much effect on the Earth's temperature. As far as asking these people what would happen if the sun went out, they'd probably say it wouldn't be too bad: after all, it already goes out for 12 hours every day - right?
@Pete(Detroit)- Excellent summary of what government regulations have done (and are continuing to do) to automobile makers. Vehicles people want are replaced with ones they don't, and then Washington wonders why sales are down. And since I drive a '93 Nissan, I didn't even know there was such a thing as tire inflation sensors until now. And only an extra $800? Great! Although my $5 pen-sized pressure checker seems to work pretty well.
You're also 100% right that the climate is constantly in flux. Why are we so self-centered now that we think the world should be unchanging... or that if there is change, it couldn't happen without our involvement?
@mlester101- As much as I like your description of the ADDARROASS class, I can't help but think of them as over-educated Morlocks, cultivating the vast, complacent herds of Eloi. (For anyone who doesn't recognize these groups, check out HG Wells "The Time Machine.")
@alan markus- Wow, I'm honored to be part of that interesting collage of ideas over at The Macho Response!
Regarding David Rees, I'm not that familiar with his work (though a quick Google images search failed to produce any laughter from me). As I've mentioned here before, the clip art strip that really inspired me was "Red Meat," which proved that you didn't need too much going on in the pictures if the writing was edgy enough.
@My Dog Brewski & Mike Porter- Now we're talking about torque! See, this blog is way smarter than anything on Huffington Post (grin).
@Colby- You've put your finger on the problem: the Whitehouse not only believes in Magic Electricity, but they're trying to buy it with our dollars.
And regarding diesel trains, they're extremely efficient but their blaring horns scare the caribou and keep them from mating.
@Pete: Haven't you heard? Their plan for "spent battery packs" is, apparently, to dump them on your local utility, and make them THEIR responsibility. You see, they still have "some capacity" to store and return electricity, even if not enough to make your electic car go an inch or two. So they'll tie them to the grid where they will ever be charged (as noted: at a loss) until the demand causes them to discharge back into the grid (again, if they're even still functioning, at a loss). Oh, golly! I can see it now: gleaming warehouses chock full of spent power cells, still suckling off the grid, just waiting to become an even bigger burden to consumers than Øbama has already made them! What a power utopia!
Except for, in their brave new world, the local power utilities are stuck with dealing with them when they render themselves into the useless chunks of chemicals and metals that the enviro-fascists fear most of all. And YOU, Mr. and Mrs. consumer, get to pay for their eventual "reclamation" via your utility bill - and all the environmentally-conscious organizations that brought them into being are off scot free. Can't you just FEEL the love?! I'm sure you can. You probably don't like where you're feeling it, though.
Sounds an awful lot like the awful, terrible incandescent light bulb saga. You know: the one where we traded putting bits of glass, brass, and tungsten into landfills in exchange for mercury-filled vacuum tubes that have a record for setting folks' home ablaze when they malfunction? Yeah, That one.
Soon, Washington will be planning around how to get power from those electric penguins, twenty feet high, with long green tentacles that sting people somewhere about the antarctic...
Hey, let's give credit where it's due. It is obvious that the anti-carbon policies of recent years have been *sooooooo* effective that not only have they stopped the threat of global warming, but they have actually changed the history of the planet back 15 years. Now that GW has been solved, let's put all of those geniuses onto the economy problem and see if they can get it down to zero or even -5% by year-end.
@SJ- Yes, I see your point. All those pipelines could stop Moochelle from mating, heaven forbid....
Brewski (et al)
The REALLY neat thing about diesel/electric (loco)motive systems is that it allows the engine to run wide open when needed (ie, getting rollling) and loaf along when less power is required. That, coupled w/ the inherant effiency of a diesel engine in general is what gives us the ton-miles per gallon Colby mentions. Well, that and they don't stop (therefore START) very often.
Shame we can't use a system like that in cars, but air quality laws (both EPA and various states - I'm looking at YOU, CA) make it very difficult to get diesel engines certified anymore. I remember driving a diesel Escort BITD, that got 50+ mpg on the freeway all day long. Today's engines could better that, I'm sure, w/o the annoying performance hit (that thing was a DOG, could barely get out of it's own way...). But no, once again the Nannies in Charge get to decide what we're allowed to want.
@Pete(Detroit) - re: tire pressure sensors. I kept getting a "low tire pressure" warning light no matter how much pressure I put in the tire. Turns out the TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System) in one of the valve stems had failed. Cost to replace - $80!!! For a friggin' valve stem that used to cost a buck or two. Government regulations... (I ended up putting a piece of tape over the idiot light on the dashboard. Low-tech low-cost solution to a non-problem.)
@Emmentaler Limburger - You beat me to the punch re: CFLs. Ten years from 90% of the people with burned-out CFLs will be tossing them in the trash. From there they'll go to landfills, and from there they'll leach into the water table. Same thing with battery packs, as Pete(Detroit) pointed out.
The problem (well, one of the problems) with liberals is that they can't think beyond the first-order effect of their programs.
@Readers- Dang, you guys are getting ahead of me here with the tech talk (I can follow, but have nothing to add - other than the wish that liberals and/or politicians would have half the logic and common sense that I'm seeing here today!)
CenTexTim
The problem (well, one of the problems) with liberals is that they can't think
Period
There, fixed it for ya... sad thing is, 'many/most' of 'em WANT to be 'nice' 'good' 'decent' people - BUT they let FEELINGS get in the way of THINKING. Things that SEEM to be a good idea (but aren't - aka 'welfare')dominate the brain.
Truly pathetic, especially when you see it in family members who you darned well KNOW had a perfectly good brain at one time, BITD....
Man, scrub the DUCK on this new post system... p above is me...
@ Pete(Detroit):
As we have seen so often, this is why progressives believe they are accomplishing so much when they are dragging us into hell. If your intentions are good, you are good and your good intentions = positive outcome. The actual end result just doesn't matter as long as you meant well. To the logical mind it doesn't compute, but to them, as Festus Haggen would say..."it's clear as crystial".
@P.Pete(Detroit)- On Facebook, a liberal acquaintance posted a link to a story which claims researchers are finding that liberals are filled with more empathy, and see more "grays" in circumstances than cold-hearted, risk-averse, absolutist conservatives. Which is BS, of course. Nope, it comes down to the thinking/feeling dichotomy: Conservatives think, and Liberals feel.
And regarding this new comment section, I still hate it - but there's still no way to return to the old way of posting comments (I check regularly, but I'm not even sure that Blogger is bothering to address the issue.)
@Angry Hoosier Dad- In a nutshell, it's more important for Liberals to feel good about themselves than to accomplish good for others. In fact, once they get the orgasmic rush of self-esteem, they forget to even look to see how their plans and programs really affect others.
So sorry I'm late to the party, since this is one of my favorite topics.
Why are the eco-fascists so attached to the idea of carbon as the planet's greatest enemy? Because there is no aspect of your existence, from the moment you are conceived until long after you're deceased that does not involve the conversion of matter into CO2. Once governments assert authority to regulate this otherwise natural element, there as absolutely no aspect of your life that will be free from regulation. Sure, they're starting with SUVs and incandescent light bulbs as the great enemies. But once vanquished, what will be next? Pretty much anything they want. Literally any, product, service, or activity they don't like you doing they will eventually be able to outlaw. It's a statist control freak's wildest dream.
All we need is love.
Don't think, just do.
Hug a tree, save the planet.
Hug a jellyfish, save the whale,
Search your feelings, find your anger.
Abuse the horse, Luke.
That's sure to bugger the PETAphiles.
Damn! How do they do it? I tried to empty my mind. Being a liberal is just too difficult... I think.
@Mike Porter - and therein lays the answer: you'll never become a liberal because ... you think.
Speaking of diesel... I drive a 1998 Jetta TDI that has close to 300k on it and still gets 50 mpg! It has a turbo, so it's not completely gutless. I love the thing, especially when I pass a friggin' Prius knowing damn well I'm getting better mileage than they are. VW has now managed to ruin the Jetta TDI by stuffing a 5 cyl. into it that only gets about 40 mpg, but I would still buy one of those before spending $30k on something that will be a 6,000 pound pile of hazardous waste in 10 years.
Please, everybody, for real "change," let's start finding some political candidates that have rational thoughts and understand reality.
BTW Stilton, that polar bear picture reminds me of the famous picture of Al Franken in a diaper. Gahhh!
@John the Econ- Quite right that this whole carbon charade is another thinly-disguised attempt to control people completely. And your remarks reminded me of an HnC cartoon which I published almost exactly three years ago which comments on this same silliness.
@Mike Porter- As the old saying goes, "I think, there I am...conservative."
@Colby- I'm going to need a new car soon, so maybe I should check out that diesel option. Though as rarely as I get out from behind this computer, I should probably just look into putting a small motor on my office chair.
On another topic, your mention of bears AND diapers made me think of Conan O'Brien's infamous "masturbating bear" - which is both funnier and less offensive than Al Franken.
In 1986, my sister bought a Geo Metro that got as much as 60 mpg on its 3-cylinder gas engine. It was a tiny car, but if all you cared about was mileage, it was fine. I see no advantage to the hybrids, except for the smug, "greener-than-thou" types. They'll sneer at you no matter what, though, because they know what's good for you and you should therefore do what they say. It's a religion to them.
+6, JeepGuy
Hey, so much for Global Whining... Al Gore will be bummed.
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