Sameness

Sameness 20 December 2011

Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Iraq War, WAR!.
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National Geographic Grand Prize Winner and Nature Winner – “Splashing” – Photo and caption by Shikhei Goh:

This photo was taken when I was taking photos of other insects, as I normally did during macro photo hunting. I wasn’t actually aware of this dragonfly since I was occupied with other objects. When I was about to take a picture of it, it suddenly rained, but the lighting was just superb. I decided to take the shot regardless of the rain. The result caused me to be overjoyed, and I hope it pleases viewers. – Location: Batam, Riau Islands, Indonesia

Business Insider Gallery of NG 2011 Winner and Mentions

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Holding on for dear life and hoping to make it thru – looks familiar doesn’t it? If only we could know that everything, all of it, everything there is, is connected.

This, too, is familiar.

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1. marisacat - 20 December 2011: I am pretty sure when history sifts thru our charred bones it will be reported we died of perverse grandiosity. And gross perversity.

Tid … I guess from the Great Epoch when Arianna and Newt were schtupping each other.

“We would all love to clone Newt Gingrich,” Huffington says while introducing Gingrich. “We would love to have a Newt Gingrich who is speaker of the house, and a Newt Gingrich who is running for president and a Newt Gingrich who is running around the country teaching the principles of American civilization. But given that third wave technology has not advanced to that level yet, we are delighted to have the only one Newt Gingrich.”

Ben Smith links to the vid of this splendid moment… in case you need to regurgitate your breakfast. The mere thought of Newt in a disarray of bedroom activities… and Ariana in need of make up and a hairline pluck… does it.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/

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That bit of glory asshole-ishness rises just as Slob is being humble and comparing himself to FDR, Johnson and Lincoln (more of the 60 Minutes interview is being reported).

Why hold back? Surely he is as great as the Founding Fathers. Washington Madison Jefferson Adams all rolled into one.

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2. marisacat - 20 December 2011: hmmm I just caught Noon news, the FOX affiliate but they are based over in Oakland and often report more on East Bay issues… (pretty fair reporting on Occupy too, btw) and saw a local Teamster union leader say they support port shutdowns….

One of the Dem party hacks over on the Oakland City Council hs introduced a bill to provide for authorities to ban shut downs.

Please! In my lifetime a West Coast shut down…

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3. Madman in the Marketplace - 20 December 2011: Maybe It Was a Semi-Automatic Stuffed Animal

Good old “liberal” Seattle.

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4. Madman in the Marketplace - 20 December 2011: Bankers Join Billionaires to Debunk ‘Imbecile’ Attack on Top 1%

If successful businesspeople don’t go public to share their stories and talk about their troubles, “they deserve what they’re going to get,” said Marcus, 82, a founding member of Job Creators Alliance, a Dallas-based nonprofit that develops talking points and op-ed pieces aimed at “shaping the national agenda,” according to the group’s website. He said he isn’t worried that speaking out might make him a target of protesters.

“Who gives a crap about some imbecile?” Marcus said. “Are you kidding me?”
‘Feels Lonely’

The organization assisted John A. Allison IV, a director of BB&T Corp. (BBT), the ninth-largest U.S. bank, and Staples Inc. co- founder Thomas Stemberg with media appearances this month.

“It still feels lonely, but the chorus is definitely increased,” Allison, 63, a former CEO of the Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based bank and now a professor at Wake Forest University’s business school, said in an interview.

I’m so choked up I can barely type.

Tom Golisano, billionaire founder of payroll processer Paychex Inc. (PAYX) and a former New York gubernatorial candidate, said in an interview this month that while there are examples of excess, it’s “ridiculous” to blame everyone who is rich.

“If I hear a politician use the term ‘paying your fair share’ one more time, I’m going to vomit,” said Golisano, who turned 70 last month, celebrating the birthday with girlfriend Monica Seles, the former tennis star who won nine Grand Slam singles titles.

Ken Langone, 76, another Home Depot co-founder and chairman of the NYU Langone Medical Center, said he isn’t embarrassed by his success.

“I am a fat cat, I’m not ashamed,” he said last week in a telephone interview from a dressing room in his Upper East Side home. “If you mean by fat cat that I’ve succeeded, yeah, then I’m a fat cat. I stand guilty of being a fat cat.”

Oh, the humanity!

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Madman in the Marketplace - 20 December 2011: Jeebus, this one is even better:

Peter Schiff, CEO of Westport, Connecticut-based broker- dealer Euro Pacific Capital Inc., is delivering the message directly. He went in October to Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, where Occupy Wall Street protesters had camped out, with a sign that said “I Am the 1%” and a video camera.

“Somebody needs to do it,” Schiff said in an interview.

Schiff, 48, disclosed assets of at least $64.7 million before losing the 2010 Republican primary for a Connecticut U.S. Senate seat, according to filings. He’s wealthier now, even though his taxes are “more than a medieval lord would have taken from a serf,” he said.

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marisacat - 20 December 2011: oh I remember when he did that, he got quite a bit of media notice for it.

Then he repaired for a hundred dollar lunch somewhere, no doubt. And a quick check-in with Bloombito – equally likely.

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marisacat - 20 December 2011: “It still feels lonely, but the chorus is definitely increased,”

hang a medal for bravery on him. Geesh. A true trailblazer!!

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5. marisacat - 20 December 2011: Madman sent this… I think of it as

Cat agrees to consult in proper family management.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 20 December 2011: “there there, little morsel”

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6. BooHooHooMan - 20 December 2011: Excellent post, and thanks for the link to Swanson on the late John Needham’s reporting of U.S. Army 2nd Division War Crimes he witnessed and documented, the atrocities against civilians he reported in 2007… To no end.as this makes yet another – yet to be prosecuted civilian kill team during 2nd Division Commnding General John Morgan lll watch.

And in 2009? Oh he was sitting on the Pentagon’s General Staff Selection Board determining who gets stars or flag rank.
What’s happened since? Oh NOTHING.
Other than a massive coverup from one War Criminal to another, his being bumped up to Chief of Staff, for the “European Command” ,
eh “NATO”, ehm in Germany to be precise
(some skill sets, eh?)
So nothin much. Oh. Other than his
– and uhm, – – > being PROMOTED for A Third Star by OBAMA.

Nothin but Killers and Thieves. Coming to a country near EU.

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BooHooHooMan - 20 December 2011: Correct Link Let’s see if this works.

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BooHooHooMan - 20 December 2011: Well I see they indeed have blocked access to the link thru on Google cache. So afear’d someone may notice ….

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7. Madman in the Marketplace - 21 December 2011: 2 women share 1st kiss after US Navy ship returns to Virginia, 1st since repeal of gay ban

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule on Wednesday when two women sailors became the first to share the coveted “first kiss” on the pier after one of them returned from 80 days at sea.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of Placerville, Calif., descended from the USS Oak Hill amphibious landing ship and shared a quick kiss in the rain with her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles. Gaeta, 23, wore her Navy dress uniform while Snell, 22, wore a black leather jacket, scarf and blue jeans. The crowd screamed and waved flags around them.

“It’s something new, that’s for sure,” Gaeta told reporters after the kiss.

“It’s nice to be able to be myself. It’s been a long time coming.”

There was little to differentiate this kiss from countless others when a Navy ship pulls into its home port following a deployment. Neither the Navy nor the couple tried to draw special attention to what was happening and many onlookers waiting for their loved ones to come off the ship were busy talking among themselves.

Snell smiled as she approached Gaeta and they briefly embraced as a small contingent of local television crews and photographers, who were unaware about what was going to happen until moments earlier, captured the scene.

“She told me about the first kiss a couple of days ago and I kind of freaked out — in a good way — but of course I’m a little nervous, you know. But I’ve been waiting since she left,” Snell said.

David Bauer, the commanding officer of the USS Oak Hill, said that Gaeta and Snell’s kiss would largely be a non-event and the crew’s reaction upon learning who was selected to have the first kiss was positive.

“It’s going to happen and the crew’s going to enjoy it. We’re going to move on and it won’t overshadow the great things that this crew has accomplished over the past three months,” Bauer said.

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marisacat - 21 December 2011: Never knew there was a “first kiss” protocol on returning.

Well, good for them….

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8. Madman in the Marketplace - 22 December 2011: I didn’t either …

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9. BooHooHooMan - 22 December 2011: ANNOUNCING!

NETROOTS NEW YORK!

Don’t worry, its over. 😆 But you know,

Register!.. Become a Sponsor!.. Volunteer!… LOL., ETC!

Where every attendee is a SPEAKER!

Please! Purchase one for the Holidays!

And they had ……………………………………Panels!
Like, “The Obama…………..well, ,………….Panel!”
What else could they call it!!??
No further description available!
::
Of course, tucked at the bottom, there was THIS ONE :

Herding Bloggers for Your Cause

Some might say that trying to get bloggers to write about things upon request is tougher than nailing jello to a tree… the bloggers and netroots outreach specialists on this panel will prove otherwise. Learn how to make friends with bloggers and get them to help spread the good word with tips and tricks

and a few case studies too.

Oh moy God! Case Studies Now!
With Specimens in formaldehyde! Full Autopsies, even!
Done on the Premises!

Good Lord, just LMAO.

AND I see Stoller was on the Panel . ..“Occupy Our Homes” 😆

Hey, man~ Necessity!! LOL.

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BooHooHooMan - 22 December 2011: That bloggin’, see, it’s gonna be a big thing. LOL.
Jeezus Fuckin Pwoggo Christmas.
The 2004 Howard Dean Fruitcake again.

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marisacat - 22 December 2011: oh god. The finer points of blogging AND Blahgging too!. As a course.

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10. marisacat - 22 December 2011: oh so good. Norman Finkelstein on the passing of Hitch. WIth a nod to Vaclav and Kim Jong Il (or Kim Jong 2 as Perry the Hopeful Gay Blade from Tejas calls him)

snicker

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/22/hitchens-passing/

[C]ould it be the hidden hand of a Jehovah?

If I still had doubts, the events of the past week dispelled them.

First Hitchens passed.

If that wasn’t burden enough to bear, the next day Vaclav Havel imploded.

The deep thinkers among us were now beside themselves with grief.

But then, on the third day, Kim Jong-il kicked the bucket.

Was this a practical joke, and who was the joker?

Biblical scholars report that divine interventions usually come in threes.

Moe, Larry, Curly.

Christopher, Vaclav, Kim.

I cannot help but see in this otherwise improbable sequence a divine intelligence at play. . . . . . .

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11. marisacat - 22 December 2011: omigod.

Everybody to their corners! Corner men! Ice water!

Turkey Withdraws Ambassador from France

Following a move by the French lower house of parliament to pass a bill
making it a punishable crime to deny the genocide of Armenians, Turkey has announced retaliatory measures. The issue of the killings between 1915 and 1917 has long divided Ankara and European countries.

Link to Spiegel

And here Slob cannot say the word, tho he promised (I counted) 15 times in the primaries and GE to say it outloud when he became La Pretzel.

But look at France… passing a law!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, really no difference.

One of the ways Sarko got in was that for the first time, ex-pat French were allowed to vote. They lined up in SF (snaking around the block at the Alliance Francaise)…

but they lined up in Israel too. Long lines…

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12. Madman in the Marketplace - 22 December 2011: Gay community apologizes to Amy Koch for ruining her marriage

The gay and lesbian community of Minnesota has issued a letter of apology to recently resigned Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch for ruining the institution of marriage and causing her to stray from her husband and engage in an “inappropriate relationship.”

“On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community’s successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage,” reads the letter from John Medeiros. “We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry.”

The letter comes on the heels of Koch’s own apology, released yesterday, in which she expressed her deep regret for “engaging in a relationship with a Senate staffer.” Although the letter did not specify the identity of the other participant in the “inappropriate relationship,” it is widely rumored to be former communications chief Michael Brodkorb, who lost several positions with the GOP in the wake of the scandal.

Koch, Brodkorb, and their fellow Republicans campaigned this year to put a constitutional amendment on next year’s ballot to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman, thus forbidding gay marriage. Sadly, the amendment comes too late to prevent Koch from straying from her own marriage.

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marisacat - 22 December 2011: Holy is as holy does, I guess.

👿

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13. marisacat - 22 December 2011: Joy to the World… another shooting in a Wal-Mart parking lot in San Leandro, East Bay.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 23 December 2011: the War for Xmas continues!

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marisacat - 23 December 2011: Maybe putting up a Holy Creche with shooting stars and wise men and a baby and mother and Joseph and the lamb and the ass would work. Maybe a Living Tableau of the Great Moment?

Nah probably not. They’d all just shoot each other past the Holy Baby Jesus.

The one in the fight who took the shot, ALSO followed the wounded shot man as he got in a car and left the parking lot – and ketp shooting. And unless they caught him today (I dropped out) he is on the loose.

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14. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 December 2011: Smoke Screening

H
as the nation simply wasted a trillion dollars protecting itself against terror? Mostly, but perhaps not entirely. “Most of the time we assess risk through gut feelings,” says Paul Slovic, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon who is also the president of Decision Research, a nonprofit R&D organization. “We’re not robots just looking at the numbers.” Confronted with a risk, people ask questions: Is this a risk that I benefit from taking, as when I get in a car? Is it forced on me by someone else, as when I am exposed to radiation? Are the potential consequences catastrophic? Is the impact immediate and observable, or will I not know the consequences until much later, as with cancer? Such questions, Slovic says, “reflect values that are sometimes left out of the experts’ calculations.”

Security theater, from this perspective, is an attempt to convey a message: “We are doing everything possible to protect you.” When 9/11 shattered the public’s confidence in flying, Slovic says, the handful of anti-terror measures that actually work—hardening the cockpit door, positive baggage matching, more-effective intelligence—would not have addressed the public’s dread, because the measures can’t really be seen. Relying on them would have been the equivalent of saying, “Have confidence in Uncle Sam,” when the problem was the very loss of confidence. So a certain amount of theater made sense. Over time, though, the value of the message changes. At first the policeman in the train station reassures you. Later, the uniform sends a message: train travel is dangerous. “The show gets less effective, and sometimes it becomes counterproductive.”

Terrorists will try to hit the United States again, Schneier says. One has to assume this. Terrorists can so easily switch from target to target and weapon to weapon that focusing on preventing any one type of attack is foolish. Even if the T.S.A. were somehow to make airports impregnable, this would simply divert terrorists to other, less heavily defended targets—shopping malls, movie theaters, churches, stadiums, museums. The terrorist’s goal isn’t to attack an airplane specifically; it’s to sow terror generally. “You spend billions of dollars on the airports and force the terrorists to spend an extra $30 on gas to drive to a hotel or casino and attack it,” Schneier says. “Congratulations!”

What the government should be doing is focusing on the terrorists when they are planning their plots. “That’s how the British caught the liquid bombers,” Schneier says. “They never got anywhere near the plane. That’s what you want—not catching them at the last minute as they try to board the flight.”

To walk through an airport with Bruce Schneier is to see how much change a trillion dollars can wreak. So much inconvenience for so little benefit at such a staggering cost. And directed against a threat that, by any objective standard, is quite modest. Since 9/11, Islamic terrorists have killed just 17 people on American soil, all but four of them victims of an army major turned fanatic who shot fellow soldiers in a rampage at Fort Hood. (The other four were killed by lone-wolf assassins.) During that same period, 200 times as many Americans drowned in their bathtubs. Still more were killed by driving their cars into deer. The best memorial to the victims of 9/11, in Schneier’s view, would be to forget most of the “lessons” of 9/11. “It’s infuriating,” he said, waving my fraudulent boarding pass to indicate the mass of waiting passengers, the humming X-ray machines, the piles of unloaded computers and cell phones on the conveyor belts, the uniformed T.S.A. officers instructing people to remove their shoes and take loose change from their pockets. “We’re spending billions upon billions of dollars doing this—and it is almost entirely pointless. Not only is it not done right, but even if it was done right it would be the wrong thing to do.”

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marisacat - 23 December 2011: I heard Peter Greenberg that travel advisor who has bee around forever, attached to one f the major networks, I forget which. CBS probably. I laughed when he mentioned that TSA

stands for

Thousands Standing Around

or

Taking Sissors Away.

Pretty much.

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15. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 December 2011: Occupy Albany Ends After Brutal Police Assault

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marisacat - 23 December 2011: They cleaned out Berkeley too… just a couple of days ago.

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16. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 December 2011: ‘Being Less Hated’ Top Gift on Scott Walker’s Xmas Wishlist This Year

Here is some very weird new holiday ad from loathed Kochgobbler Scott Walker. He is serving at a soup kitchen with his family and, you know, trying to make “getting along” faces at the invisible off-camera poors while his wife plaintively begs Wisconsin to “put our differences aside” and “move forward together” instead of focusing on all this silly old recall business, for peace. We’re guessing it’s his wife who has to do the talking because of the dripping sarcasm in Walker’s voice you normally hear every time he opens his mealy mouth about “struggling” families?

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marisacat - 23 December 2011: while his wife plaintively begs Wisconsin to “put our differences aside” and “move forward together” instead of focusing on all this silly old recall business, for peace

Oh YOU KNOW this is scraping bottom… like when Arnold sent Maria (and she was so willing) out to declare he was extrahordinary! as father husband etc. To counter the ‘grabbing body parts and whatever else’ stories.

Sorry that WP snagged for Mod every one of your comments. sigh.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 24 December 2011: I was amused that it ends with something like “best wishes for the season” instead of “merry Christmas”, since we’re always hearing about the whole “war on Christmas” from his evangelical buddies.

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marisacat - 24 December 2011: Well, he passed up his chance. I doubt it means he wants the muslim vote…tho, snicker.

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17. ms_xeno - 24 December 2011: Borrowed this via Jay Taber at Skookum: “Beloved Community.”

…Sometimes love, or at least decency, wins. One morning late last month, 75-year-old Josephine Tolbert, who ran a daycare center from her modest San Francisco home, returned after dropping a child off at school only to find that she and the other children were locked out because she was behind in her mortgage payments. True Compass LLC, who bought her place in a short sale while she thought she was still negotiating with Bank of America, would not allow her back into her home of almost four decades, even to get her medicines or diapers for the children.

We demonstrated at her home and at True Compass’s shabby offices while they hid within, and students from Occupy San Francisco State University demonstrated outside a True Compass-owned restaurant on behalf of this African-American grandmother. Thanks to this solidarity and the media attention it garnered, Tolbert has collected her keys, moved back in, and is renegotiating the terms of her mortgage.

Hundreds of other foreclosure victims are now being defended by local branches of the Occupy movement…

— Rebecca Solnit at Guernica

I know there are locals doing this and I need to track them down, since my old County job was all about researching property/mortgage history. Come the end of January, I’m expecting to have loads of free time again… :p

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Madman in the Marketplace - 24 December 2011: great story

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ms_xeno - 25 December 2011: I thought so, too.

Nothing better than seeing career bullies getting a taste of their own damn medicine for a change.

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18. marisacat - 24 December 2011: She did get media attention, which helped… but nothing would have happened with out the demonstrations on her behalf that Occupy ran…

😉

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ms_xeno - 24 December 2011: Yeah.

The paradox may well be that Occupy will get more done post-flavor-of-the-month than it did as a novel media spectacle. I was happy enough to march as time/energy permitted, but maybe they could use the behind-the-scenes love of a good little ex-bureaucrat, too. What do you think? 😉

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marisacat - 24 December 2011: hmmm I don’t know. One thing I see for them, a connection with rank and file union who dislike their leadership AND see the mess that exists by supporting the Democrats. Quite a bit of that played out in the West Coast Port closing, stoppage, whatever…, so I have some hope… a shred anyway. For something long term perhaps.

Quan cut her own throat six ways to Sunday, but I do observe the worst of the Democratic party toadies on the Oakland city council. lower than excretion, is one way of putting it.

We shall see….

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Madman in the Marketplace - 24 December 2011: info is power, I’m sure any insights into how things work certainly couldn’t hurt.

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19. marisacat - 25 December 2011: New

LINK

………………. 😯 … 🙄

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