- Signs of the Times Archive for Fri, 29 Jun 2007 -



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SOTT Focus
Flashback: Evidence That a Frozen Fish Didn't Impact the Pentagon on 9-11 and Neither Did a Boeing 757

Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
2006-06-09 12:00:00

After the release of the QFG P3nt4gon Str!ke Flash Animation on August 23rd, 2004, a veritable onslaught of new articles were published that sought to dismiss the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory. One such article, that is frequently referenced by certain '9/11 researchers' was authored by a member of the forum at the "Above Top Secret" (ATS) website. Interestingly, the article was written just a few weeks after the release of the P3nt4gon Str!ke Flash animation, which by then, was winging its way around the world and into the inboxes of millions of ordinary citizens. Perhaps you were one of them...

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Best of the Web
New study from Pilots for 9-11 Truth: No Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon

PRWeb
Yahoo! News
2007-06-21 03:01:00

Pilots for 9/11 Truth obtained black box data from the government under the Freedom of Information Act for AA Flight 77, which The 9/11 Report claims hit the Pentagon. Analysis of the data contradicts the official account in direction, approach, and altitude. The plane was too high to hit lamp posts and would have flown over the Pentagon, not impacted with its ground floor. This result confirms and strengthens the previous findings of Scholars for 9/11 Truth that no Boeing 757 hit the buillding.

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Norman Mineta sticks to his story: Cheney in White House bunker before Pentagon hit on 9-11, "Of course the orders still stand"


9/11 Seattle Truth
2007-06-29 07:11:00

9/11 Seattle Truth Meets Norm Mineta


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U.S. News
Obama impeachment is not acceptable. Pelosi waste of political capital


AP
2007-06-29 15:17:00

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama laid out list of political shortcomings he sees in the Bush administration but said he opposes impeachment for either President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney.

Obama said he would not back such a move, although he has been distressed by the "loose ethical standards, the secrecy and incompetence" of a "variety of characters" in the administration.

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Supreme Court Reverses Decision - Will Hear Detainee Case


AP
2007-06-29 13:44:00

Rejecting Bush administration arguments, the Supreme Court reversed course and agreed Friday to review whether Guantanamo Bay detainees can use the civilian court system to challenge their indefinite confinement.

The justices made the highly unusual reversal without comment along with other end-of-term orders.

©AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Swift, judge advocate general corps, right, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 26, 2007, before the House Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties subcommittee oversight hearing on habeas corpus and detentions at Guantanamo Bay.


In April, the court turned down an identical request, though two justices indicated they could be persuaded otherwise.

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Flashback: A NATION CHALLENGED: THE SITE; Engineers Have a Culprit in the Strange Collapse of 7 World Trade Center: Diesel Fuel

JAMES GLANZ
New York Times
2001-11-29 10:40:00

Almost lost in the chaos of the collapse of the World Trade Center is a mystery that under normal circumstances would probably have captured the attention of the city and the world. That mystery is the collapse of a nearby 47-story, two-million-square-foot building seven hours after flaming debris from the towers rained down on it, igniting what became an out-of-control fire.

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Purdue Simulation: Full of Hot Air


George Washington's Blog
2007-06-29 10:29:00

The newest volley in the disinformation campaign regarding 9/11 is a simulation of the Twin Towers created by Purdue University. As summarized by Raw Story:

The simulation found jet engine shafts from airlines flown into the World Trade Center "flew through the building like bullets," according to an Associated Press vide report.

Flaming jet fuel cascaded through the tower stripping away fireproofing material and causing the building to collapse, the AP video reports.

"The weight of the aircraft's fuel, when ignited, acted like a flash flood of flaming liquid," according to the video.



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Obama would consider missile strikes on Iran and Pakistan

David Mendell
The Chicago Tribune
2007-06-29 03:54:00

U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama suggested Friday that the United States one day might have to launch surgical missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of nuclear bombs.

Comment: The views of the presidential candidates become less and less different with each passing day from the one's held by the people in the White House.

Coincidence?


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Secret trials for terrorists, says US judge

David Nason
The Australian
2007-06-29 03:45:00

A TOP-RANKING US judge has stunned a conference of Australian judges and barristers in Chicago by advocating secret trials for terrorists, more surveillance of Muslim populations across North America and an end to counter-terrorism efforts being "hog-tied" by the US constitution.


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UK & Euro-Asian News
"Secret Government" tests new British PM; "I want everyone to remember WHY they need us"

DAVID STRINGER
AP
2007-06-29 09:21:00

Police thwarted an apparent terror attack Friday near the famed Piccadilly Circus in the heart of London, defusing a bomb made of a lethal mix of gasoline, propane gas, and nails after an ambulance crew spotted smoke coming from a silver Mercedes outside a nightclub.

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Warm welcome as Chavez meets Putin in Moscow


AFP
2007-06-29 03:08:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez railed against the United States at the start of a visit to Russia on Thursday and called on Moscow to help lead a global revolution against Washington.

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Hu arrives in Hong Kong for handover celebrations


AFP
2007-06-29 03:01:00

Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Hong Kong Friday at the start of three days of celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of the former British colony's reversion to Chinese rule.

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Blair pulled by Police again over cash for honours scandal


Daily Express
2007-06-28 19:01:00

Former prime minister Tony Blair has been questioned for a third time by detectives investigating cash-for-honours allegations.

Sources confirmed Mr Blair has once again been questioned by officers, possibly in the last week.

The Metropolitan Police are investigating claims that senior Labour figures awarded honours in return for donations to the party.

News of the interview was apparently kept secret until Mr Blair left office on Wednesday.

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Shock!: Lockerbie bomber may have been framed

David Lister
The Times
2007-06-28 18:42:00

Conspiracy theorists have for years made hay over the mystery of Pan Am Flight 103 and how it came to explode over a small Scottish town four days before Christmas in 1988.

Among the 400 pages of documents submitted by lawyers for Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission were claims of evidence tampering, withholding of vital documents and a distortion of the truth to try to "reverse-engineer" the case against the Libyan - in short, to make the evidence fit the proseuction case.

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New UK Prime Minister Brown appoints Bush bashers and war critics to the cabinet

Philip Webster
The Times
2007-06-28 23:00:00

Gordon Brown is committed to strong relations with the United States despite appointing a strong critic of President Bush to his front-bench, Downing Street insists.

In what appeared to be a desire to draw a line under Iraq, Mr Brown brought back a minister who resigned over the war. John Denham will head a new Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills.

The Prime Minister also appointed Sir Mark Malloch Brown, a former deputy to Kofi Annan at the United Nations and a fierce critic of the war and of Mr Bush, as a Foreign Office minister sitting in the Lords, and his new Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, had private reservations about Washington's handling of the war, as well as criticising in Cabinet Tony Blair's response to the attacks on Lebanon last year.

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Around the World
Racism claims as PM tries to cut Aboriginal child abuse


The Independent
2007-06-29 03:23:00

The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, is pressing ahead with draconian plans to take over Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, despite criticism by indigenous people who have called them racist, unworkable and paternalistic.

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Chávez hints at possible nuclear future for Venezuela

Luke Harding
The Guardian
2007-06-29 03:16:00

President Hugo Chávez yesterday hinted that Venezuela could try to become a nuclear power, during a visit to Russia apparently timed to antagonise the White House.


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UN inspectors 'satisfied' with NKorean reactor visit


AFP
2007-06-29 03:01:00

UN inspectors on Friday said they were "satisfied" and praised North Korea's cooperation after visiting a nuclear reactor at the centre of efforts to disarm the communist country.

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Big Brother
All dogs may have to be microchipped

HAMISH MACDONELL
Scotsman
2007-06-28 22:24:00

MINISTERS are considering the compulsory microchipping of all dogs as part of a range of measures to crack down on dangerous breeds, The Scotsman has learned.

Plans have been drawn up by the SNP MSP Alex Neil to update and reform the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act, which banned a number of breeds, including pit bull terriers.

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Axis of Evil
Losing the War in Afghanistan: One Civilian Massacre at a Time

Brian Cloughley
CounterPunch
2007-06-29 17:34:00

"One of the problems is sometimes determining who exactly caused the casualties. It's not always clear if a civilian casualty is caused by an extremist or coalition forces."

Major Chris Belcher, US spokesman, Afghanistan, June 23 2007


So it isn't easy to tell whether civilians are killed by insurgents or foreign forces in Afghanistan? When they are slaughtered by "precision" bombing by B52s or rockets from attack helicopters or shells from artillery or missiles from drones, it is presumably because the Afghan insurgents also operate all these means of dealing death. Six kids killed by air attacks? ­ It must have been these hi-tech Afghans who fly B52s at 30,000 feet. Or maybe some other Afghans who zoom down from the sky and mercilessly rocket villages.

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US Dept. of Defense simulates parallel Earth to test PSYOPS

Mark Baard
The Register
2007-06-29 09:53:00

Perhaps your real life is so rich you don't have time for another.

Even so, the US Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality to see how long you can go without food or water, or how you will respond to televised propaganda.

The DOD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual "nodes" to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and AR.

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Cheney, master of stealth, readies himself for the final act of 'imperial' vice-presidency

Leonard Doyle
The Independent
2007-06-29 09:51:00

Operating in the shadows, where he can best achieve his deeply conservative aims, Dick Cheney enjoys the total confidence of President George Bush and is sometimes described as the "Imperial" Vice-President.

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US training Iraqi insurgents

Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post
2007-06-29 09:48:00

The United States has invested $19 billion to train and equip nearly 350,000 Iraqi soldiers and police since toppling Saddam Hussein, but the ability of those forces to provide security remains in doubt, according to the findings of a bipartisan congressional investigation to be released today.

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Nauseating! Bush Cites Israel As Model for Iraq

By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press
2007-06-28 23:26:00

NEWPORT, R.I. - President Bush held up Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq, saying Thursday the U.S. goal there is not to eliminate attacks but to enable a democracy that can function despite violence.

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Middle East Madness
Turkey plans to move against Iraq Kurds, says Gul


gulfnews.com
2007-06-29 15:01:00

Turkey is preparing plans for a cross-border operation against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was quoted as saying on Friday.

Washington has urged Turkey not to enter Iraq, saying it would destablise the region. Iraq has also warned Turkey against making an incursion.

However, Ankara has repeatedly threatened to send troops into Iraq to hunt down militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who use the region as base from which to attack Turkey.

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Government said to have lost control of Basra

Kareem Zair
azzaman.com
2007-06-29 04:11:00

As U.S. troops battle to retake Baghdad and surrounding areas, the government is reported to have lost its control of Basra where almost all of the country's oil exports originate.

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The Loan Gunmen
HSBC warns of 'tears' if big deal goes wrong

Sundeep Tucker, Victor Mallet and Peter Thal Larsen
Financial Times
2007-06-27 13:39:00

The glut of credit in global financial markets, combined with excessive leverage, could all "end in tears" when a big transaction finally goes wrong, Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC, warned on Wednesday.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Green admitted that he was "worried by the degree of leverage in some big ticket transactions nowadays" and felt that "something is going to end in tears".

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Supreme Court OKs retail price fixing by manufacturers

David G. Savage
LA Times
2007-06-29 13:25:00

Manufacturers may set a fixed price for their products and forbid retailers from offering discounts, the Supreme Court said today, overturning a nearly century-old rule of antitrust law that prohibited retail price fixing.

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The Living Planet
Flashback: "Night-shining" clouds bring mystery; Once confined to Earth's poles, the bizarre clouds have now been spotted above central Colorado

Katy Human
The Denver Post
2007-04-05 07:27:00

Since their discovery 120 years ago, strangely luminescent clouds called noctilucent clouds have been creeping slowly toward the equator.

©Denver Post
This hauntingly beautiful noctilucent cloud was photographed over the Juneau, Alaska, ice field in 1998. Once confined to Earth's poles, the clouds have been spotted above Colorado.



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A mystery: NASA satellite captures first view of 'night-shining' clouds


NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center / EurekAlert
2007-06-29 10:19:00

A NASA satellite has captured the first occurrence this summer of mysterious iridescent polar clouds that form 50 miles above Earth's surface.

The first observations of these clouds by the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite occurred above 70 degrees north on May 25. Observers on the ground began seeing the clouds on June 6 over northern Europe. AIM is the first satellite mission dedicated to the study of these unusual clouds.

These mystifying clouds are called Polar Mesospheric Clouds, or PMCs, when they are viewed from space and referred to as "night-shining" clouds, or noctilucent clouds, when viewed by observers on Earth. The clouds form during the Northern Hemisphere's summer season that begins in mid-May and extends through the end of August. They are being seen by AIM's instruments more frequently as the season progresses. The clouds also are seen in the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere during the summer months.

Very little is known about how these clouds form over the poles, why they are being seen more frequently and at lower latitudes than ever before, or why they have been growing brighter. AIM will observe two complete polar mesospheric cloud seasons over both poles, documenting for the first time the entire, complex life cycle of PMCs.


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2 Die in Greece Forest Fires

By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS
Associated Press
2007-06-28 21:45:00

©AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris
Children play in an Athens park in front of smoke from a forest fire in Dervenohoria, north-west of the capital


ATHENS, Greece - Wildfires swept through Greece on Thursday, killing two people and destroying homes after days of record temperatures of more than 100 degrees that led to at least nine heatstroke deaths and extensive power cuts.

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UK: Bigger storms are on the way

Jo Macfarlane
Daily Express
2007-06-27 18:52:00

Flood-battered Britain is on alert for further chaos and loss of life this weekend as fears grow that more heavy downpours are on the way.

Forecasters say an "organised band of persistent showers" is set to sweep the country on Friday and Saturday, bringing several more inches of rain to many already-­saturated regions.

DELUGE: An aerial view of flooded homes in Catcliffe near Sheffield.


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Health & Wellness
Critical protein prevents DNA damage from persisting through generations


EurekAlert / Rockefeller University
2007-06-29 07:28:00

A protein long known to be involved in protecting cells from genetic damage has been found to play an even more important role in protecting the cell's offspring. New research by a team of scientists at Rockefeller University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Cancer Institute shows that the protein, known as ATM, is not only vital for helping repair double-stranded breaks in DNA of immune cells, but is also part of a system that prevents genetic damage from being passed on when the cells divide.


Early in the life of B lymphocytes -- the immune cells responsible for hunting down foreign invaders and labeling them for destruction -- they rearrange their DNA to create various surface receptors that can accurately identify different intruders, a process called V(D)J recombination. Now, in an study published online today in the journal Cell, Rockefeller University Professor Michel Nussenzweig, in collaboration with his brother André Nussenzweig at NCI and their colleagues, shows that when the ATM protein is absent, chromosomal breaks created during V(D)J recombination go unrepaired, and checkpoints that normally prevent the damaged cell from replicating are lost.


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Curriculum Focused on Cognitive Skills May Improve Child Behavior


Blackwell Publishing
2007-06-29 07:22:00

Children who were taught a curriculum that focused on self-control and awareness of their own and others' emotions were found to exhibit greater social competence and fewer behavioral and emotional problems. According to a recent study in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, when teachers taught a particular curriculum to students for 20-30 minutes-per-day, three times-per-week over a six-month period, lower rates of aggression and anxiety/sadness were seen when evaluated a year later compared to children randomized to normal classroom procedures.


"Several complex cognitive processes, such as the ability to cope in stressful situations, are related to the development of the prefrontal areas of the brain starting in the preschool years," says study author Mark Greenberg. "We know that deficiencies in the function of these lobes are linked to problems like aggression, depression and attention disorders." Therefore, the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) curriculum, which stimulates cognitive and emotional skills, enhances the child's ability to cope with stress and make good choices.


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Oh, come on, decided already! Therapeutic value of meditation unproven, says study


University of Alberta / EurekAlert
2007-06-29 06:33:00

While it's not likely to do you any harm, there is also no compelling evidence that meditation has therapeutic value


"There is an enormous amount of interest in using meditation as a form of therapy to cope with a variety of modern-day health problems, especially hypertension, stress and chronic pain, but the majority of evidence that seems to support this notion is anecdotal, or it comes from poor quality studies," say Maria Ospina and Kenneth Bond, researchers at the University of Alberta/Capital Health Evidence-based Practice Center in Edmonton, Canada.


In compiling their report, Ospina, Bond and their fellow researchers analyzed a mountain of medical and psychological literature - 813 studies in all - looking at the impact of meditation on conditions such as hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and substance abuse.


They found some evidence that certain types of meditation reduce blood pressure and stress in clinical populations. Among healthy individuals, practices such as Yoga seemed to increase verbal creativity and reduce heart rate, blood pressure and cholesterol. However, Ospina says no firm conclusions on the effects of meditation practices in health care can be drawn based on the available evidence because the existing scientific research is characterized by poor methodological quality and does not appear to have a common theoretical perspective.


"Future research on meditation practices must be more rigorous in the design and execution of studies and in the analysis and reporting of results," Ospina explains.


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Too Much Video Gaming Not Addiction, Yet

By LINDSEY TANNER
Associated Press
2007-06-28 23:17:00

CHICAGO - The American Medical Association on Wednesday backed off calling excessive video-game playing a formal psychiatric addiction, saying instead that more research is needed.

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Vegas Doctor Charged With Botox Scheme


Associated Press
2007-06-28 23:12:00

LAS VEGAS - A doctor and his wife are accused of injecting patients with an unapproved botulism toxin instead of Botox, authorities said.



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Science & Technology
Mars and Earth: Different to the Core


Space.com
2007-06-28 15:36:00

The differences between dusty Mars and lush, vibrant Earth are more than just skin deep. The two planets are different down to their very core.

Earth contains a heavy version of silicon that is absent from Mars.

The finding, detailed in today's issue of the journal Nature, suggests Earth's core formed under very different conditions from those on Mars. It also supports the idea that the moon formed from material torn from early Earth by a collision with a planet-sized rock.

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Rise of the Machines part II: Fleet of robots to be used in hospital

Shan Ross
The Scotsman
2007-06-29 15:05:00

A new hi-tech hospital being built in Scotland will be the first in the UK to use a fleet of robots to take over from humans in tasks such as transporting heavy medical equipment and laundry.

The initiative at the £300 million hospital at Larbert, Stirlingshire, is intended to allow hospital porters to spend more time dealing with patients.

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Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it

Paul Davies
The Guardian
2007-06-29 13:26:00

Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if "a super- intellect has monkeyed with physics".

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Domestic cats may have ancient roots

RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
AP
2007-06-29 03:36:00

Garfield, Morris and the Aristocats get the fame, but look to the origins of today's furry felines and you find "lybica," a Middle Eastern wildcat. Domestic cats can be traced to wild progenitors that interbred well over 100,000 years ago, new research indicates.

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Our Haunted Planet
Ex-airforce man says 'UFO' sight a mystery

RICHARD NOONE
Central Coast Express (Australia)
2007-06-29 07:59:00

A FORMER air traffic controller wants to know what the strange object is he has been seeing flying over Terrigal.

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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!

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