Renewable Energy Revolution

US Auto Makers 12 Step Program

This version of the 12 steps is an adaptation from the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and is intended for general use with any addictive or dysfunctional corporate behavior.

Step 1- Admit they are powerless over their addition and dysfunction - that their companies have become unmanageable

Step 2 - Have come to believe that a Power greater than themselves could restore them to sanity

Step 3 - Have made a decision to turn their companies over to the care of Congress as they understand Congress.

Step 4 - Have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of themselves

Step 5 - Have admitted to Congress, to themselves and to other human beings the exact nature of their wrongs

Step 6 - Are entirely ready to have Congress  remove all these defects of character

Step 7 - Humbly asked Congress  to remove their monetary shortcomings

Step 8 - Made a list of all workers and investors  they have harmed, and became willing to make amends to them

Step 9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them

Step 10 - Continue to take personal responsibility and when they are wrong promptly admit it

Step 11 - Seek through prayer and meditation to improve their conscious contact with Congress as they understand Congress, praying only for knowledge of Congress's will for them and the power to carry that out

Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all their business affairs.

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Help name the Nimby Nabobs

As gas heads toward $5 a gallon, the Alliance raises money to stop Cape Wind
These 21st Century Tories needs a new name

Stop whining, you people!  Haven't you been reading the news? Listen up to Republican Senator Gramm who thinks you're all a bunch of whiners who don't realize "you've never had it so good." 

Senator Phil Gramm described the present economic pinch squeezing the average American last week saying, "You've heard of mental depression? This is mental recession."

The former senator holds a doctorate in economics. He suggested to the Washington Times newspaper that hard economic times are a figment of people's imagination.

Gramm added,"You just hear this constant whining, complaining. We sort of became of nation of whiners," he said.

Senator McCain considered Gramm one of his top economic advisers.

Scarier still, he's still McCain campaign Vice Chair

"No one is more respected on the issue of economics than Phil Gramm,” McCain said this weekend.

F. Scott Fitzgerald surely knew what he was taking about when he had the Great Gatsby say "The rich are different from you and I."

Stop Whining?
The Privileged Are in Charge
...But the main event of last week for me was for Senator Phil Gramm's comments that Americans are a bunch of whiners. In fact, this is the heart of the tragedy. Washington lost its sense of the people a couple of decades ago, all the while cleverly convincing the people it was working in their interest.
Senator Gramm's views simply reflect much of Washington and Wall Street. These are the people who tell Americans to go to the public hospitals if they don't have health insurance -- and stop whining. They tell the making $30,000 a year worker to go buy a private health plan for $3000 to $6000 annually -- and stop whining. They claim both parents work so hard simply because they want to get all those fancy cars and take vacations -- not because they are paying a high mortgage in a good school district to give their kids a chance. Stop whining. They are not only Republicans. And they can't understand that workers are struggling... Jeff Madrick These descendants of Marie Antoinette stay home and "eat cake" while their chauffeurs make separate trips to the gas station to fill by the Rolls, and little things like having a mortgage foreclosed or finding an extra $6,000 this year for gas, heating and electricity won't even enter their well-coiffed heads.

The Fossil Kings of Cape Cod

Our good buddy Jack Coleman suggested a contest on cc2day to find the appropriate name for these remarkable folks - the ones who think giving the NIMBY Alliance an extra $100 thousand or so to stop the renewable energy wind farm which the rich  might see through the martini mist from their waterfront trophy homes in Osterville during the few weeks a year they tear themselves away from their other trophy homes elsewhere.

Is the word obscene too severe to describe coming to Cape Cod in season and having oceanfront cocktail parties to raise funds to stop a renewable energy project which could provide the working stiffs here with 75% of their electric needs without burning an ounce of oil?

I think our Colonial fore-parents would have had them tarred and feathered and run off the Cape on a pole.

Here are the suggestions we've received so far, but please add your suggestion in a comment below and the winning name will be used in all future references to these incredibly out of touch Americans. Of course, what would you expect from people who own fossil fuel corporation which might see their earnings threatened if we even got serious about renewable energy.

NIMBY names

• Energy Ostrich
• Today's Tory
• Nimby Nabobs
  
• Ancien Régime
• Marie Antoinettes
  
• Fossil Fool
• Petro Poltroon
  

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Wind Turbines on Galapagos; Fossil fuel protesters take to the streets April 1

Wind turbines on Galapagos replace 50 diesel generators
Renewable energy on a World Heritage site but not Ted Kennedy's pond

The Galapagos Islands -- a mecca for environmentally minded tourists -- has taken its first major step in disentangling itself from dependence on fossil fuels.  Three wind turbines, installed on the island of San Cristobal as a part of an international partnership program and officially launched last week, are expected to generate enough energy annually to replace 50 diesel generators on the island.

The three turbines are now supplying 80% of the energy for this World Heritage site.
Ultimately, officials with the program said, the islands will become at least 80 percent energy self-sufficient and will serve as a model for other World Heritage sites threatened by the consequences of global warming. At the same time, the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by burning fossil fuels.

The Galapagos islands are a World Heritage site. Nantucket Sound, on the other hand, is the private sailing ground for US Senator Ted Kennedy who brags about his efforts for renewables while blocking America's first offshore wind farm for seven years.

Tanker with 150,000 gallons of oil broke up on reef

In January 2001, the world held its breath when the tanker Jessica, loaded with 150,000 gallons of fuel, struck a reef and began breaking up in the heart of one of the most precious, famous and fragile ecosystems on earth - the Galapagos Islands.

At risk were vast numbers of unique species of flora and fauna renowned through studies by Charles Darwin that contributed to his landmark theory of evolution by natural selection.

While scores of wildlife required cleaning by Galapagos National Park Service staff and volunteers, the wind and currents stepped in to narrowly avert an environmental catastrophe. Yet the sight of thousands of gallons of oil pouring into the ocean off the Galapagos island of San Cristobal triggered a determined international initiative to mitigate risks of future spills by dramatically reducing the islands' dependence on diesel fuel to generate electricity. Metaefficient Green Guide.
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It's April. Protesters hit the streets to parade against 'fossil fools.'
Our children show us the future

April showers are ushering in a new batch of global warming-related protests aimed at "Big Oil" and policies that favor expanded use of coal and natural gas.  Today's "Fossil Fools" campaign is the brainchild of the Energy Action Coalition, Rainforest Action Network and Rising Tide, grassroots groups that are organizing more than 100 actions against fossil fuels around the world, most in the United States but a few in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

Fossil Fools Day

The three action groups staged sit-ins and blockages at oil companies and those who fund them today all over America.Fossil Fool's Day puts the action in Energy Action Coalition. Every year since the founding of the coalition, young people from around the U.S. and Canada have had a collective day of action on April 1st to challenge the fossil fuel industry. Hundreds of campuses and communities have participated by hosting events and film screenings, and protesting at dirty energy sites. Fossil Fools Day 2008 is shaping up to be bigger than ever with youth from around the world standing up to dirty energy as usual and ushering in a clean and just energy future.

The activists are planning to crash today's hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which has summoned executives from Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips to defend their continued high profits amid high energy prices

This year's protests are intended to be slightly more disruptive than in the past, reflecting an increased sense of urgency, Energy Action Coalition spokeswoman Brianna Cayo Cotter said. "This year the youth in our movement have been clamoring, saying 'We're sick of talking about climate change; we need to do something about it.'" Energy Action Coalition has been behind a number of campaigns, including last November's "Step it Up" series of rallies around the country in the name of reducing U.S. emissions 80 percent by 2050 and establishing a moratorium on coal-fired power plants.

Several actions scheduled for today involve Critical Mass bike rides, which started in 1992 in San Francisco as an attempt to reexamine transportation and planning from a non-car perspective and has resulted in hundreds of arrests over the years for blocking traffic. Other protests include rallies against planned coal-fired power plants in Columbia, S.C., and Walla Walla, Wash., as well as tar sands projects in Alberta and coalbed methane development in British Columbia. There is a protest at Washington University in St. Louis against Bank of America's lending to coal-fired power plant developers, and an assembly on the steps of the Connecticut Capitol.

Activists Blockade Bank of America to Protest Funding of Coal, Boston
As of 9:00AM, in conjunction with a downtown rally, four activists have locked themselves to the front entrance of the Bank of America branch in Copley Square. They are protesting the bank's funding of coal and energy companies who are among the worst contributors to climate change, and directly responsible for innumerable human rights abuses in communities where coal is extracted and burned."I think it's just starting; it's only going to get bigger," Cotter said. She expects "more and more civil disobedience, particularly among young people," spurred by frustration at the regulatory process. "They see policies aren't working to stop coal-fired plants, so they'll put their bodies on the line," she added. Rising Tide and other international groups are more willing to engage in direct confrontation, Cotter said.

Rising Tide spokeswoman Monica Vaughan confirmed that people were planning events using "nonviolent civil disobedience, which we refer to as 'direct action.'"

"People are frustrated with governments and corporations making all these promises but doing nothing to contribute to restructuring" of society to reduce dependence on polluting fossil fuels, Vaughan said. Last month, for example, Rising Tide and Earth First! sponsored a protest of a gas-fired power plant being built by FPL Energy in Palm Beach, Fla., that activists said would produce 12 million tons of CO2 per year. They halted construction work for six hours, and 27 people were arrested.

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Bi-coastal revenge: our future is in California already

Your future in in California already
Most Stunning View in Town Is the One at the Pump

Yes, the lowest price on the California gas pump is $5.19.9 for regular.GORDA, Calif. — James Willman seems to be a nice enough guy: polite, good-humored and hard-working, pumping gas seven days a week at the Amerigo Gas Station. But at least once a day, Mr. Willman says, someone pulls in and starts cursing him.  “They say all kinds of stuff — ‘You ought to be shot,’ or ‘Where’s your mask?’ ” Mr. Willman said. “I’m like, ‘Hey, I just work here.’ ”

The reason for the consumer agita is that the station, on the Central Coast of California, is serving up what may be the costliest gas in the land. On Tuesday morning, as crude oil flirted with $110 a barrel and petrol prices set records nationwide, a gallon of regular at Amerigo was going for $5.20. Premium was fetching an eye-popping $5.40 a gallon, though Mr. Willman said that included a free copy of a local newspaper. (The newspaper was free anyway.)

“That’s the reason I walk to work,” said Mr. Willman, who lives about 50 feet up a hill from the station.... see in today's New York Times is here.

The rest of the story - Price per barrel hits another high at $110

Gas prices across the nation reached a record high Tuesday. The average price of regular unleaded is now almost $3.23 a gallon. This year high gas prices are rising about three months earlier than usual.

"We are seeing prices higher than ever before in March, it’s scary thinking about how high they will be," said Eric Escudero with AAA Colorado.

Already we are 60-cents ahead of where we were last year at this time.

"We've seen gas prices rise for four consecutive weeks in Colorado, it’s not good news for motorists," Escudero said.

So how high will prices go? AAA says 4-dollars is a possibility, but prices will likely peak between $3.50 and $3.75 he hopes.

"With oil hitting another all time record today at $110 a barrel that translates into gas prices rising," Escudero said.

And with summer just around the corner, the high prices may have some of us changing our vacation plans.  We'll certainly choose a destination within a single tabkful, about 350-450 miles.  Luckily for Cape Cod businesses that include a third of the US population.

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No Sale Sign

NO SALE sign for alot of businesses along Route 28 in Yarmouth?

Take a drive down Route 28 in Yarmouth this week and you'll start to see why we're all getting tired with the debate about Cape Wind.  In anticipation of the MMS hearing in Yarmouth tomorrow, the Alliance to Save the Sound (ASS) has decided to remind the great uninformed that there still exists ...an opposition. Along with the lame last ditch efforts by the Cape Cod Chamber and the Cape Cod Times, they fail to see what has been happening in the community.

With every hurdle that Cape Wind clears to permitting their project, the more people come out in favor of it. The most recent poll shows that today 3 out of 4 residents of Cape Cod support Cape Wind.

So with the growing acceptance of the project what can these businesses be thinking advertising their opposition to the project on their front lawns?  Can their business, in the middle of a recession, be that good that they can afford to alienate any of their customers?

It's not a question of free speech, it's a question of common (dollars and) sense.   Christy's now charges $3.15 for both a gallon of gas and a gallon of milk. Can he really afford to turn a Not for Sale sign on the street into a no sale at the cash register?

Christy's

Clancy's Restaurant

The Yarmouth House

Atlantic Coastal Wellness

Irish Village Motel

Christmas Tree Plaza

Hunter's Green Motel

Captain Parker's

Seven Seas Fish Market

Skippy's Pier 1

Boch Village

The Laundry Center

Christopher's

Bass River Sport World

Bass River Liquors

Martin Surrette Realty

John Martin Insurance

Maryann's Hairstyling

Craigville Pizza

Picadilly Deli

Neitz Realty

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So much for that pristine wilderness of Nantucket Sound

No Pristine Oceans Left, New Map Shows

Every area of the oceans is feeling the effects of fishing, pollution, or human-caused global warming, the study says, and some regions are being affected by all of these factors and more.  A team led by Ben Halpern of the University of California, Santa Barbara, created the first global map (on right) that shows the various kinds of damage being done to marine ecosystems... 

The second biggest factor ocean-killing factor is...  FISHING

The second biggest factor affecting marine life is fishing, they add.  Trawl-fishing for animals on the ocean floor, such as groundfish and shrimp, is especially damaging because the rest of the seafloor habitat is destroyed in the process, Halpern says.

The habitats that are suffering the worst impacts, rated "very high" in the study, are continental shelves, the shallow areas off the coasts of continents that are 200 to 750 feet (60 to 200 meters) deep.

Other areas with very high impacts include the northeastern U.S., where pollution, commercial shipping, and fishing are the major causes of harm...  National Geographic. For further information on local problems and their possible solitions, see Clean Power Now. 

Meanwhile, the US Department of the Interior is arresting Polars Bears

The United States  Department of the Interior gets tough on Greenpeace protesters
Bureaucrats couldn't bear the sight of a large Arctic refugee cavorting in their DC pool as 1/5 of America's remaining polar bears are threatened... 

While the Department of Interior is dragging their feet on protecting polar bears, they are moving full steam ahead on plans to drill for oil in prime polar bear habitat. New oil leases are opening up in the Chukchi Sea and oil companies are lining up quickly to obtain licenses to drill. A fifth of the remaining Arctic polar bears depend on Chukchi Sea ice in their hunt for food...  See our story here.

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Charles Vinick, gone with the wind

Hearing of Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound head honcho Charles Vinick's consulting work for a wind energy developer in California, and Vinick's presumably related departure from the Alliance, reminded me of one of my favorite episodes of "Seinfeld."

It's the one where George Costanza is in a video store and sees two women holding hands, one of whom turns out to be his former girlfriend, Susan.

I found a copy of the script online and made a few changes. In the parody to follow, "Georgina" is a generic representative of the Alliance while "Charles" is working the booth at a wind energy conference, being held in a convention center on the same day as a conference of wind farm opponents.

Georgina and Charles used to be colleagues in the anti-wind farm Alliance until Charles left the organization. The two have not seen each other since Charles began working as a wind energy consultant - and Georgina is unaware of Charles' conversion to wind advocacy.

(Georgina is walking past booths at the wind energy conference when she suddenly sees Charles)

Georgina: (to herself) Oh, my God! It's Charles! What do I do? (turns away so as not to be recognized)

Charles: Georgina?

Georgina: Charles! Hi! Oh, boy! What are you doing here?!

Charles: Attending a pro-wind conference! What are you doing here?

Georgina: Oh, attending an anti-wind conference. You know, same old, same old (laughs nervously)

Charles (introducing his colleague in the booth): Georgina, this is Fern.

Georgina (methodically extends his hand, bit by bit): Oh, hi...

Fern: Pleasure to meet you.

Georgina: Yes. Well ...

Fern: Well, I'll let you two, uh... catch up (walks away)

Charles: You okay?

Georgina: Yeah. Yes! I just haven't seen you in a long time.

Charles: And you didn't expect to see me advocating for wind power.

Georgina: Oh, please! Me? C'mon! That's great! Are you kidding? I think that's fan-tast-ic! I've always encouraged experimentation! I'm the first guy in the pool! Who do you think you're talking to?

Charles: I know who I'm talking to.

Georgina: Of course you do ... It's just, uh, y'know, I- I never knew, uh, that, uh ...

Charles: I liked wind power?

Georgina: There you go. So, uh, how long has this been going on?

Charles: Since I was working at the Alliance.

Georgina: Ssssso, while you were at the Alliance, you ... went that way?

Charles: Yeah.

Georgina: Oh, I think that's fantastic. Good for you. Nice. That's very nice.

Charles: Alright, well ... Good seeing you, Georgina.

Georgina: Yes, good to see you, too. And good luck with, uh ... with the whole thing, there.

(photo credit, http://content.answers.com)

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Offshore wind ready to reduce oil dependence

Cost of oil surpasses $100 per barrel today, renewable energy needed now more than ever 

   ^{Offshore wind farms are already a reality in Europe. Shown above, Utgrunden in Sweden.}

Per barrel cost has risen more than $70 since Cape Wind project was first announced in 2001 

BOSTON, MA -- “Developing offshore wind power is one way America can become less dependent on imported oil,” said Cape Wind President Jim Gordon in response to the news that the price of oil surpassed $100 per barrel today.  “Offshore wind is clean, abundant, inexhaustible, and here -- you don’t have to import it from the Middle East,” Gordon continued.

Currently, oil is the largest source of electricity generation capacity in Southeastern Massachusetts.  Cape Wind would produce as much power in a year from the wind on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound as an oil power plant would from burning 113 million gallons of oil.

“Offshore wind is clean, abundant, inexhaustible, and here -- you don’t have to import it from the Middle East,” Jim Gordon.

Cape Wind has entered its final year of permitting to deploy proven offshore wind power technology on the windy, shallow and protected site of Horseshoe Shoal to provide 75% of the electricity supply of Cape Cod and the Islands.

Today offshore wind power can reduce reliance on oil fired power plants, in the future offshore wind power will also be able to supply fuel to cars, buses and trucks as the transportation sector develops 'plug-in hybrid' technology to derive more power from electricity to use less oil.

The U.S. Department of Energy produced an Offshore Wind Framework in 2005 that found there is enough offshore wind power long-term potential to meet most of the nation’s electricity needs.

Release courtesy of Cape Wind. 

See news stories in Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and MSNBC.com.

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Rising temperatures likely to affect health

The effects of climate change are already being seen in shorelines and water supplies, but scientists are warning that the phenomenon's next target most certainly will be human health.  And while a single disease generally can be treated with a single cure, there is not likely to be one solution for the host of health problems climate change could bring.

About 30,000 people died in Europe in 2003 during the continent's record-breaking heat waveWarming temperatures are likely to affect everything from mosquito ecology to human cells' ability to withstand heat.  "We are not dealing with a single toxic agent or a single microbe where we can put our finger with certainty on an exposure and the response," said Jonathan Patz, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "Climate change affects everything."

The heat alone could prove deadly for some. About 30,000 people died in Europe in 2003 during the continent's record-breaking heat wave, mostly those too old, young or weak to escape it.  Researchers fear that with 20 percent of the world's population over the age of 60 today, a figure that is expected to grow to 32 percent by 2050, more of the world's elderly will be at risk (David Brown, Washington Post, Dec. 17).

Interested in finding out what your personal carbon footprint is? Visit www.carbonfootprint.com and click on the calculator button.  You can determine your own carbon footprint in such categories as home, business, flights, cars, etc. 

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An earlier reaction to aesthetics in a sacred place

(updated and revised from July 11, 2005 post at wind farmer's almanac blog to mark the 25th anniversary this month of the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial)

What does Cape Wind share in common with Maya Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial? Consider the parallels.

The vitriolic, emotion-laden claims of opponents.

Their cavalier disparaging of the architect.

A bitter dispute over public space perceived as sacred.

And Sen. John Warner weighing in against both proposals.

Lin was a senior at Yale when she entered a design competition for a monument to soldiers killed in the Vietnam War. When her submission was chosen among 1,420 others in 1981, critics derided it as "a wall of shame," a "degrading ditch" and "a black gash of shame."

Some reacted to Lin's Asian ancestry and complained that "we can't have our memorial built by a gook," according to a profile of her in the April 1993 issue of Current Biography magazine.

Sen. Warner chaired a group that preferred a bronze sculpture of three soldiers by Frederick Hart as an "antidote" to Lin's design and wanted the statues placed at the angle within Lin's wall. A compromise was later reached by placing Hart's sculpture 120 feet away.

The bitterness toward Lin, shown in the photo at right, carried over to the dedication of the memorial on Veterans Day in 1982. She was never mentioned during the ceremony and the dedication program featured Hart's sculpture, not hers, on its cover.

Looking back, I am most struck by the fury toward Lin's proposal - before it was built - and how quickly her design passed into the realm of revered icon - after it was built. Think about it - how often have you heard criticism of the monument after it was dedicated?

I'm not suggested an exact parallel with Cape Wind, because it's not. The presence of the names of more than 50,000 of our men who died in Vietnam virtually ensures that the wall and its environs would become hallowed ground, but they do not guarantee it. Similar reactions did not follow after the Korean War monument was built, or the FDR memorial, or the World War II monument. The only places in Washington to evoke a comparable response, in my opinion, are Arlington Cemetery, where our fallen dead are interred, and the Lincoln Memorial, which looms just past Lin's monument.

But consider how Cape Wind's critics describe Nantucket Sound - this "national treasure," "pristine jewel" and any number of variations. Not much different than our collective view of the Mall in Washington.

Lin's design was striking for its simplicity - two lines of black granite descend into the earth and meet to form a shallow angle. The lines point toward the Lincoln Memorial, symbolic of the country's most divisive moment and greatest leader, and the Capitol, of its enduring unity.

In other words, it was not just Lin's design that succeeded, but choice of place where it was situated.  And here is where Cape Wind's critics do a disservice to the geographical entity they claim to cherish. They look at Cape Wind and Nantucket Sound and say never the twain can meet. They cannot accept that windmills and the Sound don't clash, as the Alliance too strenuously argues, but mesh like wildflowers swaying in a meadow.

In a recent Channel 56 news series on Cape Wind, the Alliance's Audra Parker said the proposal was "totally incompatible" with Nantucket Sound. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a more compatible location than Nantucket Sound. If Cape Wind wanted to build in, say, Death Valley or the middle of a city - OK, now we're talking "totally incompatible."

What Cape Wind wants to do is a radical departure from how we generate electricity, just as what Lin proposed bore little resemblance to what had come before. Until the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was built, war monuments invariably depicted only the human form, and as outsized, exalted and heroic. The statue of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima is the best example.

Lin's design included no human presence - until you visited it and were surrounded by the names of thousands who gave their lives, and saw your own reflection on the polished stone.

Cape Wind is as unsettling to its critics as what Lin proposed was to hers. When opponents of the wind farm gaze on Nantucket Sound, the last thing they want is to be reminded of something so mundane as where we get our electricity, and the huge costs that come with it. Some things are better kept from sight.

It would be too much like looking at a war monument and seeing your own reflection.

(photo credits: of Vietnam Veterans Memorial, businessweek.com; of Maya Lin, Smithsonian.com)

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