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I clearly remember the moment several years ago when my closest friend from NYC was at my place pleading with me to download and use Spotify. The pitch was compelling and I was open minded about the concept, until I learned that you had to login through Facebook to use it (no longer the case I believe). I immediately found this creepy and refused to use it.

Fast forward to 2015, and Forbes has come out with a very important article highlighting the incredible creepiness factor in Spotify’s new “privacy policy.” Here’s some of what it found:

Music streaming market leader Spotify has decided that it wants to know a lot more about you. It wants to be able to access the sensor information on your phone so it can determine whether you’re walking, running or standing still. It wants to know your GPS coordinates, grab photos from your phone and look through your contacts too. And it may share that information with its partners, so a whole load of companies could know exactly where you are and what you’re up to.

This has all been made apparent by a rather significant update to the Spotify privacy policy, pushed out to users today. Upon opening the Spotify app up this morning, your reporter was greeted with a request to agree to the new conditions. A quick comparison with the previous privacy policy using the Wayback Machine showed some major changes had been made. I’m now considering whether the £10 I pay for a premium membership is worth it, given the amount of privacy I’d be giving away by consenting.

Here are a couple of the key updates found by Forbes:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Parts of California Have Sunk Over a Foot in Eight Months Due to Drought

August 21, 2015

Parts of California Have Sunk Over a Foot in Eight Months Due to Drought

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California Dreamin’ this is not.

Sounds pretty freakin’ terrifying actually. From Bloomberg:

Land in California’s central valley agricultural region sank more than a foot in just eight months in some places as residents and farmers pump more and more groundwater amid a record drought.

The ground near Corcoran, 173 miles (278 kilometers) north of Los Angeles, dropped about 1.6 inches every 30 days. One area in the Sacramento Valley was descending about half-an-inch per month, faster than previous measurements, according to a report released Wednesday by the Department of Water Resources. NASA completed the study by comparing satellite images of Earth’s surface over time.

“Groundwater levels are reaching record lows — up to 100 feet lower than previous records,” Mark Cowin, the department’s director, said in a statement. “As extensive groundwater pumping continues, the land is sinking more rapidly and this puts nearby infrastructure at greater risk of costly damage.”

Areas along the California Aqueduct — a system of canals and tunnels that ships water from the north to the south –– sank as much as 12.5 inches, with eight inches of that occurring in just four months of 2014, researchers found.

Get to work Dr. Bernanke.

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For related articles, see:

Wal-Mart Exposed Bottling Water from Sacramento Municipal Supply in the Middle of a Drought

Video of the Day – Stunning Scenes from California’s Central Valley Drought

Pentagon Plans to Boost Drone Flights 50% as Bernanke Warns Cutting Defense Spending Could Hurt Economy

August 18, 2015

Pentagon Plans to Boost Drone Flights 50% as Bernanke Warns Cutting Defense Spending Could Hurt Economy

In the event you were becoming concerned that the U.S. government might be backing away from its longstanding policy of endless violence, militarism and bloodshed, fear not. If we know one thing for sure, it’s that defense contractors and the military-intelligence-industrial complex must earn. And continue to earn it will.

So despite the Air Force having a hard time finding pilots for its drones, the Pentagon still plans to ramp up drone flights by 50% over the next four years.

We learn from the Wall Street Journal that:

The Pentagon plans to sharply expand the number of U.S. drone flights over the next four years, giving military commanders access to more intelligence and greater firepower to keep up with a sprouting number of global hot spots, a senior defense official said.

The plan to increase by 50% the number of daily drone flights would broaden surveillance and intelligence collection in such locales as Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, the South China Sea and North Africa, said the official, who provided exclusive details of the plan to The Wall Street Journal. It would be the first significant increase in the U.S. drone program since 2011, reflecting pressure on military efforts to address a cascading series of global crises.

While expanding surveillance, the Pentagon plan also grows the capacity for lethal airstrikes, the most controversial part of the U.S. drone program and its rapid growth under President Barack Obama . Strikes by unmanned aircraft have killed 3,000 people or more, based on estimates by nonpartisan groups.

Of course, the most offensive part about all of this, is that the “cascading series of global crises” mentioned by the WSJ, are the direct result of incredibly inept and destructive U.S. foreign policy in the first place. Recall the post from earlier today titled, Additional Details Emerge on How U.S. Government Policy Created, Armed, Supported and Funded ISIS. Here’s an excerpt:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Greeks Flock to Grassroots Alternative Currencies in Affront to Euro Debt Slavery

August 14, 2015

Greeks Flock to Grassroots Alternative Currencies in Affront to Euro Debt Slavery

Necessity is the mother of invention.

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When Christos Papaioannou noticed his car needed new tires, the Greek computer engineer bought them with euros—but used an alternative currency, called TEM, to pay his mechanic for the labor.

His country has avoided a catastrophic exit from the common currency, at least for now. But a small but growing number of cash-strapped Greeks, who are still grappling with strict money-withdrawal limits, have found another route in TEM and other unconventional payment systems like it.

Before then, Ms. Sotiropoulou said she was only aware of two such programs. No official record of the number of alternative currencies and local bartering systems appears to exist in Greece. But according to an Athens-based grass roots organization called Omikron Project, there are now more than 80 such programs, double the number in 2013. They vary in size, from dozens of members to thousands.

– From the Wall Street Journal article: Alternative Currencies Flourish in Greece as Euros Are Harder to Come by

Hundreds of millions of people throughout the Western world are being forced to admit an obvious, yet uncomfortable reality.Democracy is dead. Your vote and your voice doesn’t matter. Not at all.

No group of people understand this as intimately as the Greeks. They voted for one thing, got something else, and in the process were unceremoniously reminded of their political irrelevance. The Greeks are now in a position to show the rest of us how it’s done. Communities need to take matters into their own hands and tackle challenges at the grassroots level. Nowhere is this more impactful and necessary than in the monetary realm, and some Greeks are already leading the charge.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Washington Post Reporter Charged with “Trespassing” in Ferguson, Missouri as the “War on Journalism” Continues

August 12, 2015

Washington Post Reporter Charged with “Trespassing” in Ferguson, Missouri as the “War on Journalism” Continues

A year ago, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery, was arrested in a McDonald’s in Ferguson Missouri. The fast-food establishment had been used as a staging area for several reporters, including theHuffington Post’s Ryan Rilley, who was also arrested. Here’s last year’s video clip of Mr. Lowery being harassed by a paramilitary police officer.

Although the men were later released without charges, a year later, they are being charged with “trespassing” by St. Louis County. TheWashington Post reports:

A Washington Post reporter who was arrested at a restaurant last year while reporting on protests in Ferguson, Mo., has been charged in St. Louis County with trespassing and interfering with a police officer and ordered to appear in court.

Wesley Lowery, a reporter on The Post’s national desk, was detained in a McDonald’s while he was in Missouri covering demonstrations sparked by a white police officer fatally shooting an unarmed black 18-year-old.

“Charging a reporter with trespassing and interfering with a police officer when he was just doing his job is outrageous,” Martin Baron, executive editor of The Post, said in a statement Monday. “You’d have thought law enforcement authorities would have come to their senses about this incident. Wes Lowery should never have been arrested in the first place. That was an abuse of police authority.

According to the summons, Lowery is being charged with trespassing on private property despite being asked to leave. He is also charged with interfering with a police officer’s performance of his duties because, the summons alleges, he failed to comply with “

These counts carry a possible fine of $1,000 and up to a year in a county jail, according to the St. Louis County municipal code.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The New York Times Warns About the Pentagon Labeling Journalists “Unprivileged Belligerents”

August 11, 2015

The New York Times Warns About the Pentagon Labeling Journalists “Unprivileged Belligerents”

This post is a follow up to a piece I published in June titled: New Thousand Page Pentagon War Manual Potentially Lumps Journalists in with “Unprivileged Belligerents.” Here’s an excerpt:

A 1,176 page Pentagon war manual was recently released that hasn’t received the attention it deserves. The book of combat instructions, titled “Department of Defense Law of War Manual,” apparently covers rules of war for all branches of the U.S. military.

One passage in particular is generating controversy, where journalists seem to be thrown into a convoluted and opaque category, in which they could be seen as “unprivileged belligerents” as opposed to civilians. Naturally, this has sparked concern that journalists the U.S. government doesn’t like could be lumped into the “unprivileged belligerents” category and subsequently murdered at will.

Now the New York Times is concerned as well, and rightfully so. In an Op-ed today, the paper explains that:

The Defense Department earlier this summer released a comprehensive manual outlining its interpretation of the law of war. The 1,176-page document, the first of its kind, includes guidelines on the treatment of journalists covering armed conflicts that would make their work more dangerous, cumbersome and subject to censorship. Those should be repealed immediately.

Journalists, the manual says, are generally regarded as civilians, but may in some instances be deemed “unprivileged belligerents,” a legal term that applies to fighters that are afforded fewer protections than the declared combatants in a war. In some instances, the document says, “the relaying of information (such as providing information of immediate use in combat operations) could constitute taking a direct part in hostilities.”

The manual warns that “Reporting on military operations can be very similar to collecting intelligence or even spying,” so it calls on journalists to “act openly and with the permission of relevant authorities.” It says that governments “may need to censor journalists’ work or take other security measures so that journalists do not reveal sensitive information to the enemy.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

TBTF Mega Banks Lowering Downpayments and Credit Standards to Keep High End Housing Market Going

August 6, 2015

TBTF Mega Banks Lowering Downpayments and Credit Standards to Keep High End Housing Market Going

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What do you do when even wealthy people begin to face an increasingly hard time purchasing a home in a vertical market completely disconnected from income trends? You reduce downpayments and lower credit standards, of course.

Where have we seen this story before…

From the Wall Street Journal:

The nation’s largest bank by assets plans to announce Wednesday that it is lowering the minimum credit score and down payment it requires for mortgages as big as $3 million.

The New York firm’s moves follow similar steps at Bank of AmericaCorp., Wells Fargo & Co. and other banks on requirements for “jumbo” mortgages—those that exceed $417,000 in most parts of the country or $625,500 in pricier markets. At the same time, some big banks are backing away from smaller loans where they see higher regulatory costs and litigation risks.

Guess it’s gonna be shipping container apartments for everyone else.

Since the financial crisis, a recovery in the mortgage market has faced several challenges, but the jumbo market—popular with well-heeled borrowers—has bounced back along with sales of higher-priced homes. In the second quarter, overall jumbo originations rose to an eight-year high of $93 billion, up 58% from a year ago, according to a preliminary estimate from industry newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance.

By dollar volume, jumbo mortgages given out by lenders last year accounted for about 20% of all first-lien mortgages, used mostly to purchase or refinance a home, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. That is up from 5.5% in 2009. The last time jumbo mortgages accounted for a larger share was in 2005.

2005…got it.

For jumbo mortgages, J.P. Morgan plans to lower the minimum FICO credit scores it requires to 680 from 740 for loans on primary single-family purchases, second homes and certain refinances on those properties.

The increase in jumbo lending underscores a housing recovery concentrated in higher-priced homes. Sales of existing single-family homes priced between $750,000 and $1 million, for example, increased 21% in June from a year prior, according to the National Association of Realtors.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pennsylvania to Become First State to Use “Precrime” Statistics in Criminal Sentencing

August 5, 2015

Pennsylvania to Become First State to Use “Precrime” Statistics in Criminal Sentencing

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Criminal sentencing has long been based on the present crime and, sometimes, the defendant’s past criminal record. In Pennsylvania, judges could soon consider a new dimension: the future.

Pennsylvania is on the verge of becoming one of the first states in the country to base criminal sentences not only on what crimes people have been convicted of, but also on whether they are deemed likely to commit additional crimes. As early as next year, judges there could receive statistically derived tools known as risk assessments to help them decide how much prison time — if any — to assign.

– From the Five Thirty Eight article: Should Prison Sentences Be Based On Crimes That Haven’t Been Committed Yet?

As technology generally continues to advance, one thing you can be sure of is the criminal justice system’s use of innovative new “tools” will grow exponentially. This can be a good thing, but it can also be a very dangerous thing. Pennsylvania’s new law that permits the use of data showing whether people are “deemed likely to commit additional crimes” in criminal sentencing, is a perfect example of how an over reliance on technology can be a threat to liberty and due process.

Rather than explaining my position on the matter right here, I think it best to make my points within excerpts from the article itself. FromFive Thirty Eight:

Criminal sentencing has long been based on the present crime and, sometimes, the defendant’s past criminal record. In Pennsylvania, judges could soon consider a new dimension: the future.

Pennsylvania is on the verge of becoming one of the first states in the country to base criminal sentences not only on what crimes people have been convicted of, but also on whether they are deemed likely to commit additional crimes. As early as next year, judges there could receive statistically derived tools known as risk assessments to help them decide how much prison time — if any — to assign.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

4 Mainstream Media Articles Mocking Gold That Should Make You Think

July 29, 2015

4 Mainstream Media Articles Mocking Gold That Should Make You Think

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For those of you who have been reading my stuff since all the way back to my Wall Street years at Sanford Bernstein, thanks for staying along for the ride. I appreciate your support immensely considering that I essentially no longer write about financial markets at all, and for many of you, that remains your profession and primary area of interest.

There are many reasons why I stopped commenting on markets, but the main reason is that I started to recognize I wasn’t getting it right. In fact, in some cases I was getting it spectacularly wrong. Whenever this happens, I try to isolate the problem and fix it. In this case there was no fix, because much of why I was no longer getting it right was rooted in the fact that my heart, soul and passion had moved onto other things. My interests had expanded, and I started a blog to express myself on myriad other matters I deemed important. Providing relevant market information needs intense focus, and my focus had shifted elsewhere. I recognized that I wasn’t intellectually interested enough in centrally planned markets to provide insightful analysis, and so I stopped.

This doesn’t mean I won’t start up again. When central planners do lose control, I may indeed become far more interested in opining on such matters. Time will tell. In the interim, financial markets do still play an important role in the bigger picture of social, political and economic trends I passionately care about. The stability and increase in financial assets (stocks and bonds) is of huge importance to the propaganda machine, in particular keeping the non-oligarchic, non-politically connected 1% in line and believing the hype (see: The Stock Market: Food Stamps for the 1%).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New York Times Reports – “Fannie and Freddie are Back, Bigger and Badder Than Ever”

July 23, 2015

New York Times Reports – “Fannie and Freddie are Back, Bigger and Badder Than Ever”

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Just in case you still harbored any doubt that absolutely zero lessons were learned from the cataclysmic financial collapse of 2008/09. We learn from the New York Times that:

AFTER the financial crisis of 2008, there was one thing that almost everyone agreed on. The government-sponsored mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, had to go. While shareholders and executives reaped the profits from Fannie and Freddie in good times, taxpayers were stuck with the bill in a crisis. President Obama described their dysfunctional business model as “Heads we win, tails you lose.” But here we are, seven years after the crisis, and nothing has changed.

In the 2008 crisis, when it looked as if Fannie and Freddie might go bankrupt, Henry M. Paulson Jr., then the Treasury secretary, argued that their fall would cause economic catastrophe. Foreign investors, stuck with their securities, would panic, and the mortgage market would shut down. So Fannie and Freddie were put into something called conservatorship, and are now government controlled, supported by a line of credit from the Treasury.

Conservatorship was supposed to be temporary — a “time out,” according to Mr. Paulson. We were going to stabilize the companies’ finances, reduce their importance to the mortgage market, and figure out a better system. But nothing happened. In fact, the situation has gotten even more precarious. In the years since the crisis, private lenders, for the most part, have been willing to make mortgages if they can immediately sell them to government agencies, mainly Fannie and Freddie. In other words, without Fannie and Freddie, there wouldn’t be much of a mortgage market.

To make things worse, the government decided to “sweep” almost all the duo’s profits into its own coffers, to be used as a slush fund for general government expenses. As Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said in congressional testimony this spring, “As a practical matter it’s what has helped us reduce our overall deficit.” If there is another downturn in the real estate market and Fannie and Freddie suffer losses on their some $5 trillion in outstanding securities, taxpayers will again have to foot the bill.

What do you expect to happen when the people responsible for running the economy into the ground are rewarded with bailouts and deemed “Too Big to Jail?”

Former High Ranking U.S. Senator Wants to “Hang Edward Snowden on the Courthouse Square”

July 21, 2015

Former High Ranking U.S. Senator Wants to “Hang Edward Snowden on the Courthouse Square”

Michael Krieger | Posted Monday Jul 20, 2015 at 2:04 pm

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We need to hang him on the courthouse square as soon as we get a hold of him.

– Former vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Saxby Chambliss, on Edward Snowden

It appears the past few days have represented a sort of coming out party for formerly powerful players in the U.S. government to showcase their fascist tendencies. Earlier today, I highlighted General Wesley Clark’s clear suggestion during a MSNBC interview that Americans who are “disloyal” should be forcibly separated from the “normal” general population through the use of WWII style internment camps.

In the latest display, video has emerged of former Republican Senator, and ex-vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, saying that Edward Snowden should be hanged in the courthouse square. What ever happened to fair trials?

From the Hill:

The U.S. should publicly hang leaker Edward Snowden if and when he falls into the government’s hands, according to the former top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“We need to hang him on the courthouse square as soon was we get our hands on him,” retired Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) — who served as vice chairman of the powerful intelligence panel before stepping down from Congress last year — said during an appearance at the University of Georgia this month.

You tell ’em Saxby!

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It’s as if these guys are publicly auditioning for a top job within the financial-miliatry-cyber-industrial complex.

Video of the Day – General Wesley Clark Suggests Putting “Disloyal Americans” in Internment Camps

July 21, 2015

Video of the Day – General Wesley Clark Suggests Putting “Disloyal Americans” in Internment Camps

If these people are radicalized and don’t support the United States, and they’re disloyal to the United States, as a matter of principal that’s fine, that’s their right. It’s our right and our obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.

– General Wesley Clark in a MSNBC interview

Noting that the recent tyrannical, entirely anti-American comments made by General Wesley Clark during a MSNBC interview are statist and disturbing would be the understatement of the century.

What General Clark is advocating in no uncertain terms is that the U.S. rewrite its laws to allow for the internment of Americans who the government feels have engaged in thought crime. Mind you, laws on the books are sufficiently strong to punish people engaged in actual criminal behavior. What Clark is suggesting is forcibly separating people based on their political views.

Sure, he couches it in the war against ISIS (an entity created by U.S. government foreign policy), but once you make it policy to disappear people based on one particular type of thought, it will quickly spread to other undesirable political views.

Please share this video with everyone you know. It’s that crazy:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article and view the video…

Santa Cruz County Votes to Cease Doing Business with Five TBTF Mega Banks

July 15, 2015

Santa Cruz County Votes to Cease Doing Business with Five TBTF Mega Banks

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This is impressive. Very, very impressive.

It appears that Ryan Coonerty, the Supervisor of the Third District of Santa Cruz County, wrote a letter back in June to the rest of the Board of Supervisors, in which he bravely pleaded the county cease business operations with five of the TBTF Wall Street Mega Banks. Why you ask? Well, because they are criminal felons. Considering Eric Holder refused to punish them (see: Cronyism Pays – Eric “Too Big to Jail” Holder Triumphantly Returns to His Prior Corporate Law Firm Job), someone has to take a stand.

Here are a few choice excerpts from the letter:

The banks have agreed to plead guilty to felony charges of conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros exchanged in the foreign currency exchange spot market… The behavior of these banks is offensive and signals a Wall Street culture in which several big banks broke the law even after years of strong criticism and increased regulation following the economic crisis.

“There seems to be no limit to the greed in some our nation’s largest banks. I believe it is critical that the County only work with the most trustworthy institutions as we invest and protect the public’s tax dollars. Santa Cruz County should not be involved with those who rigged the world’s biggest financial markets.

It is important that we send a message that if you want to do business with the County, you need to play by the rules. Therefore I recommend that the Board direct that the County’s investment policy be modified to reflect that the County of Santa Cruz will not do new business with these felonious financial institutions for a period of five years and further that the County unwind existing relationships with these five banks to the greatest extent feasible.”

Incredibly, the board went ahead and voted in favor of Mr. Coonerty’s proposal. AllGov reports that:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Everything You Need to Know About the Greek Crisis and ECB Fascism in Two Paragraphs

July 14, 2015

Everything You Need to Know About the Greek Crisis and ECB Fascism in Two Paragraphs

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Yanis Varoufakis just sat down for his first interview since resigning as Finance Minister of Greece. He talked frankly with Harry Lambert of the New Statesman. Here are the two most important paragraphs from the transcript.

There is no democracy in Europe. None.

Varoufakis said that Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister and the architect of the deals Greece signed in 2010 and 2012, was “consistent throughout”. “His view was ‘I’m not discussing the programme – this was accepted by the previous [Greek] government and we can’t possibly allow an election to change anything.

“So at that point I said ‘Well perhaps we should simply not hold elections anymore for indebted countries’, and there was no answer. The only interpretation I can give [of their view] is, ‘Yes, that would be a good idea, but it would be difficult. So you either sign on the dotted line or you are out.’”

Any questions?

Check out more of the interview here, I strongly suggest it. Also read about Spain becoming a police state in:

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves – Spain Officially Becomes a Police State

Conspiracy Fact – How the Government Conducted 239 Secret Bioweapon Experiments on the American People

July 11, 2015

Conspiracy Fact – How the Government Conducted 239 Secret Bioweapon Experiments on the American People

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It all began in late September of 1950, when over a few days, a Navy vessel used giant hoses to spray a fog of two kinds of bacteria, Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii — both believed at the time to be harmless — out into the fog, where they disappeared and spread over the city.

The unsuspecting residents of San Francisco certainly could not consent to the military’s germ warfare test, and there’s good evidence that it could have caused the death of at least one resident of the city, Edward Nevin, and hospitalized 10 others.

Over the next 20 years, the military would conduct 239 “germ warfare” tests over populated areas, according to news reports from the 1970s.

These tests included the large-scale releases of bacteria in the New York City subway system, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and in National Airport just outside Washington, D.C.

– From the MSN article: ‘One of the Largest Human Experiments in History’ was Conducted on the Unsuspecting Residents of San Francisco

Regular readers of this site will be well aware of various conspiracy facts concerning a multitude of shady activities by the U.S. government, both past and present. But did you know that beginning in 1950, the U.S. government conducted a series of secret bioweapon experiments on an unsuspecting American public? Didn’t think so.

We learn from MSN that:

One fact many may not know about San Francisco’s fog is that in 1950, the US military conducted a test to see whether it could be used to help spread a biological weapon in a “simulated germ warfare attack.” This was just the start of many such tests around the country that would go on in secret for years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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