Wiki World

Taxi Licence Test Is Too Difficult

Making entry tests for such things as taxi driver licences or new residents has really gone off course. This is not restricted to Australia. The US test for residency has been shown to have incorrect answers to key questions. New migrants to Australia complain about the relevancy of some questions. In regard to the test for a taxi licence in Queensland one in six is failing despite many being Australian born.

The Queensland test is extensive with reading, writing, numeracy. speaking and listening all being evaluated. Just how this improves taxi service and safety is unclear. It should be adequate for drivers to understand what customers are saying and to be able to communicate satisfactorily in return. It seems the whole job is tested as well. Map reading, following verbal directions, determining fares, giving change and solving situational problems are all thoroughly checked. It is known that many people are stressed and nervous doing such examinations. Even normally intelligent and adaptable people can fail.

Queensland taxi drivers are saying the test is too extensive and unnecessary. Even Australian born drivers with decades of experience are not passing. Many say it is a show test, a gimmick developed by bureaucrats. Many things tested for can only be learned on the job, after drivers have a licence to use. Experienced drivers are also being caught out because they must sit the examination when renewing their licences. One driver who had driven taxis for most of his life failed and said that's the end for me I will have to live off the pension now.

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Society

Cat on Top

Apartment Living

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Funny Animal Photos

The Poor Have to Live With High Rents

The poor in Australia are doing it tough. While the economy is booming the price of housing has continued to rise. Despite the recent levelling off, further increases are forecast. With the higher valuation come higher monthly mortgage repayments and rental payments must keep up with this. Only one per cent of low income earners can afford to pay such rents. If you are on welfare and cannot get public accommodation forget it - you have to live on the street, unless you live with relatives and friends who can put a roof over yours head.

The real problem is not the cost of actually building a house. Modular housing can be purchased, but people who have new houses put up do not chose such basic designs. Rental housing is largely designed for the wrong people. Unless government takes the lead and actually builds modular housing for the poor the situation will stay the same. Costs involved in getting land ready for construction is the real problem. Land levelling and servicing is very expensive. Councils are the main reason for this. There is no competition is regard to charges. A builder must pay fees to councils at council set rates.

Without established affordable housing it is virtually impossible for a person to contribute to society by holding down a job. Even when learning job skills rents are very high for accommodation near educational institutions. User certainly pays in this regard. Low income earners are also competing with each other to get the cheapest third of advertised rentals. Plenty of houses are available in rural areas of course. Living off welfare payment is almost mandatory there because there is no work. By definition where there is work rents are high.

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Society

Happy Animal

"Yippee! I'm Happy."

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Funny Animal Photos

Australian Aboriginals Were Not Dying Out

When Europeans landed in Australia it was said that the Aboriginals were already a dying race. After 40,000 year of successful domination of the this land their population was actually growing. Though not changing in a European sense, into industrialization, over several centuries they could have formed larger federations of tribes.

Cave paintings in the Sahara show people with boomerangs as well as bows and arrows. Apparently, the Australian Aboriginals did not find bows and arrows that useful on the new continent but the boomerang suited them well. The boomerang could be easily carried on long hunts. Running with a bow and a sheath of arrows over the shoulder or in the hand was too cumbersome. There is no reason to believe that they had not had the bow in times passed.

Anthropologists estimate that the Aboriginal population grew from a quarter of a million 10,000 years ago to a million in the eighteenth century. This increase is quite fast in historical terms and there is no solid explanation for it.

Something had to be improving in either an environmental or societal way. How could life remain difficult for 30,000 years then suddenly get better? They did adopt fish farming. This would improve life for people on the coast. They had no need to build fixed settlements. There was always another fresh area to move on to.

People spread from Africa, usually along the coast as they used up resources at each place. When they arrived in Australia the land was so vast this type of competition ended. It must have been a hard existence at first. As "tricks" for surviving became cultural knowledge things obviously improved.

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Anthropology

Penguin Attack

"Take that!"
"What the...?"

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Funny Animal Photos

Blaming Australian Business for Inaction is Futile

It is claimed by "specialists" that Australian business failed to plan for the high dollar. They carried on without cutting basic running costs. With over 60 per cent of businesses being involved in international trade this is deemed to be a "sin". The American Express FX International found less than 40 per cent did nothing.

The research body said it was surprised at this. It is hardly surprising in the real world where costs are kept as low as possible on a constant basis. How can a business have a program to tackle this problem when it is a daily matter of trading? Common sense would inform you that not much can be done. The market sets the price. The high dollar means firms get less profit when they receive payment in foreign currency. Running costs inside the international barrier in Australia continue to rise. Most international trade is done in US dollars and this has become very weak.

It isn't much good longing for days passed when the exchange rate was less than 50 US cent to the Aussie dollar. It is quite astonishing that the employment rate is so high when times are really tough for manufacturing and retail. Prices are being cut to the bone, apart from food which people must have. Saying firms should have locked themselves in with future exchange contracts is dwelling on something that is impossible to change. The dollar is high and it is too late. Not much can be done now. Australian industry will shake itself out with bankruptcies until survivors can benefit from a weaker dollar which appears to be a long way off.

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Business

Cat Gambler

Gambling is bad. No it's good, good, good!"

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Funny Animal Photos

Giant Ants in Ancient North America

Big insects once roamed the US. They were very big. Ants were the size of small birds 50 million years ago. They are thought to have crossed the arctic land bridge that once existed between Europe and the US. The Green River site in Wyoming has given up many new finds in the past.

Bruce Archibald of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia noted that the fossil was similar to one found in Germany. Only the queen of the Dorylus wilverthi species of ant living today reaches this size. Fittingly, the new ant has been named Titanomyrma lubei. Louis Lube found the specimen. While this ant is big for North America, big ants probably lived in other parts of the world because large fossils of other creatures have been found there.

Large ants only live a tropical climate in the present so North America was tropical millions of years ago. It is a mystery how they crossed the temperate Arctic region then. For brief periods this area became quite warm, up to 8 degrees Celsius, though not tropical. Bursts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from sediment was the culprit. With two sources for ancient giant ants now known it may be possible to identify where they originated.

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Science

Lion Dinner

"Come home late again and your dinner will be over the fence!"

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Funny Animal Photos

Tasmanian Tiger Did Not Fill the Evolutionary NIche of a Dog

It was believed that the Tasmanian Tiger perished in mainland Australia due to the dingo taking over their habitat. New findings show the dingo did not directly compete with the marsupial dog. They had different ways of getting their food.

Dingos were brought to Australia from Asia in recent times. It is not native to Australia. The demise of the Tasmanian tiger on the larger part of Australia 3,000 years ago was coincidental. Settlers in Tasmania feared their cattle and sheep would be slaughtered so they eradicated the quite timid animal in the early twentieth century.

Dingoes are wild dogs that run for long periods running down their prey. Tasmanian tigers were not distance runners. They ambushed sick and young animals. The tiger's skeletal structure was more like cats than dogs, particularly the elbow joint which was feline in character. The dingo has elbows that lock, while the marsupial dog had a flexible joint. This undermines the theory that the Tasmanian tiger filled the evolutionary niche open in Australia due to the absence of a native dog.

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Science

Good Guy Bears

"Way to go, guys."

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Funny Animal Photos

Labels: bear , cook , fire , go , guys , ice , on top , snow , way

Teachers Bonus a Waste of Money

There isn't much doubt that the bonus scheme for teachers will not work. Like the mystique of "time and motion" where the claim is made that human productivity is linear and is an increasing curve, it's a pipe dream! Machinery can only be speeded up so much before parts start flying off in all directions and everything shuts down for maintenance. Furthermore, when task are done too quickly a lot of "non-size" rubbish is produced. While output in some industry can be improved, for paper carriers such as teachers this is virtually impossible.

Some teachers are better than others and for the main part this is innate: it is not learned and never can be. The only measurement is the quality of students that are lucky enough to be taught by them. Even then, tying down the factors that do improve matters is not easy to identify. Usually. students have an affinity with a teacher; thus they are prepared to work harder. It is not the teacher who is putting in more effort - it is the student. Testing students to deduce the performance of their teachers will also drive a wedge between teachers and students. Considering only one in ten teachers will benefit from the bonus scheme it is divisive for teachers themselves. Industrial strife is just down the road.

Overall, it is a silly exercise. Why should the Government, the taxpayer, pay more? Will good teachers be paid more for what they are already doing? It seems so. Why single out one sector of employment for a reward that everyone else doesn't get purely because it is motivated by one person, Julia Gillard? Apparently it has to do with good teachers being virtuous people. It is not much use holding out one group as an example if there is no intention to apply it to the whole workforce. Paying good teacher more will not make lesser beings respectful toward them. It will make the average teacher angry. Let's not go back to pet projects like in the Howard and Rudd eras.

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Education

Seal Hit

"Wanna bonk?"

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Funny Animal Photos

Man Attacks Youth With a Hedgehog

Don't throw wildlife around! You may be punished for it.

A New Zealand man has to attend court for throwing a hedgehog at a teenager. Mr Singhalargh threw the poor animal five meters at a 15 year old in the eastern North Island town of Whakatane.

The teenager was injured. He got a large red welt and several puncture wounds. The man was arrested shortly afterwards for assault with a weapon, namely the hedgehog.

The police did not say whether the hedgehog was alive before the ordeal, but did say that the animal was definitely dead afterwards.

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Society

Penguin Skip

"Skip to my lou."

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Funny Animal Photos

The Government Should Publish the Real CPI Figure

It is about time the Government informed the public about the true rate of inflation and increased payments to those who are entitled to it. Okay, unemployment is low but those living in rural areas depend on it to survive. They can continue to to rely on the unemployment benefit, or they can move to the city. That is the last thing we want - more people living in the major coastal cities.

The problem is that non-essentials are included in the CPI. This offsets the real inflationary increase in the necessities of life. Many do not know that essential goods have increased by a massive 8 per cent over the past year. The high dollar is "hiding" this by making imported non-essentials cheaper. Prices of such goods have actually fallen. Those on low incomes spend a higher proportion of their income on essentials like food, electricity, water, fuel and rent.

Oddly, interest rates are not in the CPI package. Curiously, it was taken out in 1998. In other words both political parties have been covering up the cost of living. Furthermore, Price rises in property are out as well.

Another important thing that the public is not informed of is the practice of discounting a price that hasn't changed (quality adjustment). If the price of something has not increased over a year you would think that this would have zero effect on the the CPI. This is not the case. The price of an electronic product will reduce the CPI even if it has not gone up. How does this happen? It is because the Government discounts the price of this non-essential by saying it is a better product due to technological improvement. It says you are getting more for your money and the price has fallen when it has not. This is purely a value judgement. Measures of inflation should contain factual data only. This is no more nor less than doctoring of figures which benefits the Government. Both political sides alter the CPI to make things seem better. Note how the Coalition passed over the CPI when the GST was introduced? A fully independent body should regularly revue the way the CPI figure is evaluated and this nonsense should stop.

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Economics

Meerkat Musicians

"We are not mere kats, man."

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Funny Animal Photos

Sweet Potato Is Being Improved

The sweet potato is a hotel counter-lunch filling. It is something you have when there is no other vegetable left. Most people eat it because it is on the plate. It's flavour can be described as sugary. The only vegetable anything like it is fresh baby peas that can be quite sweet. The sweet potato, however, is far too "sickly" for most palates. This humble vegetable is being revamped.

Researchers in Queensland are trying to find varieties that can be grown more economically and which are more suitable for consumers - diametrically opposed goals one would assume. They are looking for more brilliantly coloured kinds, a silly aspiration considering people don't eat colour. It is the taste that is the problem. Seeing pretty red, purple, orange and white skin while you are peeling them is hardly, well, "appealing". Scientists are saying the colours are exciting. Wow! They are also saying that there are interesting flavours. This claim is not soundly based because no formal taste tests have been done.

A fatter kind is being worked on. A quick perusal of the local greengrocer would indicate that size is not really an issue. There are some monsters out there already. Like giant pumpkins such monstrosities are usually only fit for the rubbish bin.

Those doing the study admit that the sweet potato being produced is of very high quality. If that is the case why bother working on improvements? Surely, research on more main-stream vegetables like the standard potato is more logical than trying to improve a vegetable that is at best only a fill-in on the dinner plate.

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Science

Swinging Cat

"Swing it man."

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Funny Animal Photos

Ancient Marsupial Found With Specialised Teeth for Eating Snails

Evidence of the existence of specialised ancient marsupials have been found in Australia. They had teeth that were "hammer-like" for crushing snail shells. Lizards living today in rain forests have similar teeth. They had premolars like the teeth in humans located between the molars and canines. Researchers could not determine at first what the strange teeth were used for. It was the first time that such teeth had been found in marsupials.

Like the Tasmanian tiger a marsupial which filled the role of native dog in Australia, so this marsupial more than 10 million years ago, lived in the niche that the pink-tongued skink holds today. This wet rain forest lizard is quite large, about 40 cm in length, so it's ancestor would have been a tough competitor.

The extinct marsupial became extinct when the weather changed in Australia and inland rain forests receded toward the coast. Lizards could survive in the new environment. The marsupial could not.

Riversleigh in northern Australia, a rich source of marsupial fossils, was where the find was made. Indication are that the marsupial was not plentiful even in prehistoric times because so few fossils of the animal have been found.

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Science

Squirrel Piano Player

"How does that tune go?"

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Funny Animal Photos

Australian Saving Means a Change in the Retail Structure

Why is Australia in such a bad way? The country is exporting at record levels. China is paying up front for these exports. Interest rates are not too high. Remember the Keating days of 14 per cent? We do have a "dual" economy with manufacturing doing it tough due to the high dollar, but Australia never has been a strong exporter of manufactured goods.

Retailers are saying people aren't spending. You would think that people can only spend what they earn and no more. However, due to the multiplier effect, according to economic theory, when a person spends a dollar that one dollars turns over about five times. In other words the money supply, the real paper dollars out there, is actually only about a fifth of the money on the books in an economy. So what happens when a consumer saves? Think about it. The money in circulation "shrinks" by four more dollars. This is what is happening in Australia. We all envied Japan in its good years when they had very high rates of saving per head of population. Now Australians are adopting this way of living.

Australians are doing the right thing and being told by retailers that they are doing the wrong thing. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You either spend now or you don't. The real problem of course is that there are far too many retailers in Australia. Particularly today where many shops sell broad lines of goods. Years ago shops really specialised. Each town had one grocer, one greengrocer, a chemist shop, fish shop selling fresh and fried fish, butcher, Garage and so on. When you are in a shopping centre today you pass several shops selling the same thing while walking.

Australians were in personal debt for decades. Many warned about the lingering debt levels. It is a good thing that people are changing their ways. Unfortunately, the whole retail structure must change as well. This will only occur reluctantly and with great hardship. Many buy businesses and think their future is made. The reality is different. Owning a business is now very tough. Not only do you have local rivals, many Australians buy from oversees on the Internet. Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman may be calling for GST to be placed on Internet purchases. What he really wants is a ban on buying in this way. Things will change. More businesses will go bankrupt.

Australia's future lies in commodity exports. It always has; it always will. Manufacturing motor vehicles in this country was a mistake. Sell iron ore and coal then buy cheaper imports. This has always been the way to go. The main question for us all now is whether we should abandon food production and import most of it? Australia is a major exporter of wheat. This is a commodity. Perhaps Australia should continue. Growing food generally, however, is an important issue for the future. We cannot keep out cheap, high quality food imports from New Zealand for ever with questionable import barriers. Just why Australians still bother producing poor quality sheep is a mystery. The wool is good. The meat is inedible.

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Economics

Accordian Cat

"I play accordion for you."

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Funny Animal Photos

Beware the Ozone

Ten years ago the ozone layer was a major topic. "The ozone is decreasing," headlines proclaimed. Then, it was just as quickly forgotten. It may not be growing so much but the ozone layer is still causing problems. The weather has been altered. Wet and dry extremes are the result. Desalination programs have been put on the backburner for now. They will be needed soon as the cycle swings back to dry.

The ozone hole shifts high-altitude wind circulation southward. Most notable for Australia has been the movement of the Southern Hemisphere jet stream to the south. This has severe effects. For example, in the north Britain has got very cold winters in recent years due to blocking of the Northern stream. Estimates are that Australia's weather has changed by a magnitude of 35 per cent. More rain has been brought here. With the impact from greenhouse gases this water evaporates very quickly, so the overall impact is dryness.

With the combination of ozone, greenhouse gases and El Nino the weather has become chaotic for Australia. Chlorofluorocarbon reduction has been successful. Nonetheless, we should not become complacent. Damage still persists in the Arctic. Besides, greenhouse gas emissions is doing more damage now than the depleted ozone. Australians need to consider the country as a whole. Eastern states are now soaking in water. Western Australia, however, is in drought.

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Science

Gorilla Treat

"There is not enough for two son."

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Funny Animal Photos

Chimeras Have Been Identified

What is a chimera? You can be a chimera and not know it. A chimera is the product of two embryos in one individual. A person with this "complaint" is absolutely normal and can live most of their lives without knowing they are "afflicted". They are usually diagnosed in a medical examination.

A case in point was a woman who was found not to be the mother of one of her sons. Tests indicated that genetically the child was not hers. Further test, however, showed that she a chimera and the child was hers.

Human chimeras are not common. In some species they are more the norm. In dahlia anemones, for example, it was noticed that their larvae were fused together like conjoined twins. Out of a batch of 27,169 young, 120 were visibly chimeric. Most of these died. The true chimeras live don undetected. It is believed that 90 per cent of young can be affected There may an evolutionary benefit from this. It appears that chimeras grow faster and are more aggressive than normal larvae. Dahlia anemone are certainly at the halfway point between colonial organisms and individuals.

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Health

Cat Danger

"Aren't you afraid I might fall down that crack?"

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Funny Animal Photos

Potential Future Disaster From Nanotechnology

There is danger from future widespread use of nanotechnology. It is seen as the new savior to save the world from food shortages and so on. But like bio-fuel production it could do more harm than good. CSIRO is calling for more study of nanotechnology. This is despite the fact that no country has yet examined safety issues involved with it.

Nanotechnology creates "micro-fine" products that have no safe disposal system. If they get into the environment there is not telling what damage they could do.

Risks are seemingly endless: use by terrorists; environmental damage; self-reproduction (goo everywhere); even the future of Mankind on this planet could be under threat.

Once a material has been modified or a new nano-product created it becomes a permanent structure. It must be chemically altered to make it safe. A nano-substance is not inert. It will act on the environment if it can. At the moment there are no restrictions. Developers can do what they wish. Let's hope regulations are put in train before a disaster occurs.

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Science

Baseball Animal

"Steee-rike."

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Funny Animal Photos

Pharmcists Should Stay Out of Mental Health

Pharmacists should stay out of health treatment and do what they do best - glorified clerks. They have no training in curing disease. Their education is solely based on chemical analysis. They are scientists not physicians. Ask their advice and they tell you what is written on the packet.

Now the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia is saying pharmacists are qualified to treat people with mental illness. They may "give" drugs to such patients but they do not prescribe them. Heaven help us if they get involved will-nilly in advising those with mental disorders. Having someone continually talking in your ear about how to take your prescription medicine it not going to help one recover.

Doctors need direct contact with a patient to give the greatest assistance. Having a pharmacist in the middle is only going to mess things up. A mental patient is already stressed. Saying pharmacists will reduce medication errors is implying that they have qualifications to oversee physicians. Obviously, they do not have such expertise.

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Health

Rat in Charge

"Since we agreed to stop fighting you've become a real pain George."

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Funny Animal Photos

Shop Frequently and Live Longer

More silly research comes to useful conclusions. A survey has found that older people, men and women who go shopping "frequently" live longer. This is true for Taiwanese anyway. Subject women were 28 per cent less likely to die in the 10 years after the study. Men were 27 per cent less likely. Apparently, going shopping once a week is absolutely no good whatsoever. One has to shop, shop, shop to have a positive outcome.

Researchers reached the following conclusion: "Shopping captures several dimensions of personal wellbeing, health and security as well as contributing to the community's cohesiveness and economy, and may represent or actually confer increased longevity." This conclusion is not soundly based on the data, however. It is just drawn "out of the air". In other words it is just an opinion. Maybe shopping is an ideal way of getting regular exercise. Note, those who lived longer were healthier to begin with. And poor health meant less shopping, thus inadequate diet.

Another problem is the finding that companionship via shopping leads to better health. This has no foundation at all. Grumpy old men do have the adjective "old" clipped onto them.

It makes one wonder whether researchers have conclusions determined before they begin a study. It is worrying that longevity was tested for only 10 years after data was provided.

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Health

Nosey

"Oh hello. I was just looking."

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Funny Animal Photos

Telstra Should Not Have Been Compensated for the NBN Using Fibre Instead of Copper

It seems odd for the Government to compensate Telstra for building the National Broadband Network considering fibre optic cable is a modern version of old copper. If a rival company in the market place builds a new factory with modern equipment established firms are not paid a cent. Besides, the copper was funded by Australian citizens and not by Telstra per se.

Selling Telstra was a stupid idea anyway. People who bought shares should have known that the monopoly would eventually die. Perhaps John Howard saw the writing on the wall and decided to sell it. In recent times Testra has barely made a profit so it could no longer be relied upon as a cash cow.

The Australian Government is paying Telstra $11 billion in compensation. Laws should have been changed to prevent this public liability taking place. Telstra's ownership of the copper should have been changed before the sale. It's control should have been altered to protection of the copper network which was paid for by Australian taxpayers.

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Communication

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