Post-election, Sarah Palin is talking like a pageant entrant who only understands that she lost but not that she did the campaign harm nor turned the electorate against her party.

Her responses merely imply that she knew all along that Africa is a continent and the the Vice President does not run the Senate.

This beauty pageant intellect had not idea of the impact of the inflammatory rhetoric her coaches told her to mouth. That she willingly and enthusiastically attempted to combine her hockey-mom winking charm with junior-high style gossip that casually declared Obama to be an execution-deserving traitor underlies the junior-high shallowness of her world view.

If she thought that over-the-top campaign speeches were standard fare because her Party had been successful more than once in doing so, she was either as politically naive as she appears or she flat out slept through any civics class presented to her.

The Telegraph is publishing a story today and I've posted excerpts below. Click on the link to read the entire article.

Anyone pretending outrage at the implication that Palin is the victim in this story is either equally civics-challenged or equally as stupid as Palin herself.

Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama

Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.

The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of "palling around with terrorists", citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.

The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks.
 

Whether in photos and films doctored by the pros to look both appealing and intelligent, Mrs. Palin revealed herself as a shallow thinker who has spent most of her life making knee-jerk decisions based entirely on self-interest.

Put such a person in the hands of consultants and image-mongers who themselves have little if any conscience and her own gullibility and world view from the shallow end of the pool only gets magnified.

He late-campaign remarks whining about criticism of her campaign criticisms of Obama revealed just how much Sarah Palin is a small-town rural personality. Nothing wrong with small-town and rural personalities so long as within that environment upbringing necessary skills like critical thinking and an ability to see both sides of an issue are taught or acquired.

... so long as within that rural environment (one in which I also dwell) a dominant us/them either/or attitude is not the overriding norm.

Mrs. Palin seems to be in oblivious denial of the consequences of her own actions. She is too interested in self-promotion to worry about ethics.

Posted SwanDeer Project at 4:51 PM PST

Updated: Sunday, 9 November 2008 9:02 AM PST

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I invite you to click on the following link and live blog your thoughts to the Washblog.com site. Washblog is a statewide progressive blog  in need of more opinions from South West Washington State.

If you're watching the election returns tonight, join in our conversations.

Click here:Washblog.com

Live blogging throughout the day ... 

... news, thoughts, predictions, bets, hopes and fears.

Multiple entries desired ... shout outs, high fives, moans & groans.

Join Us.

I lean toward KOS's predictions ... what the country needs is Obama at or above 400 electoral college votes.

I think it's in the best interest of the country to express a total repudiation of Bush Republican politics and a complete sweeping  out of office of every rubber stamp politician who put party above country.

King 5 news reported late last night a Gregoire poll lead of 42% to 36%. Okay, but even in solidly Democratic Pacific County there are a powerful lot of Rossi signs on front yards.

Are there enough stampeded individuals in this Blue state to elect Rossi against their own best interests? If a cold emotionless stare and blank face when talking serious stuff ever suggested a Manchurian Candidate devoid of genuine sincerity and a desire to communicate honestly it's Mr. Rossi.

I repeat what I've said before. I see and talk with them every day. I listen to their concerns and fear for their personal health and well-being.  

Any citizen of this state on a fixed income who votes for Dino Rossi has been blinded by something other than a light.

Any small business owners who think Rossi will shoulder-to-shoulder with them about the things which really make a difference in their prosperity - or even survival - have sucked on the kool-aid big time.

Posted SwanDeer Project at 6:43 AM PST

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MSNBC has an article on its front page entitled "Praying for election miracles". It's about politically active priests and preachers exhorting their faithful to petition God to vote on Tuesday.

Then there's The New York Times article about the organization, Media Matters, entitled An All-Out Attack on `Conservative Misinformation that includes a complaint from Republican pollster and talking point framer Frank Luntz.

Let's start with the God who will be shirking civic duty if HE does not vote.

In some instances the prayerful petition appears to focus somewhat on an innocent desire to get out the vote. The underlying assumption however seems to be that those "gotten out to vote" by God will be voters aligned with those who are making the politically prayerful petition.

On the other hand there are those who are openly asking God to forget about freedom of agency or choice; asking instead that HE impose HIS will on the people. This in some sort of spiritual puppet string-pulling and mind control that will cause a majority of the American electorate to vote in harmony with the God-and-Politics stampeders.

These preach values that demand personal subordination to a religious party line. They are not values of fairness, compassion, peace, charity nor understanding. These are values based on an assumption of a punitive and judgmental God that looks, talks and acts like Pat Robertson or John Hagee.

In these final moments of this election season, they are pleading with God to confirm and validate their own assumptions as to what God and religion are supposed to mean in the United States of America.

Of an impartial civic mind they are not. But they do want to get out the vote.

Then we have Frank Luntz on Media Matters:

 "I think they are one of the most destructive organizations associated with American politics today," said Frank Luntz, a pollster forRudolph W. Giuliani and Newt Gingrich who this year has led on-camera voter focus groups on Fox News, a frequent Media Matters target.

"They are vicious. They only understand one thing: attack, attack, attack."

"If I were a Democrat, I would tell them to shut up," Mr. Luntz said. "If I were a Republican, I would tell my candidates to ignore them."

If you've ever listened to Luntz in person (I've watched him spar with Bill Maher on Real Time several times) you will see an almost smug declaration of how Democrats would be more successful if they would listen to his interpretation of the perceptive gullibility of the American electorate.

But currently Luntz has his career at stake with this election. His words attempt to hide the fact that if the American electorate gets uppity and starts insisting on something more than sound-bite and talking-point campaigns, he's done with his fame, fortune and cosmetic high-regard on cable TV.

I've long held a view that when a political candidate hires a campaign consultant of the Frank Luntz spin doctor ilk - that candidate has robbed his/her potential constituency of a relationship of trust.

Such an act places a manipulative gate-keeper smack dab between the citizen and the elected representative. If we accept that sort of arrangement with our candidates the common denominator of civic intelligence is dramatically lowered.

Luntz can't deny that. No spin doctor can deny that. These folks do not raise  civic intellectual awareness  in this country any more than the do purveyors of American Idol, Survivor or Heroes who merely want you to watch and buy.

I've appreciated what Media Matters has done in helping the curious cope with a conservative radical partisan stampede tactic.

Rather than agreeing with Luntz and his whine about destructive organizations, I believe that so long as there are any ideologically driven information predators communicating with voters,  organizations like Media Matters and Fact Check are necessary.

As for political prayer circles, I don't want God jumping in the middle of American life like an overbearing moral Genghis Kahn who proclaims "Live subordinate to me and my BOOK or you'll hurt my feelings, die in your sins and be sent to hell!"

Preachers who goaded their flocks into American voting booths in 2004 managed to get trusting people to cast purely negative-minded votes for false civic reasons.

In 2004 the pain and frustration for me was not limited to the Kerry loss. Much more than that was the sense that the election - if not stolen - was still severely impacted by information manipulation and outright lying.

I perceived that the majority of those who voted were misled. Non-voters remained off the beaten path because political tacticians wanted them  out of sight and out of mind - voluntarily self-suppressed.

We were not even left with the consolation that a definite majority of the American voters had spoken; that the will - wise or unwise - of the majority of American citizens had been expressed.

We were stuck with the realization that the majority of those who had spoken were manipulated and led to the booth under false pretenses (including 14 states with God & Politics initiative ballots put in place by people like Rove and Luntz.)

Civically and spiritually, I counsel that we do not let someone else -in any context - tell us once again what to think and how to vote.

I counsel that we make an effort to perceive the lies and half-truths proclaimed in campaigns.

I counsel an activist - even formally organized - civic campaign to put limits on purchased political ads, sound-bite advertising and contests decided by whoever has the most money available to flood the media with shallow inflammatory nonsense.

I've already made my arguments for and against the candidates of my choice. Repeating any of that is not appropriate to the theme of this opinion.

As we move forward, I intend to advocate more and more for genuine civic wisdom and participation in this country.

"Change" can be a spin-doctor word use to get out the vote. I hope real change means a return to the idea that America is essentially one big town hall.

I'd like to see a circumstance where voters are renewed, re-aroused and willing to insure that never again will the bamboozle trump the truth.

I'd like to see political apathy become as unacceptable as sexual harassment, domestic violence, child abuse, identity theft and belching in church.

I want to move past next Tuesday satisfied that this time voter apathy, ignorance and gullibility has not once again harmed this state and this nation to a much greater degree than another terrorist attack.

Posted SwanDeer Project at 11:11 AM PDT

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... or pretend that it's not important or necessary? As I write this, extremely legitimate and quite serious people are looking for ways to set right America's recent global and social criminal history

I seriously doubt that even half the readers here could spontaneously declare who Robert Jackson was.

Two months ago on this very blog Lietta Ruger brought up the same theme. To no one's surprise, the response was essentially "ho hum" and "yea so?" Yet we bloggers really are among the most civically active members of society and I wonder how it is that we got so sophisticatedly wise about political campaign strategy and remain so inept, ignorant and apathetic about genuine civic responsibility? There are duties required by that responsibility when things go wrong or when some among us seriously harm the rest of the world in our name.

There's a notion that the most rapid path toward resolution of all America's faults and mistakes - not to mention restitution and repentence - lies merely in working to elect specific candidates. It is an empty and naive sentiment. Civic responsibility is love of country and not about looking for or appreciating merely doing the least we must.

That's like survivor Guanajuato. Some are voted out and some stay. The game will continue with a new slate of contestants next season.

It's not unlike loving to shop for our favorite foods or things while having no idea about all the processes involved that brought our delectables to market.

We seem to consider the purchase itself a more significant and needful event than the actual creation - the bringing into being of that thing which we desire to possess.

Buyers may know how to cook, use or wear something they can easily obtain repeatedly and casually by mere purchase without any knowledge of the effort and circumstances that make such a purchase possible.

We may even consider ourselves knowledgeable afficionados about that which we glorify but in reality we have no idea.

We may even pooh pooh someone else's concerns because we can persuasively justify our investment of time, energy and emotional resources in our favorite things.

Such in fact is what I'm doing right now in grinding my ax about civics, national reputation, morality and conscience and not paying attention to getting a candidate elected or another defeated.

I admit it

So what's your excuse?

How is it you can get excited or discouraged about the most recent polls, political stupidity, chicanery and deception and how that might cost someone the election without making noise about REAL social global justice?

Will an election loss make for you a disaster that many seem to emotionally equate to your favorite teams's having lost the Super Bowl?

Or perhaps your civic sense is a touch more intense than that. Perhaps losing the election will be result in a vague civic unease that in actuality is mere intellectual awareness while we go about our post-election consumption?

How can we get so lost in the heat and competition of emotional politics but never arouse a mature and wise emotion when we know we ought to?

Are we genuinely moved to care about our future - a future that will be an undeniable consequence of failure to perceive past events honestly and accurately and failure to set them right?

Can Veterans of my generation still make a difference? Hell, I don't know.

I tell my own children and older grandchildren flat out that my generation has greatly and comprehensively screwed up their future; that they absolutely must take back their country in a way they themselves see fit.

How they do that is theirs to figure out. They should not believe that they can be told honestly and truthfully by any political party or church as to who they vote for without question.

They won't take back their country by choosing more of the same thing that brought all this foolishiness to pass.

If we cannot and will not look at the future in that manner then those of us who don't care; those of us who shrug it all off are THE citizens of an imperial nation that continues raping less able societies abroad.

We are the citizens who sustain the Imperial States of America and will make of the coming blowback events an ugly reality.

Tags: war crimes, america, imperialism, torture, invasion, murder, homicide, genocide, justice, honor, core values

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Posted SwanDeer Project at 8:48 AM PDT

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Where not to find real family values in Washington State

When it comes down to the nitty gritty, we as attention-paying citizens or don't-give-a-damn citizens need to come out of the closet. We need to admit who or what we stand for and declare what philosophy and policies best reflect our concerns.

If we are most focused on American Idol, Nascar, the Oklahoma City Sonics and crime shows, let's just stay where we are, with asses super-glued to the couch.

If we are paying even slight attention to what is going on, listening even with half an ear to campaign slogans, television sound bytes and what passes for popular journalism in this country, let's make a real appraisal of who stands for what?

I'll start with Republicans because appraising most Democratic policies really means labeling Demo priorities as corporate Republican values moderated in a lefterly direction.

We have discredited Republicans on their last lap of driving this machine with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hanging out for lobby money.

Republicans have one foot pressing metal to the floor and the other nowhere near the brakes.

Why?

Because McCain and his party have only one single song to sing ...

America is at War!
American lives need to be lived in a wartime environment.
American citizens need to practice a total deferral to the self-defined patriotism of the elect.

Republicans continue to insist that American citizens absolutely must trust their future to those few at the top of the power pole who want to replace the current benchwarmers. Only this time there is some combat experience that boils down to John McCain's trigger-happiness and his dubious declarations that in addition to sound generalship, he is also highly informed and experienced in domestic matters.

Right.

Given the Cheney/Bush version of urgency and importance of the need for a coherent national security objective guided by wise, strong, stubborn and insensitive leadership, Republicans insist that we must accept all this in its continuing context.

State Republicans make the same insistence. If you trust the BIAW and candidate Rossi with their corporatist view of what's best for working families and the poorest among us, here is the national and state Republican Platform in a large nutshell:

(1)
We must fight the war on terror while remaining strictly stuck with the Republican Tax Cut Experiment which has not helped Mr. Bush avoid being a president who has presided over national economic failure.

If we want to vote Republican we are then left to hope for the best but continue to expect the worst and recognize that the burden of middle class taxes are going to continue paying for our prosecution of the war on terror and no-bid contracts to non-family oriented business.

(2)
We will prosecute the war on terror in a pay-off-the-national-debt circumstance created by this administration that will be an ongoing burden on our grandchildren. Trillions of dollars of debt generated by a Republican party that has always labeled Democrats as "taxers and spenders" is not something Leno and Maher can make jokes about.

Rather, the Republican Party's solution to all economic woes - as highlighted by that mental economic genius, John McCain - is for Republicans to be the "tax-cutters and spenders" party.

(3)
We will continue to prosecute a war on terror while in the Bush 3rd term John McBush and his party are baiting us with the phrase "ownership society." Ownership society to Republicans is in reality merely another means of generating - you guessed it - more profits for business.

"Owning" health care, retirement, education and homes only happens when you "buy" something from chosen lobbied corporate interests (see Medicare D plan), "invest" in something to own or by patriotically consuming what the Jones are already consuming so as to keep up civic duty.

(4)
We will prosecute the war on terror while an ungodly number of us go without access to adequate health care. That's one thing tens of millions of Americans could use ownership of.

Of course the rest of we middle classers do "own" always-increasing health care premiums. Somehow I fail to see how this helps the troops, keeps terrorists at bay, or will make it easier when we invade Iran in order to secure whatever non-attention-paying Americans (apparently the largest voting block in the state and nation) will buy into as a security blanket worth supporting.

(5)
We will prosecute the war on terror while the Republicans - under the guise of "ownership society"- preside over corporate reductions and/or eliminations of pension funds. Why is it that we must be patriotic and support a "conservative" tax-cut and spend commander-in-chief under this circumstance?

(6)
We will prosecute the war on terror while Republicans who pretend that the extreme Christian Right represents the majority of American Christian voters. The Republicans will continue to be willing to work hand in glove with the Christian Zionists to encourage Israel to widen it's borders in order to look like the Israel of prophesy. Otherwise, in the John Hagee playbook, Jesus and his Armageddon Asteroid cannot End the Times and leave all of us more liberal-minded Christians Behind.

Your Republican Party thinks more of these folks than the attention-paying voters who live and work all around us.

(7)
Republicans will continue our "war on terror" all the time camouflaging an absolute conviction on the part of failed foreign policy theorists that American might is the brave new world of the future ...

... that American might will facilitate our continued consumption of an inordinate share of energy reserves.

Why?

Because we can, that's why.

(8)
Republicans will forever deny any criminality on the part of their pseudo-religious political shill who did their bidding when they thought they would have the majority votes forever. Under Republicans we will prosecute an ongoing string of military adventures that will continue to cost the precious blood of our children. These folks will continue the patriotic hypocrisy that ignorantly and naively assumes that the poor and middle class of this country constitute a willing and unlimited supply of military manpower for decades to come.

These things are what the Republicans did not and will not tell you.

They want to prosecute the war on terrorism and do it in terms of maintaining their own discredited and - when it comes to corporate welfare - dishonest domestic economic theories.

It does not matter what you and I think so long as they are in power.

Only you and I can take this out of their hands.

They will not change things unless we intervene.

So all you self-styled economic sophisticates who have bought into Republican capitalism worship keep your heads in the sand. If you cannot see just how many corporations in this country are only showing profits primarily through government intervention, bail-outs and contracts - you go ahead. Reveal to the rest of us just how poorly you understand the less-government-more-free-enterprise ticket.

Grover Norquist may someday buy you a latte from the last standing Starbucks after the government becomes so small it goes down the bathtub drain.

Of course you may be standing behind the Starbucks counter brewing and serving the latte yourself.

Grover won't mind. He's smarter than you in a really dumb way.

So all you righteous Christians who see John McCain as led by George Bush who is led by God to export war and death to all evil-doers:

As we attempt to impose a fake American dominance on the world based on our national credit rating and economic extortion backed by big-stick-waving, go ahead and look the other way while your narrow morality authorizes a trashing of the American Dream.

Those of you who have been politically born again into the cult of a Republican Jesus, can keep insisting that Jesus would vote the same way;

would advocate for George Bush and John McCain on FOX , Limbaugh's program - even the 700 Club

- and would go along with the deaths of civilian men, women and children in Iraq or anywhere else as "acceptable collateral damage."

If you think John McCain on the national stage and Dino Rossi and his fellow BIAW-paid for philosophical automatons inside this state hold the key to wise governance, you still haven't done your homework.

The holes in your common sense and civic wisdom remain vast and empty.

Posted SwanDeer Project at 9:13 AM PDT

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6:30 PM  MSNBC Panel speaking honestly or trying to make the news. Buchannan and Scarborough peeing on themselves in defense of Hillary's 3:00 Am ad.

The majority in this country are not as fear-driven as broadcasters make us out to be. McCain as more Bush and more fear is not going to keep the election close playing only one note.

McCain as a continuation of Bush? Word is there'll be temptations to refer to McCain as John Dubya McCain as if Dubya were his middle initial. Accurate no?

Bush at 19% is offset by the fact that U.S. has not been attacked since 911. Bush gets credit?

Or the natural ability of the spectrum of leadership in this country to do something with security? 

6:45 PM

Pennsyvania Governor Rendell represents and talks like a same old same old party hack. The kind who feel the nominee should be someone who has paid their dues. Trying to talk around 11 losses in a row, implying Hillary will win them all tonight ... 

On Maher last Friday he practically declared that we owe gratitude to Obama for bringing so many voters back to the polls and arousing the next generation. Now that they're here, "Thank you Obama ... us same old party hacks will take it from here. Hillary has paid her dues and we're going to justify her."

6:54 PM 

McCain's speech.

Newspeak ... includes assumptions that we are not a people who think or who pay attention.  Plying talking points like an old guy at the bazaar who is limited in his understanding of his audience. He's not speaking to his choir, he's speaking to an audience assumed to have the mentality and experience of his own generation and mine.

The future is not those generations. The future leadership generation is powerfully interested in changing how business is done in this country.

McCain's speech could be offered to any political audience of the 70's and 80's.

"An uncivil brawl over the spoils of power" effectively defines the Bush presidency and administration and what this country has suffered.

My friends is what the huckster says when he want's you to give up something he's going to misuse or simply pocket.

7:05 PM

Russert quoting Democrats: "This is the 3rd term of a Republican Administration in the midst of a recession."

Perhaps they'll have to try harder to make us afraid ... very afraid.

Posted SwanDeer Project at 6:39 PM PST

Updated: Tuesday, 4 March 2008 7:11 PM PST

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This serves as an example of how a consciousless amoral constitutionally- accepted non-human entity treats fellow constitutional human entities.

It's also a reason why - when short-sighted politicians like candidate Rossi talk about running the government like a businss - wise citizens will go get their loved ones and especiall those most vulnerable, bring  them in the house and lock all the doors. 

SantaFeNewMexican.com

USDA investigating meat supplier

Sarah D. Wire | Los Angeles Times

1/30/2008 -

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday that it was investigating a Chino, Calif.-based supplier of meat to the National School Lunch Program after release of a video showing slaughterhouse workers using inhumane and illegal practices on weak and sick cows.

The video, presented by the Humane Society of the United States at a news conference Wednesday morning, showed workers at Hallmark Meat Packing using forklifts to pick up and roll animals too weak to stand and forcing sick or weak cows to stand by shooting high-pressure water sprays into their nostrils or repeatedly shocking them with electricity.

Federal and California laws prohibit the slaughter of "downer" cattle — those that cannot stand or walk — for the human food supply, to prevent animal cruelty and the consumption of unhealthy animals.

Meat processed at Hallmark is distributed by Westland Meat Co., also of Chino. According to the USDA, Westland sold 27 million pounds of frozen meat last year to federal food and nutrition programs, including school lunches and meals for the poor and elderly.

The Humane Society said the hidden-camera video was taken by an undercover investigator who worked at the plant for six weeks last year. Within hours of the video's release, the USDA suspended Westland's participation with those programs and placed a hold on all products that are destined for the programs.

Steve Mendell, the president and chief executive officer of Westland and Hallmark, was meeting Wednesday afternoon with USDA officials and was not available for comment. The company released a written statement in his name saying it had "taken immediate action to terminate the two employees and suspend their supervisor pending his explanation."

Animals ready for slaughter are inspected daily by the USDA. Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society, told the news conference that the abuse would take place before the inspector arrived at the slaughterhouse.

The undercover investigation found workers using "Herculean efforts to get 'downers' into the kill box," Pacelle said.

"The attempt was to make them so distressed and to cause them so much suffering that these animals would get up and walk into the slaughterhouse," he said. "If they could walk past (the inspector) or even just stand, they would pass."

Westland's general manager, Anthony Magidow, said the workers' actions on the video do not reflect the company's standard practices. He said the slaughterhouse was audited monthly by the USDA and a private company to monitor employee practices.

"We got on this the moment we found out," Magidow said. The company obtained the video Tuesday after The Washington Post reported its existence.

Magidow said the employees shown in the video had worked in the slaughterhouse for many years and "felt they knew how to handle these animals better than we do."

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer issued a release late Wednesday expressing confidence in the food inspection system, while noting that he was "deeply concerned" about the Humane Society's allegations. But he faulted the society, which he said "did not present this information to us when these alleged violations occurred in the fall of 2007. Had we known at the time the alleged violations occurred, we would have initiated our investigation sooner, and taken appropriate actions at that time."

In response, the society said it had turned over the results of its investigation to "appropriate California law enforcement officials." Local authorities, the society said, had asked for "extra time" before the information became public.

The USDA banned the use of "downer" cows for slaughter in 1989 after bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, began to spread across the United Kingdom. Regulations were tightened in 2003 after a cow with BSE was identified in Washington state.

Studies by several universities have shown a correlation between "downer" cows and those with BSE, popularly known as mad cow disease. Of the 15 cases of mad cow disease found in North America — most of them in Canada — 12 have been from "downer" cows. Although it is rare, humans can contract a form of the disease by eating meat from cows with BSE.

Posted SwanDeer Project at 7:14 AM PST

Updated: Thursday, 31 January 2008 7:17 AM PST

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