Sunday, February 21, 2010

Headlines Sunday 21st February 2010

=== Todays Toon ===

Political cartoons do more than amuse (and occasionally confuse)—they can express, as well as shape, public opinion.
=== Bible Quote ===
“He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.”- Proverbs 17:9
===

Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who served Republican presidents and ran for the office himself, dies at 85 after complications with an infection

Petraeus: Progress, Finally
Top U.S. commander says that after more than eight years in Afghanistan, U.S. is getting resources for success

Diabetes Drug Said to Pose Heart Risk
Government reportedly recommends pulling diabetes drug Avandia because it can cause cardiovascular harm

Tiger Opens Up About Buddhist Faith
In Woods' most direct reference to his beliefs to date, golfer cites role of Buddhism in his life, and his recovery

FBI Investigating Pa. School Webcam Spying Allegations
A Pennsylvania school district accused of secretly switching on laptop computer webcams inside students' homes is under investigation by federal authorities, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press. The FBI will look into whether any federal wiretap or computer-intrusion laws were violated by Lower Merion School District officials, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the investigation, told the AP on Friday. Days after a student filed suit over the practice, Lower Merion officials acknowledged Friday that they remotely activated webcams 42 times in the past 14 months, but only to find missing student laptops. They insist they never did so to spy on students, as the student's family claimed in the federal lawsuit. Families were not informed of the possibility the webcams might be activated in their homes without their permission in the paperwork students sign when they get the computers, district spokesman Doug Young said. "It's clear what was in place was insufficient, and that's unacceptable," Young said. - The Rudd government computers in school have similar facility. -ed.


Jo-Anne Crotty's awarded a landmark six figure Queensland WorkCover sum after her skin cancer awareness campaigner spouse Rohan dies of melanoma | Picture: Jamie Hanso

Cash paid for transplant organs
AUSTRALIA'S hospitals are being paid to harvest transplant organs from their own dead patients.

Airport staff smuggle drugs and guns
CRIME gangs use corrupt baggage handlers and customs officials to smuggle, drugs and guns

Sex maniac woos wife he wanted dead
AN inmate's tried to win back the heart of the wife he and his mistress plotted to drown.

Former publishing icon fleeced by conmen
NENE King could lose her home and maybe her pets too after being ripped off by two conmen.

Farmer creates a new type of fruit

IS it a plum? Is it a peach? It's probably a pleach as it's a morph of the two tasty stone fruits.

Japan seeks whaling standoff solution
JAPAN'S foreign minister and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had a 'frank discussion' about possible legal action on Japanese whaling.

Assaults rife in our schools
THE incidence of schoolyard violence has jumped sharply, with police investigating almost 2000 attacks in NSW schools in the past year.

Kamikaze pilot hid his rage, money woes
FRIENDS of the kamikaze pilot who flew into an Internal Revenue office were unaware of his money problems or inner rage.

Bar staff who claim they were used as 'human' bait by police to sue

BAR staff who claim they were used as "human bait" by police during an alleged armed robbery last year are preparing to sue the NSW Police Force for putting their lives at risk. Staff of the North Haven Bowling Club have moved to launch joint legal proceedings against police - a move which may also target senior commanders who approved the operation. The incident took place on April 5 at the venue near Port Macquarie.

School kids learn about lying

PRIMARY school children will be taught if it's OK to lie and will debate whether products should be tested on animals in the state's first ethics lessons. Ten government schools, including Haberfield, Darlinghurst, Crown Street, Leichhardt and Hurstville, will start the landmark 10-week trial in late April. Each week, for 30 minutes, students in Years 5 and 6 will discuss the ethics of issues such as bullying, graffiting, stealing and children's rights. The classes, tipped to be extremely popular, will be offered to students who have opted out of scripture lessons.

Emma Rothwel injured after oven explodes in new $1m home

A NORTHERN Territory girl had to be rushed to hospital after the oven in her family's new $1million "dream" home exploded. Experts told the Northern Territory News it was a miracle that Emma Rothwell, 11, escaped the ordeal with only minor injuries. "It was a bit scary, I can't really remember it,'' she said. The blast happened at the family's brand new house, worth $987,000, on Damabila Drive, Lyons. Emma was cooking a curry when the stove blew out of its fittings, hitting her in her right leg and throwing her on to the ground.

More sex abuse claims in Fire Brigades
FIRE Commissioner Greg Mullins has acknowledged a culture of cover-up hiding a history of ritualistic abuse in the NSW Fire Brigades and vowed to show no "fear or favour" in bringing alleged perpetrators to justice. As The Sunday Telegraph's special investigation uncovered a further six accounts of brutal and humiliating initiation rituals from the 1970s and 1980s, Emergency Services Minister Steve Whan ordered the State's top bureaucrat to run an independent inquiry into culture and governance at the fire service.
=== Comments ===
Why Conroy, not Garrett, is the Rudd Government’s problem
Piers Akerman
WHETHER skiing with Seven media boss Kerry Stokes or golfing with Foxtel shareholder James Packer, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is becoming quite the all-round sportsman. - Piers I broadly agree with what you say, but I don't think we are in a position to judge which is the ALP's worst minister. At times, all seem to put their hand up for the position.
There does not seem to be an attempt to even hide their apparent corruption. Some government 'ministers' like Laurie Oakes claim that they are not the beneficiary of ALP corruption because their partisan support of the ALP cannot be bought. Give me $250 million and I can claim the same. You don't even need to give the money to me, but to my employer.
That lack of transparency is what undermines public institutions, like that of the governor general's office or judiciary. So that any statement made by independent authorities becomes suspect. So that basic law and order processes constipate.
The Hamidur Rahman issue is one such result of this failure of the government activity. Eight years after the school boy's death basic questions have not been asked as to how it could be that basic details known to the department of Education in NSW was held from the coroner's office in determining their judgement that the accident was partly the fault of the parents. The finding was open, but as years pass, it becomes more difficult to admit the evidence that was apparently illegally withheld for political reasons by Della Bosca and Tripodi with help from the Premier's office. - ed.

===
A Bad Day for Tiger Woods
By Bill O'Reilly
A bad day for Tiger Woods, and that is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo." Looking somewhat shaken, the golfer told the world that he had acted irresponsibly in conducting a number of extramarital affairs that damaged his family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIGER WOODS: I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated. What I did is not acceptable. And I am the only person to blame. I stopped living by the core values that I was taught to believe in. I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn't apply. I never thought about who I was hurting. Instead, I thought only about myself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

And being selfish is not an uncommon thing. All of us are sinners. The only thing that separates fallible human beings is the degree of the transgressions. Therefore, judging Tiger Woods is probably not a good thing to do. Now, Mr. Woods went on to say how wealth and fame influenced his behavior.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOODS: I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn't have far -- I didn't have to go far to find them. I was wrong. I was foolish. I don't get to play by different rules. The same boundaries that apply to everyone apply to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Mr. Woods also said he would not answer questions about his conduct and that's smart. The press would brutalize the man because scandal sells. The more salacious the information, the more money the media can make. So the golfer is wise not to get specific about what he did or did not do.

Also, Mr. Woods appealed to the press to stop following his children around and leave his wife alone. Again, the media does this to make money. And I hope the press will back off.

Finally, the golfer addressed the religious issue. As you may remember, Fox News analyst Brit Hume suggested that Tiger Woods might seek forgiveness through Christianity, rather than through his native religion Buddhism. In response, Mr. Woods said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOODS: Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

So, once again, the world sees a fallen star, a man who's bad decisions have hurt himself and the people he loves. The importance of the story, the cautionary tale.
===
LAST TRUE BELIEVER
Tim Blair
Stephanie Peatling:
The insulation program really is a good thing.
===
DOWN WITH GIRLY JESUS
Tim Blair
For some, a major attraction of Islam is the religion’s, er, aggressive aspect. There’s no messing around with Mo; he runs a tough shop, which might explain the high number of prison conversions. By comparison, your Jesus-based faiths are a little low on testosterone:
Real men don’t like going to church because they don’t want to “sing love songs to a man”, because the “vicar wears a dress”, because they feel like “mongrels on parade at Crufts” and because they want to be waited on by women rather than queue for coffee after the service.
A British group now suggests ways that too-feminine Christian services might be made more acceptable:
These include redesigning the interiors of church buildings to make men feel more at home.

Instead of the usual flowers and statues of the Virgin Mary, they suggest, “How would it go down to decorate with swords, or pictures of knights, or flaming torches?”
Even better: images of knights with swords and flaming torches – or flaming swords – advancing on the nearest Uniting Church, the most girled-up denomination in Australia. Men can get pregnant just walking past one of those joints.
===
HAPPY TENTACLES
Tim Blair
The UK Telegraph reports:
Penguins in Antarctica to be replaced by jellyfish due to global warming
No word yet on whether they’re big emperor jellyfish or those cute little fairy jellyfish.

(Via M. Meat)
===
ALEXANDER HAIG
Tim Blair
Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, briefly in charge during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, has died at 85.
===
Minister annoints himself as a new saint
Andrew Bolt
Even my own children couldn’t help but laugh at the effrontery:
Dissident Uniting Church minister Francis MacNab has posted a giant billboard over the Monash Freeway with pictures of Florence Nightingale, Martin Luther King and himself as model leaders.

Dr MacNab, minister of St Michael’s in Collins Street, launched his ‘’new faith’’ in late 2008 with another controversial freeway billboard: ‘’The Ten Commandments, the most negative document ever written.’’ He rejects the idea of a divine Christ and a personal God....

‘’Every morning I drive past and think ‘what an impertinence’,’’ said commuter Geoff Slattery, a Catholic.
Photo at the link. More on MacNab’s self-canonisation on his website. Just who is in his “libeal and progressive” congregation?
===
Greens claim they’d be winning if they bothered arguing
Andrew Bolt
Only now that they’re losing do they want a debate ... or just a stepping up of the slime:
AUSTRALIAN green groups have called a strategy meeting to devise ways to hit back at the climate sceptics movement, amid fears they are losing the PR war.

The groups, including Greenpeace, the Wilderness Society, World Wide Fund for Nature, Australian Conservation Foundation and Friends of the Earth, have acknowledged that the public mood has shifted following the collapse of the Copenhagen climate talks and blows to the credibility of the IPCC

.James Norman, of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the strategy of ignoring climate change sceptics had not worked as it had been taken as confirmation of their claims.

‘’The stakes are too high to remain silent or disorganised in the face of this systemic disinformation campaign,’’ Mr Norman said.

He said the global campaign was being funded by anti-climate-change think tanks such as the American Atlas Economic Research Foundation and the British International Policy Network, which had both received grants from oil company ExxonMobil.
What a bizarre conspiracy theory. I have never heard of the American Atlas Economic Research Foundation or the British International Policy Network, and have never seen a dollar of Exxon money.

Have these people ever considered just arguing on the facts?

(Thanks to reader Blair.)

UPDATE

Hmm, or is that simply not possible? Reader MarcH fact-checks the increasingly hysterical Climate Change Minister Penny Wong:
Just how well does Minister Penny Wong know her portfolio?

Wong on the ABC’s world today on Friday:
We’ve got around 85 per cent of the world’s economies signed up to the Copenhagen Accord.
Number of countries in UN: 192

Number of countries providing emission target under Copenhagen Accord: 70 (Annex I (40) non-Annex I (30))

This is 36%
And that’s being generous. Most of those targets are either highly conditional or promise not real cuts at all to total emissions.

UPDATE 2

Journalist Richad Orange confesses to trying to feed one of the most popular warmist hoaxes:
You couldn’t hope for a more perfect climate change victim than Ajay Patra, the head man of Ghoramara — the island in India’s Sunderban chain that is next in line to be submerged beneath the rising sea. The hungry tide has already claimed all but seven of the 100 hectares his family had once owned, Ajay told me…

As we sipped tea outside Ajay’s large mud bungalow, I excitedly scribbled notes, imagining how all this would go down in the Ecologist magazine, or perhaps the London-based Independent. It had already run an article reporting the disappearance of the next-door island of Lohachara, “the first inhabited island to be claimed by climate change”. I felt sure they’d love this too. But when I asked Ajay what he made of the fact that all of his troubles were the direct result of heavy industry thousands of miles away, he looked at me like I was mad.

“It’s not because of global warming, it’s because of natural erosion”, he said…

I smiled inwardly. It was, perhaps, too much to expect a simple village leader to have a full grasp of the science of global warming. But later, as I examined the dramatic waterline of Ghoramara, I began to have doubts… Then there’s New Moore Island, which appeared in the Sunderbans for the first time in 1970 and has been growing apace ever since… It’s around 10,000 square metres today, and such is the scale of the sedimentary deposits building up around it that it’s expected to hit 25 square kilometres in a couple of decades.

To my shame, I must confess that I still tried to make the story work long after all this was apparent. And I imagine every other journalist who has arrived on these islands with global warming in mind has done exactly the same thing.
Indeed, Orange soon found one that published exactly the scare story he’d realised was false:
His exhausted body a prisoner to the Bay of Bengal’s violent tides, Dependra Das stretches out his bony arms to show his flaky, ravaged skin. He is covered in raw saltwater sores…

Alongside him, stretched across the beach in long, thin lines, the villagers of Ghorama Island – including the women, elaborately dressed in their purple, orange and green saris – work daily to prop up the same black mud-and-sand fortress.
(Thanks to reader Tony.)
===
Garrett won’t tell the ugly truth
Andrew Bolt
As far back as April, Minter Ellison Consulting warned the Rudd Government its free insulation scheme was a bureaucratic disaster. But try getting Peter Garrett to admit he’s sat on this warning for more than nine months:

COLVIN: The Environment Minister Peter Garrett is on the line now. Mr Garrett, you tabled the Minter Ellison risk assessment today, how long have you had it?

PETER GARRETT: Mark I haven’t had it for a significant period of time. It was sought for tabling and I arranged for the tabling to take place today.

MARK COLVIN: The Opposition says that you’ve hidden it for over half a year now.

PETER GARRETT: Well, I don’t accept the Opposition making claims of this kind.

MARK COLVIN: You might as well tell us how long you actually have had it.

PETER GARRETT: Well, I’m not providing sort of dates and numbers to you over the phone, Mark, in relation to this. When, when the call came for this particular document to be identified, I identified it in my statement when I spoke to the Parliament last week. I said in the Parliament, that this document was a risk assessment document which had been drawn on …

MARK COLVIN: Why, I’m sorry …

PETER GARRETT: Just let me finish …

MARK COLVIN: But why wouldn’t you, why wouldn’t you just answer the question?

PETER GARRETT: I am answering the question …

MARK COLVIN: About how long you’ve had it?

PETER GARRETT: I’m answering the question.

MARK COLVIN: It’s a simple question. Why, why won’t you answer the question about how long you’ve had this report?

PETER GARRETT: Mark I’m answering the question by saying this: I produced for the Parliament a statement detailing all of my responses in relation to what both the department and I had, actions had taken in relation to the home insulation program.

===
PM’s minions silence 19-year-old charity worker
Andrew Bolt
The original claims seem a beat up, and there’s no evidence Kevin Rudd actually saw the ticket seller. But it’s the heavying by the Prime Minister’s office of Lions to gag the girl that’s nasty:
A 19-year-old Lions service club volunteer who suggested the PM was “too stingy to buy a $2 scratchie ticket”, was gagged within two hours of The Sunday Mail attempts to investigate her claims.

It all began with an email from the teenage fundraiser who was selling $2 footy doubles in the corporate dining area of last weekend’s Indigenous All Stars game at Skilled Stadium…

“I then approached the table where the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was sitting. Not only was he too stingy to buy a ticket, he wouldn’t even look me in the eye and completely ignored me...”

Two hours later, after the intervention of the PM’s office, the NRL PR machine and the Lions club, the teen changed her mind, saying she’d been reprimanded for speaking out.
UPDATE

It’s unfair to say Kevin Rudd won’t dig deep into someone’s pockets when asked nicely by a charity worker, like, say Channel 7 owner Kerry Stokes:

Perth’s annual Telethon has wrapped up for another year, raising a total this year of $6,374,775 over the 26-hour telecast…

This year’s total included $1.5 million donated by the Federal Government and a further $250,000 from the Western Australian Government… PerthNow reports that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a personal appearance at Telethon to announce the Federal Government’s donation...The appeal, telecast through TVW7 Perth ...

===
Rudd dogs Insiders again
Andrew Bolt
Insiders today again failed to get Kevin Rudd to appear on the most popular political talk show on television. One day in this election year Rudd will have to relent on his ban, but I suspect he’ll do that only when he’s in a lot less strife than he’s been, and has less to fear from the questions.
===
Oakes defends when he should explain
Andrew Bolt
Laurie Oakes fails to tell the full story - which would actually undermine his defence of the handout Kevin Rudd gave his boss:
THE Rudd government justified the $250 million rebate cut for commercial television networks yesterday by saying it was because there were “grave concerns” stations would not meet their local content quotas, despite the content being enshrined in the networks’ licence conditions anyway.

And the TV networks themselves joined the debate, with primetime news stories on Seven and Nine attacking Tony Abbott for suggesting the controversial handout to the networks was akin to a bribe to buy favourable coverage.

In a personal editorial on National Nine News, veteran political reporter Laurie Oakes said: “My message to Tony Abbott is this—when Kerry Packer owned the Nine Network, he knew he couldn’t tell me what to say so the bunch of private equity investors who own it now have no chance.”
That sounds to me like a reference to this incident, whenOakes indeed did defy Packer and refuse to check out a story to the detriment of Paul Keating - but one of his colleagues did not. Niki Savva, who was working at the time for Treasurer Peter Costello, tells the story in her new book:
As we were milling about preparing to leave, Packer casually turned to Oakes, Nine’s political editor, and asked him why he had not done a story on Keating’s piggery in NSW.

Packer knew Oakes had been given documents relating to the piggery, which came as a surprise to Oakes. Oakes did not know Packer knew he had the documents and was taken aback even further when Packer wanted to know why, exactly, he had not produced a piece based on them.

Oakes replied he had checked out the documents and found they didn’t stand up. He had been waiting for a source to come through, but he had not delivered. James Packer said he thought that was fair enough, but it was not good enough for Kerry. It was apparently the one and only time Packer tried to heavy Oakes. Oakes did not budge. At that point, (Nine political reporter Paul) Lyneham stepped forward, literally, and volunteered his services. He said he would look at the documents himself, even though, as of that night, he did not have them.

Lyneham later somehow came by another set of the same documents, and there he is fronting the special 60 Minutes program on Keating’s investments in March the following year. The program investigated Keating’s dealings with the Commonwealth Bank relating to the piggery investment, but no wrongdoing was found and a Howard government inquiry also cleared him.
Oakes may boast, but the full story tells us the rest of us should worry.
===
Arctic ice was pushed out, rather than melted
Andrew Bolt

Serial alarmist Marian Wilkinson on the ABC’s Four Corners hailed the big Arctic melt of 2007 as evidence the world was heating disastrously and man was to blame:
If you want to see climate change happening before your eyes, scientists will tell you: “Go to the end of the earth”, and that’s why we’re here, in the Arctic Circle.
Wilkinson never explained why the end of the earth we had to go to for evidence was the top, and not the bottom, where sea ice was actually increasing:

Nor has she been back to tell us that the Arctic has since increased its ice cover:

And here’s one more thing she might now need to add - that part of that big melt of 2007 was caused not so much by a warmer world melting that ice where it lay, but, NASA now concedes, but by currents pushing the ice down to warmer seas:
In 2007, the Arctic lost a massive amount of thick, multiyear sea ice, contributing to that year’s record-low extent of Arctic sea ice. A new NASA-led study has found that the record loss that year was due in part to the absence of “ice arches,” naturally-forming, curved ice structures that span the openings between two land points. These arches block sea ice from being pushed by winds or currents through narrow passages and out of the Arctic basin.
NASA does still insist this makes its claims of future warming apocalypse more credible, but its concession at least complicates the simple story Wilkinson tried to sell us about some 2007 heat wave blitzing the Arctic.
===
How many more before Rudd winds back his “reforms”
Andrew Bolt
And still they come, now that Kevin Rudd has weakened our border laws:
A SUSPECTED asylum seeker boat with 10 passengers aboard has been intercepted near the Ashmore Islands of northwestern Australia.

It is the 14th boat to have arrived in Australian waters so far in 2010.
UPDATE

My red dot on this Department of Immigration graphic marks the date that the Rudd Government announced it was weakening our laws to deter boat people. You see the result, even with the Government trying to push the new arrivals through the system faster than ever,

You’re paying for this.
===
How rush-rush-Rudd wasted yet more of your billions
Andrew Bolt
Another scandalous waste of money, and again thanks to a rush-rush Rudd Government spending billions in a hurry on stuff we didn’t really need anyway:
BUILDERS’ mark-ups, management fees and multi-layered bureaucracy are hugely inflating the cost of work under the Building the Education Revolution program, critics say.

Parents and principals have raised concerns that some projects are costing up to 10 times more than regular construction.

Quantity surveyors say a quality one- or two-level commercial building would cost about $2100 a square metre.

At Orange Grove Public School, in Lilyfield, a 25-square-metre canteen is being built for $550,000, or $22,000 a square metre.

Kangaroo Valley Public School has received a 169-square-metre library for $850,000, or $5029 a square metre, and Berridale Public School in the Southern Highlands received a quote for a prefabricated library also amounting to $850,000, or $5660 a square metre.
You know you can get six McMansions for what the Rudd Government is spending on one prefabricated library, and four for the price of just one of Rudd’s small canteens. In fact, for what Rudd spends on one canteen, Jennings can build you two of these - the kitchens included, and with enough left over for a new school minibus.
===
How Garrett’s make-work turned into a make-redundant
Andrew Bolt
What was meant to create jobs now kills them, and leaves us with a retraining bill as well:
SHONKY insulation workers will be retrained as the federal government reworks its botched home insulation program and tries to avoid massive job losses.

Thousands of insulation workers face the chopping block after the government canned its home insulation rebate scheme, which has been linked to four deaths and at least 87 house fires…

Employment Participation Minister Mark Arbib concedes the changes will result in job losses. To address the issue he put an extra $10 million on the table to provide 2000 training places for out-of-work installers.
As if these clowns hadn’t wasted enough of our millions already on this inept, useless and lethally dangerous folly. If they had done nothing at all, we’d all be richer, four people would still be alive and a thousand homes wouldn’t now have deadly faults.
===
Dutch to leave us in Afghanistan
Andrew Bolt
And this in turn has serous implications for Australia, whose troops serve alongside the more heavily armed Dutch in a joint base at Tarin Kowt:
THE Dutch government collapsed today, the prime minister said, after members of the coalition government disagreed on a NATO request to extend the Netherlands’ military mission in Afghanistan…

In the latest in a string of political rows, Vice-Premier Wouter Bos invoked the ire of his cabinet colleagues by stating this week that his PvdA would not support extending the Dutch deployment in Afghanistan beyond 2010…

The Dutch mission, which started in 2006, has already once been extended by two years and has cost 21 soldiers’ lives.
Radio Netherlands:

The collapse of the coalition government in the Netherlands automatically means that Dutch forces will be withdrawn from the Afghan province of Uruzgan as of 1 August…

Currently, the Dutch part of the Task Force Uruzgan comprises some 1,500 military personnel. Five hundred other Dutch troops are stationed elsewhere in Afghanistan. Six hundred soldiers of the Task Force Uruzgan form a ‘Battle Group’. In addition, there is a Dutch-led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), a Special Forces unit. It also includes Apache attack helicopters, heavy artillery and logistics units. A sizeable Australian Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force and smaller French and Slovakian units are also part of the Task Force Uruzgan…

The Netherlands is the first country of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to withdraw its troops.

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