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June 2024

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GOOD NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on June 9th, 2024

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

This week beginning on the evening of June 11 and ending on June 13, Shavuot  the Jewish Festival of Weeks, celebrates the harvest of first fruits and commemorates the giving of the Torah and Commandments at Mount Sinai. The release of four Israeli hostages by the IDF in Gaza enhances our celebration and appreciation of our faith and legacy.

Michael Ordman’s weekly posting enhances our appreciation of present-day Israel, whose contributions and innovations in medicine, science, technology, evolve 24/7 to benefit humanity.

Happy “Shvues” as we pronounced it in the Bronx to all who observe. rsk

ISRAEL’S  MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Penetrating the BBB.  The nano-platform technology of Israel’s NanoCarry traverses the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) to deliver potentially life-saving therapies to the brain.  Its initial target is HER2 breast cancer brain metastases for which there is no treatment, even though the original cancer can now effectively be cured.

https://nocamels.com/2024/05/penetrating-brains-natural-barrier-to-deliver-life-saving-drugs/

https://nanocarry.com/

Predicting what cancer cells will do next. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem analyze cancer patient biopsies and use AI to predict disease progression or chemotherapy resistance. Using the science of nano-informatics, they expose cells to nano particles, record absorption levels, and model cellular behavior.

https://www.israel21c.org/scientists-use-ai-to-predict-what-cancer-cells-will-do-next/

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj4370

Sickle cell disease treatment trial. Israel’s BiolineRX is to conduct Phase 1 clinical trials on sickle cell disease (SCD) patients at multiple locations in the US.  It will use its motixafortide stem cell therapy (see here previously), currently used to treat multiple myeloma. SCD is caused by a mutation of the hemoglobin gene.

https://nocamels.com/2024/05/israeli-biopharma-firm-leading-us-trial-of-potential-scd-drug/

The long road.  Back in 2015 (see here previously) Israel’s Ben Gurion University researchers discovered the link between protein macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Now they are leading an international team to use it as a potential cure.

https://nocamels.com/2024/05/israeli-led-study-discovers-proteins-potential-as-als-treatment/

The right antibiotic in 90 mins. Scientists at Israel’s Technion Institute have developed optical sensor technology that can identify the correct antibiotic for urinary tract and other infections in just 90 minutes. They worked with Technion alumni in a Maryland USA company and at John Hopkins University.

https://ats.org/our-impact/new-device-rapidly-identifies-exact-antibiotic-needed-for-infections/

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.202303285

An ambucar needed for Netanya. Israel’s United Hatzalah is appealing for funds to purchase a rapid response vehicle – known as a minilance (mini ambulance) ATV (all-terrain vehicle). It can bring a team of up to five UH volunteers and veteran lifesaving medics to the scene of a local emergency within minutes.

https://israelrescue.org/mymitzvah/minilance-a-rapid-response-vehicle-for-netanya/

Eradicating the last polio virus. Ben-Gurion University has received a $1.3 million grant from the Gates Foundation to develop and validate a novel and safe approach for measuring immune responses to polioviruses.

https://provaeducation.com/news/ben-gurion-university-scientist-to-contribute-to-the-eradication-of-polio/2466922/    https://www.bgu.ac.il/en/news-and-articles/hertz-gates-foundation-grant/

Merck boost for antibody design startup. Israel’s Biolojic Design (see here previously) is partnering Merck, to develop molecules that could be the basis for therapies to treat cancer and other immunological disorders. The venture is potentially worth up to 350 million euros to the Israeli company.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/bybenkovr

Treating late life depression. (TY Atid-EDI) The US FDA has extended its approval of the Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation system from Israel’s BrainsWay (see here previously). It can now be used to treat depression up to the patient’s 86th birthday. The previous maximum age limit was 67.

https://www.brainsway.com/news_events/brainsway-receives-expanded-fda-labeling-to-treat-late-life-depression/

Exercises restore eyesight. Israel’s RevitalVision (see here previously) has been very successful in improving the condition of the visually impaired. On average, the structured on-line brain exercises achieve a measurable improvement of 20 – 25%, equivalent to an extra two lines on a standard eye chart.

https://www.israel21c.org/improving-vision-with-at-home-brain-exercises/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Iauuv13Ujw

Watch out for snakes. Doctors saved an Israeli woman in her 50s after she was bitten by a snake in southern Israel. She was brought to Ashdod hospital by family members who also brought the snake.  Doctors were able to identify the snake and administer the correct anti-venom serum.  The article contains some important advice.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/390948

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The West Keeps Rewarding the Terrorist Group Hamas by Majid Rafizadeh

By on June 9th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20687/rewarding-hamas-terrorists

Spain, Ireland and Norway recently formally recognized Palestinian statehood…. It is unprecedented in world history for a terrorist group to attack another country, murder its people and take hostages, only to then be rewarded with a recognition of statehood – cordially facilitating its future actions, including against countries in Europe.

We have already seen this April “thousands of protestors” in Germany demanding a Caliphate with sharia law.

The West’s reward also sends a message that… the West will eagerly accept any antisocial behavior rather than stand up for the values of civilization that have defined it for centuries.

The aim of anti-Israel protestors seems to be that stability can only be achieved after everyone has conceded to the terrorists’ demands. Sadly, many politicians, perhaps hoping for votes from wherever they can get them, might be only too happy to comply.

Perhaps Ireland, Norway and Spain would like to offer sanctuary to Gazans from Hamas?

[The] intended beneficiaries of …[Israel’s] enormous sacrifice, have instead been undermining and demonizing Israel every step of the way, especially its fearless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called by Andrew Roberts “The Churchill of the Middle East,” who now finds himself, courtesy of the unlawful International Criminal Court, with an international warrant out for his arrest.

The only reason countries are recognizing a Palestinian is that they will not have to live next to it. As Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and former New York City Council president Andrew Stein recently pointed out:

“Consider the fact that no Arab or Muslim nation has been willing to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Perhaps these nations recall that anyone who has tried to help the Palestinians has lived to regret it. When Jordan took them in, the Palestinians tried to overthrow the government of King Hussein in 1970. The attempted coup, known as Black September, ended with the Palestinians being expelled to Lebanon. Once there, a civil war erupted between the Muslims, backed by the PLO, and the Christians, resulting in the PLO being expelled once again, this time to Tunisia in 1982. After Kuwait offered roughly 400,000 Palestinians visas and jobs, and Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990,the PLO sided with Iraq. After the liberation of Kuwait, an estimated 200,000 were expelled and another 200,000 were not allowed back.”

The more countries that will join Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas in its assault by recognizing a Palestinian state, the more power and influence they will have in Europe to double their demands. Wait until Iran has its nuclear bombs and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. They will not even have to use them, only threaten to, as Putin is now doing in Ukraine so that US President Joe Biden will prevent Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from winning.

Such actions jeopardize stability not only in the Middle East but even more in Europe. Ireland, Norway and Spain seem to be under the illusion that if they pet the kitty, the kitty will like them. Unfortunately, that is not always the way kitties work. All that cuddling up to terrorists and their promotors really achieves is to weaken the West’s credibility in defending its values, and the way of life we naïvely take for granted in the West.

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CHAPTER 21: Montessori and Drag Queen Story Hour Space Is No Longer the Final Frontier—Reality Is (forthcoming release July 2024) by Linda Goudsmit

By on June 8th, 2024

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/27820/chapter-21-montessori-and-drag-queen-story-hour

For readers who may be under the impression that private schools are exempt from the humanitarian hoax of whole child education and its sociopolitical intent, I have included an informative article written by retired Montessori educator Charlotte Cushman, published online in American Thinker[i] and on her website, Authentic Montessori Education,[ii] on January 21, 2023.

Charlotte Cushman taught the Montessori Method for over 40 years, and co-owned and operated two Montessori schools. She is appalled by today’s woke (Marxist) trend in Montessori, and advocates a return to authentic Montessori and its founder’s principles:

Not in the service of any political or social creed should the teacher work, but in the service of the complete human being, able to exercise in freedom, a self-disciplined will and judgement, unperverted by prejudice and undistorted by fear. ––Maria Montessori

The Real Purpose of Drag Queen Story Hour

By Charlotte Cushman

Those who have voiced concerns about the dangers that drag events, such as Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH), pose for children (namely, sexualization and grooming) have been told that those concerns are baseless, that the events are harmless, that it is all just entertainment and fun, and that attending drag events is a way to understand the gay culture.

On January 25, 2021 an academic paper entitled “Drag pedagogy: the playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood” was published online in Curriculum Inquiry, an educational journal. The paper, recently called out by James Lindsay here and here and also by Christopher F. Rufo here, was written by Harper Keenen and Lil Miss Hot Mess (a founder of DQSH), who describe themselves as “a genderqueer drag performer/scholar and a trans scholar.” (p. 443)

Right off the bat, the abstract tells us the purpose of DQSH:

Ultimately, the authors propose that “drag pedagogy” provides a performative approach to queer pedagogy that is not simply about LGBT lives, but living queerly. (p. 440)

Then the authors state,

Through this programme, drag artists…[are] positioning queer and trans cultural forms as valuable components of early childhood education. We are guided by the following question: what might Drag Queen Story Hour offer educators as a way of bringing queer ways of knowing and being into the education of young children?

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The Record Is Not Good For Perpetrators Of Politicized Criminal Proceedings Francis Menton

By on June 8th, 2024

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-6-6-the-record-is-not-good-for-perpetrators-of-politicized-criminal-proceedings

With the guilty verdicts in People v. Trump delivered by a Manhattan jury last week, the prosecutors are surely giving themselves a big pat on the back. We really got him this time! Undoubtedly they have convinced themselves that getting Trump branded a “convicted felon” (with little chance to get that reversed on appeal before the election, no matter how weak the conviction) will cause him to sink in the polls. At the very least, the successful prosecution of the main political adversary would have to be a positive for President Biden’s chances of re-election.

I wouldn’t be so sure. If you look into the history of efforts by a dominant political faction to use the criminal justice system as the means to disadvantage opponents, the record is not good for the perpetrators of these efforts. That is true even — maybe especially — where the politicized prosecution initially secured a criminal conviction.

I think it’s too early to expect day-by-day polling to tell us much about how these convictions might affect the upcoming presidential election in November. Instead, let’s look at some great politicized prosecutions of the past, and see how those worked out for the prosecutors.

For example, one of the most famous of this genre is the 1894 prosecution of Albert Dreyfus in France for allegedly giving military secrets to the Germans. Here is a summary of the affair from History.com. Dreyfus was a Captain in the French army. The military quickly tried Dreyfus in a court martial, convicted him, and sentenced him to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island. Two years later, a new head of army intelligence (Picquart) uncovered evidence that the traitor was another guy (Esterhazy); but instead of acknowledging the facts, the army transferred Picquart to North Africa, and then imprisoned him too. In 1898, Esterhazy was tried in his own court-martial, and acquitted. But then Emile Zola wrote the famous newspaper article “J’accuse” that accused the army of a massive cover-up. The whole scandal rocked France for a decade. Dreyfus was ultimately exonerated, and restored to his position in the army, where he served out his career. If you know anything about the Dreyfus affair today, it is as a famous example of official corruption and anti-semitism.

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Islamists Keep Stabbing People. Why Aren’t We Talking About It? Many in the West seem resigned to violence that once shocked us. By Peter Savodnik

By on June 8th, 2024

https://www.thefp.com/p/islamists-keep-stabbing-people-why?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8HRxfwQcpVV8QELLPrEHJctqzptM1iJC3QPDqCSxKl1j4P-fN8X61VRpr0-

Last week, a 25-year-old Afghan man went on a stabbing spree in a marketplace in Mannheim, in southwestern Germany, killing a police officer and wounding five other people.

In a video of the attack, the man, whose name has not been released, can be seen repeatedly stabbing several people—including the police officer, in the back of his head and neck—until another police officer shoots the assailant.

All we know about the dead police officer is his name was Rouven L., and he was 29, and he was trying to stop an attack on Michael Stürzenberger, a well-known blogger who has been critical of Islam. (Stürzenberger was wounded, but not critically.) 

It took four days for anyone with a uniform or in office to say publicly what was obvious, which was that this had something to do with Islamism. 

“Islam belongs to Germany, but Islamism does not,” Justice Minister Marco Buschmann tweeted Tuesday. “It is a deadly form of fanaticism. There is now clear evidence of an Islamist motive for the crime in #Mannheim.”

This latest violence is part of a gathering storm of Islamist stabbings, riots, and violent demonstrations engulfing the West, with Europe at the center of the maelstrom. 

These include:

—The bishop and priest who were stabbed during services in a Sydney suburb in April. Their 16-year-old attacker, captured on livestream video, shouted: “Allahu Akbar.”

—The four people connected to “violent Islamist extremism” who were arrested in March in Stockholm.

—Mike Freer, a member of Parliament in the UK, who announced his resignation in late January lest he wind up dead. For years, Freer has worn a stab vest because of threats by Islamists. (Freer’s colleague, David Amess, was murdered in October 2021. His murderer, Ali Harbi Ali, had targeted government officials who backed air strikes against Bashar Assad’s Syria.)

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The Human Cost of Biden’s Border Policies By Sean Reyes

By on June 8th, 2024

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2024/06/07/the_human_cost_of_bidens_border_policies_1036534.html

Joe Biden took executive action to limit asylum seekers at the border. This sudden and isolated attempt to distract American voters from 3 ½ years of disastrous open border policies is far too little and far too late.  

Being a son and grandson of immigrants, I have deep respect for the immense contributions to our country made by those who have come here to pursue their American dream. Tragically, President Biden’s open border policies have created untenable incentives and unrealized expectations turning would-be American dreams into lawless nightmares.

As migrants and refugees flood the southern border, the U.S. immigration system is buckling under record flows, massive displacement, and untold human suffering. Those undertaking the treacherous journey to the border are exposed to life-threatening dangers along the way, as American citizens here at home struggle to afford, let alone absorb, the unprecedented migrant influx.  

This cycle of suffering is deeply inhumane and entirely avoidable. Nevertheless, President Biden persists with reckless open-border mandates, turning a blind eye to the myriad humanitarian issues they have created. In doing so, he has stripped away the dignity and safety of American citizens and migrants alike. Weak border security only increases the suffering and pain for the most vulnerable populations in the migrant community and within the United States, often pitting them against each other.

Residents on the south side of Chicago have taken legal action against the city over its invasive use of public buildings for housing asylum seekers. NYC students have been forced into remote learning as schools accommodate migrants in the city. Throughout America, hospitals are overrun, shelters are out of beds, and low-income children have nowhere to go.  

Even those who risked life and limb for our nation are returning home to find themselves on the streets without shelter amid the largest spike in veteran homelessness in 12 years—while those who entered illegally are being housed by billions of dollars’ worth of government-funded programs.  

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Jill Biden, Edith Wilson, and the Changing American State Biden’s unusually intense reliance on his wife as a cognitive enhancement and an image protector is as inarguable as it is provocative. By Stephen Soukup

By on June 8th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/06/08/jill-biden-edith-wilson-and-the-changing-american-state/

Much has been made over the last couple of days about President Biden’s behavior and demeanor at the ceremony honoring World War II veterans at Normandy on June 6, the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Biden looked…old—in large part because he is old. He shuffled like an old man. He got confused like an old man. He was hurried out of an event that was causing him consternation like an old man. Joe Biden is 81 years old and he looks every day of it—and more.

Some commentators, including the Republican Party’s Twitter/X account, suggested that President Biden’s deportment is embarrassing. “This is the most powerful man on the planet? This is the leader of the free world?” some wondered. How pathetic. How dispiriting. How truly and painfully excruciating!

Other observers insisted that the whole thing was just sad. After a lifetime of public service for Biden to be subjected to that kind of profound public humiliation is discomfiting, to say the least. No one deserves such a fate, regardless of political predisposition or partisan affiliation.

Still others said that the president’s condition is dangerous. That it encourages the nation’s friends and especially its enemies to think of the United States as weak and enfeebled. And with Russian warships steaming toward Cuba, apparently unconcerned about American reprisals, one takes their point.

Indeed, one takes all these points. President Biden is, quite simply, physically and mentally unfit for office. He should be sitting on the porch at his beach house in Rehoboth seven days a week, not sitting in the Oval Office. His presence there—not to mention his entreaty to be returned there for a second four-year term—is “all of the above.” It is embarrassing, sad, and dangerous.

More than anything, however, it is telling.

Many of the loudest and most resonant comments about President Biden’s circumstances note that he is forced to rely quite heavily on his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, to keep his embarrassment to a bare minimum. When he tried to sit down in an imaginary chair at the Normandy observance, she was the person who told him to remain standing. When he had to be ushered out of the ceremony quickly and conspicuously, she was the usher. Whatever Biden does, wherever he goes, whomever he sees, Jill is right there by his side, in large part to ensure that he does what he’s supposed to do, so as to spare him more serious embarrassment and, just as importantly, to try to ensure that he does not give his political rivals any fodder for the campaign.

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The World Needs the West Robert Clark

By on June 8th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/07/the-world-needs-the-west/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

Reestablishing deterrence in a dangerous world

The world keeps getting more dangerous. It is now grappling with war in Ukraine; China’s increasingly bellicose actions in the South China Sea and its little-talked-about nuclear proliferation; and Iranian aggression that threatens the existence of Israel, the lives of U.S. forces and their allies in the Middle East, and the security of global shipping lanes. All of this is happening against the background of a project long held by authoritarian regimes, including Russia and China, to undermine the liberal order that has guaranteed peace in most of the West since World War II. The West needs to take seriously the threat. In response, it should double down on its investments in alliances, national-defense bases, and military institutions. Otherwise, it will learn the hard way how a steady erosion of military funding can break down deterrence and cause problems that ramify throughout the world, undermining security.

The liberal peace project was conceived after the horrors of the First World War but didn’t reach maturity until a quarter of a century later, in post–World War II Europe and North America. This resulting geopolitical order has largely held intact for the last 80 years, but now these revisionist powers are attempting to supplant it and develop an international regime more beneficial to their own interests. As they attempt to navigate these challenges, liberal democracies are struggling to reinforce military deterrence where prudent.

One large reason for that struggle is the prolonged “peace dividend” after the Cold War, which led many European nations to reduce national-defense spending by inordinate amounts. No longer did the specter of the Soviet Union threaten transatlantic security, and welfare states were established almost overnight, their budgets outstripping defense spending many times over. This led over the last 20 to 30 years to a military-capability erosion among many Western democracies, and thereby to the lack of a credible deterrent. Authoritarian states have sensed this decline and adjusted their force postures to exploit it. Russia’s invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and again in 2022 are examples, as is China’s increasingly aggressive behavior throughout the Indo-Pacific and its illegitimate territorial expansionism in the South China Sea.

There are strong historical parallels in the last century to modern-day Ukraine and the South China Sea. A rejuvenated and expansionist Germany sought to sweep across much of central and western Europe in the 1930s. It was allowed to do so in part because leaders in London and Washington were at first naïve about its intentions. Today’s authoritarian dictatorships are similarly taking advantage of what is at best a perceived Western indifference to global affairs and turn toward isolationist foreign policy, and at worst a perceived Western military and diplomatic weakness. Whatever their exact assessment of the West at present, Moscow and Beijing are trying to rewrite historical borders much as last century’s fascist dictators did.

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How Democrats Faked a Jobs Boom The government is creating jobs. Literally. by Daniel Greenfield

By on June 8th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-democrats-faked-a-jobs-boom/

“Today’s report marks a milestone in America’s comeback,” Joe Biden bragged in March. “With today’s report of 303,000 new jobs in March, we have passed the milestone of 15 million jobs created since I took office.” Milestone or a millstone though might be a matter of opinion.

Politicians like to brag about “creating jobs” and for once it was literally true.

Of those 300,000 jobs, 71,000 or 1 in 4 were government jobs. Another 72,000 jobs came out of the healthcare industry which is heavily government funded. And 9,000 came from “employment in social assistance” or welfare. About 1 in 2 of Biden’s jobs were funded by taxpayers in one form or another. The only non-government industry showing significant job growth was the hospitality industry which was prepping temporary employment for vacation season.

An even more absurd story of government job growth came out of New York City where city officials boasted of having recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic. But aBloomberg article revealed that “virtually all of the jobs added in the 12 months ended in March were in home health care, a low-paying but rapidly swelling field. It’s technically classified as private employment, but home health care is actually paid for primarily through publicly funded health programs like Medicaid.” Meanwhile actual private sector jobs were vanishing in New York.

“It’s giving us this sense that our economy is growing when in fact it’s really just Medicaid that’s growing,”  Bill Hammond, a senior fellow for health policy at the Empire Center for Public Policy, pointed out.

While the Education and Health and the Government job sectors boomed in New York, mostly everything else was contracting or struggling.

And it’s not just New York City.

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Some Wars Simply Must be Won…Peter Smith

By on June 8th, 2024

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2024/06/some-wars-simply-must-be-won/

The equation in the Israeli-Gaza war is much more straightforward. If Israel wins, the people of Gaza will have a chance for a peaceful more prosperous future – the fruits of defeat. The people of Israel will live more securely. If Hamas wins, it will not only put Israeli lives at growing risk, it will embolden its enemies more generally and put the very existence of Israel at risk. And if Israel were to lose to an invading Islamic force, slaughter would ensue, of that there is little doubt. The stakes are much higher than in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. So much higher that there is no cost in terms of blood and treasure that should not be expended to ensure Israel wins. No level of support that should be withheld from Israel.

When is winning a war absolutely necessary? It can be hard to say. Was Harold’s defeat at the hands of William in 1066 a good or bad thing for England, and for Britain and the world, in the light of subsequent history? I do know that Magna Carta subsequently came into being and that Britain ran an empire and was instrumental in freeing the world of slavery, in enshrining the rule of law, and in shaping and making the modern prosperous world. Not bad while, at the same time, colonising, civilising and populating the new territories of North America, Australia and New Zealand; and, to boot, inventing association football and cricket and other sporting codes.

So there it is — and I haven’t mentioned Sir Isaac Newton nor any of the scientific, engineering and artistic feats bequeathed to mankind. If Harold had won would this have changed history for the better or worse?

My only purpose in bringing this up is to suggest that losing a specific war might not be a bad thing when viewed in a counter-factual historical perspective.

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