... you can talk about whatever you want.
You can celebrate the 14th anniversary of this blog (as discussed this morning). Please remember, as we go forward into Year 15, that you can use the Althouse Portal to Amazon and that you can make direct PayPal contributions to this blog. With PayPal contributions there's a space to convey a message me, as one reader did the other day: "I’m liking the serendipity of your retiring around the time that Trump took the stage and dumped all this great material on your lap. Keep up the great work! I especially liked your observation about S-town today." I added the link so you can see what he was talking about. Anyway, thanks to all for reading, thanks to all who read and also comment, and thanks to everyone who supports this blog through Paypal and Amazon.
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91 comments:
There certainly has been a lot of talking shit on this blog of late.
"Clean. Mr. Clean was from some south Bronx shithole, and I think the light and the space of Vietnam really put the zap on his head."
Happy 14th. I've read nearly every day for 13.5 of them. The comments have changed quite a bit but I've always appreciated your consistently good posts. I agree with you more now. FWIW
Hah. My first thought as well, Crimso.
Unrelated, after witnessing the comments on the Fusion GPS post below, I've decided to propose a new Internet law: As the number of Ritmo comments on a thread increases, the probability of Global Warming taking over the thread approaches 1. Need a catchy name now.
Happy 14th.
I don't buy much on amazon but I will try to redirect my wife through the portal if I can sneak onto her computer.
Perdue and Cotton agree with Trump's denials on the term "shithole."
Flake wasn't there but claims Trump said it. Unexpectedly.
That leaves the witnesses who say he said it as Lindsey Grahamnesty and Dick Durbin.
It must always be mentioned that Dick Durbin is a piece of shit who compared me to a variety of mass murdering tyrants.
This is going to get nasty when democrats start getting indicted.
I'm still hung up on "civility bullshit". I think I am up with you now, that calls for "civility" in public debate are really attempts to shame your opponent into silence, score points off his supposed incivility, or both. But why is this so uniquely a weapon of the Left? God knows, bashing people on the streets with bike locks is not particularly civil. Or do you see the Right engaging in this too?
I am thinking this is a detail in the whole fresco, in which the Left tries to claim the intellectual high ground, by tossing around terms like racist, sexist, cis-heteronormative, whatever. By framing these supposed thought crimes as instances of "insensitivity", they are able to pose as the defenders of the unfortunate; "Look, you hurt the feelings of X over there". Of course, if they are the defenders, what does that make their opponents?
I think they learned to do this from thinking about the immense success they had with the "Civil Rights Movement". They seized the moral high ground for two generations, by blaming Southern (Democrat) oppression of blacks on Republicans. And of course, the blacks have been a wonderful resource for them - the victim who never recovers, and therefore must always require help, and also votes for the Democrat in every election.
I caught the plauge circulating amongst us. You know it’s bad when I get sick.
Battle of the Sexes (2017) Steve Carell and Emma Stone has the expected leftist morality plays, as all movies do; but leaves out the important part, that Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs were friends as a result.
A hustle is a guy's game and needs players; Billy Jean got taken seriously in that. Hence the friendship.
I’ll say it once again, it is your intellectual honesty that I find so rare and value so much.
And your occasional references to Zappa.
I can even appreciate your worship of Dylan. I was listening to the Dylan album “Mercy” this weekend.
Yes, we are living in a political world. But I have long-ago concluded that you often ask yourself ‘What good am I?’
But why is this so uniquely a weapon of the Left?
The Right tends to respect free speech and independence of thought. You expect to encounter ideas and speech you don't agree with, and develop coping skills. The Left demands group think and conformity of thought. They literally can't cope with any opposing ideas. Just by disagreeing with them about anything means you are being uncivil.
Correction. Album “Oh Mercy”
My ST memory ain’t what it used to me.
I think I went down with one of the milder varieties on New Year's Eve and recovered sort of from that, but then went grocery shopping on Saturday and caught the bad one from the check-out mat. It has been a very tough week, but I think it has at least bottomed out now.
Sure hope so!
I went back to 2004 to sample the golden age of commenting here. This comment was the only one on a post where Althouse noted, correctly, that Margaret Cho is actually funny, and got a link from Jonah Goldberg.
Jonah "Doughboy" Goldberg is a pundit and editor at the National Review Online, the website for the well-known conservative magazine the National Review, and has done great work in destroying its brand. His mother is "ratfucker" Lucianne Malfoy Goldberg, who became famous by masquerading as a journalist to spy on the 1972 Democratic presidential campaign for Richard Nixon and later helping to touch off the Monica Lewinsky scandal.[1] Andrew Sullivan alleges that Goldberg received his position due to nepotism, rather than actual merit.consulta medico pediatra medico doctor dermatologo veterinario veterinario psychologist consulta abogado abogado abogado abogado abogado psicologo doctor psicologo abogado abogado Goldberg wrote a book called Liberal Fascism in which he claims that Swarthmore-educated grade school teachers are a greater risk than actual fascists.[3] (This is despite the fact that he doesn't even know basic history about Benito Mussolini.[4]).
Most bloggers find him an arrogant bloviator. He does get points for his massive geek cred; otherwise the depths of his inanity make him a worthless pundit. He has had a logical fallacy, Jonanism, named after him. - Maria Maria
That’s some great shit! I will have to google up this “logical fallacy” although I am sure it has to. do with the FACT that liberals are not fascists, darn it!
AT, that is a great comment. I feel like the humor quotient here has declined significantly in recent years. There are only a few reliably funny commenters and too many who genuinely believe that their opinion matters and bears some relationship to reality. Reddit has a lot of funny stuff these days.
Folks should check out the WSJ Trump feud over I vs I'd.
I hear “I'd”. I do so in the clip the WH put up and in the WSJ clip. The WSJ citing a transcription service is bogus. But I am curious how others hear it.
Jonanism has a great Rationalwiki page.
Happy Blog-Anniversary Prof:
Just a reminder to what I had shared before:
1. Pelosi will be the next Speaker (Nov. 2018 mid-term).
2. Schemer will be the next Majority Leader (Nov. 2018 mid-term).
3. Gillibrand (or Warren) will be the 1st Woman POTUS (Nov. 2020 election).
Trump will not run, due to being scared. Or, he will need health excuse. It won't matter. Any GOP to lose all states.
Cheers!
1. I was a newspaper reporter before and after the 1964 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision. The period after the decision was better for the media. The period before the decision was better for the nation. We need to find a way to change libel laws.
During my seven years in the newspaper business and four years in the magazine business, I never had to write a correction or a retraction. Compare that to what you see in the mainstream media today.
2. I have visited this blog from time to time since 2006. Please keep up the good work, Ann. This blog is among the very best. It also has some of the best comments from readers.
Ann, you go in and take photos of all these local independent shops—often ones on Willy Street! But you pimp Amazon every day. What gives? Any thoughts on that disconnect?
America's Politico dusting off those skills he showed us in 2016. bahaha
What really proves that a great comment is that in following years, liberals in Madison never showed any tendency towards fascist behavior! So Ann got to see for herself that Jonah was full of it!
So tell us, Althouse, when you started this blog that you would wrap up your fourteenth year with a (mistaken, thankfully) nuclear missile warning in Hawaii?
Interesting prediction, Politico. I guess voters of 2020 will be okay with female Democrat politicians like Gillibrand launching gratuitous F-bombs even though they are presumably disgusted with Trump in 2018 calling shitholes by what they are.
Calling a spade a spade has been racist forever.
Jupiter's comment on "civility bullshit" is worthy of a full fledged Althouse post and discussion.
Gahrie said...
"The Left demands group think and conformity of thought. They literally can't cope with any opposing ideas. Just by disagreeing with them about anything means you are being uncivil."
Well, I think the inability to "cope" is feigned, and is an example of the syndrome in question. They claim to be damaged by speech, so that they can claim the right to shut down that speech. Sensitivity bullshit. What is still perplexing me is why the tactic is so effective. Trump knows how to resist it, but I fear he is still taking damage.
This seems to be an extension of the Alinsky Rules. Don't just make them live up to their own rules. Make up new rules, and make them live up to those as well. If they object, point to the "victim" they are "harming". If they do not object, move the goalposts forward. Thus the ratchet effect.
It seems increasingly clear that TTR/Ritmo is really a parody commenter, much like America's Politico, who's the archetype of the always-wrong-never-in-doubt Beltway parasite.
TTR is a representative as well. An associate professor in some humanities or soft science department at a second-rate university. He hasn't written anything in years. His department chair considers him the most petrified of dead wood. When he speaks, all too often, at faculty meetings everyone rolls their eyes and an embarrassed silence falls on the room.
The Dean is dying to get rid of him but can't and the TTR-type is naturally holding grimly on, more and more irritating, irrational, ineffective and malodorous with the passing years.
Deep down, the TTR-type knows he's a failure and a joke. His lectures are awful and he has no aptitude for teaching. No one asks him to be their thesis advisor. No graduate student wants him on their committee. The undergraduate women he hits on scornfully reject him. His third wife has left him.
So while preaching diversity he takes it out on the disabled Iraq veteran in his class. While lauding the working class he screams at the barista for putting whole milk in his latte instead of skim.
Well done, I will say, TTR. You had us going for quite a while with the act.
Plus that bit in Jonanism about calling everybody you disagree with politically fascists. Only the right does that. The more I read the comment, the more I appreciate its wisdom.
I am still hung up on the difference, if any, between the words "collude" and "conspire." The internet tells me "collude" means to cooperate in a secret or unlawful way in order to deceive or gain an advantage over others. and "conspire" means to make secret plans jointly to commit an unlawful or harmful act.. Some internet links give "conspire" as a synonym for "collude," but "conspire" seems to imply harm or illegality in the act while "collude" only implies secrecy, not necessarily illegality or harm.
We were discussing this at dinner tonight. My husband is under the impression that "conspiring" has legal consequences while "colluding" does not. Which, if true, gives an entire new meaning to the lyrics to "Walking in a Winter Wonderland:"
Later on, we'll conspire
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid
The plans that we've made
Walking in a winter wonderland.
Auntie Trump said...
"Plus that bit in Jonanism about calling everybody you disagree with politically fascists. Only the right does that."
You mean, "Only the fascist right does that". Right?
Holy crap, that was a wild finish in the New Orleans-Minnesota game!
Re: The picture, every man cave needs a built-in bottle opener. The garden statuary was interesting, too.
Trump's vocalizations don't seem to be getting any more coherent.
Clyde said...
Holy crap, that was a wild finish in the New Orleans-Minnesota game!
That just might be an understatement! I'll bet that defensive back feels like shit. All he needed to do was just grab the receiver and hang on, but NO!
happy blog day!
The Porn President
ARM,
Animal trainers say, "Ignore unwanted behavior." Maybe you should try that with Trump?
Or maybe I should try that with you. It's so much easier to give good advice than to take it.
The children are watching.
Vikings win and Keenum puts a stick into the Texans’ eye. Yahoo!
I feel like the humor quotient here has declined significantly in recent years.
This is one of the reasons I like Inga. She has a sense of humor and a sense of fun. We seem to have a fairly big slice in the pie chart right now of surly old dudes who need to lighten the hell up.
All he needed to do was just grab the receiver and hang on, but NO!
I think his momentum towards Diggs was too much to avoid a possible pass interference call, which is why he didn't touch him. He fucked up, but not as ridiculously as it looked.
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...
This is one of the reasons I like Inga. She has a sense of humor and a sense of fun. We seem to have a fairly big slice in the pie chart right now of surly old dudes who need to lighten the hell up.
Yes, a more extreme element has colonized the blog. It is unfortunate, since it tends to drive off the odd-balls and non-ideologues who had made it an interesting place to discuss the events of the day.
between the words "collude" and "conspire."
Collude is from play, conspire is from breathe.
The Porn President
National Review is one to talk. They've been into fetish porn for the last few years.
Trump isn't racist.
"A year earlier, on August 21, 2014, National Review reported:
It’s not every day Moran receives a big check from Donald Trump, but a five-figure donation from the real-estate magnate, solicited by Paul, helped to cover the cost of the trip. A Trump spokeswoman says it was “an honor” for Trump to lend his support.
Readers may have noticed a bond between Paul and Trump -- a mutual respect.
Part of that is they agree that the neocon vision of the world has ill-served the nation and the world.
But part of it is these trips. Paul told "Meet the Press" today: "I think it's unfair then to sort of all of a sudden paint him, 'Oh, well, he's a racist,' when I know, for a fact, that he cares very deeply about the people in Haiti because he helped finance a trip where we were able to get vision back for 200 people in Haiti.""
http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2018/01/200-people-in-haiti-see-that-trump-is.html?spref=tw
How many times have we seen in recent years defenses totally shut down the opposition's offense, but then change up their schemes in the last two minutes only to have that same impotent offense suddenly charge down the field like a hot knife through butter. That's the coaches' fault.
It would seem at first blush that a coalition of life's losers would be -- a losing coalition. The tactic necessarily plays upon the sense of fairness of the majority, in that it requires them to cede an advantage to others. One might expect it to be self-limiting. When the advantage ceded becomes significant, the willingness to cede it will dissolve. And indeed, this is starting to happen. But the current leadership of the Republican Party is unwilling to go that route. This may be due to a cynical desire to enjoy the perks of power while the sun sets, without getting drug into any sordid twilight struggles. But there also seems to be a principled unwillingness to become simply the identity party of the largest minority. I suppose this is why the Democrats are so desperate to flood the country with racially-identifiable losers. They sense that the door is closing, and the muscle they feel, behind that closing door, makes their hair stand on end.
It would seem the Democrats have over-played their hand. Their solicitude for various minorities has cost them the hard-won allegiance of lower-income whites. The Republican Party has been slow to understand this, and slower still to take advantage. Alliance with people who work for a living doesn't sit right with the leadership. But Trump has forced their hand. If they don't want to lead the coalition that is available to them, others will be happy to do so.
Coach Bill Belichick is the greatest strategic mind that has ever set foot on an American football field.
With yesterday's playoff win, the coach became the winningest playoff coach in NFL history.
Belichick passed the legendary Tom Landry.
Hang in there, rehajm and Hagar and anyone else hit by this flu. We want you to get well asap.
If you are keeping track... strike "chain migration" from your vocabulary.
It is now racist to say those words.
Don't say I didn't warn you when they come to take you away.
Mark, the "prevent" defense has been used for decades in the final two minutes of football games, often giving up huge chunks of yards in the hopes of not letting the other side score in a single deep pass. Somethimes they have kept the other side from scoring; sometimes they let let them march right down the field.
"Belichick passed the legendary Tom Landry."
My Steelers have the worst coach still gainfully employed. He blew every key decision today. Every single one. I am sure changes will be made. They will fire the guy that assembles the blue medical tent. Tomlin will remain forever - it's an addendum to the Rooney Rule.
The Republican Party has been slow to understand this, and slower still to take advantage. Alliance with people who work for a living doesn't sit right with the leadership.
In my book the ossified “leadership” of the GOP is still all caught up in a reflexive support for Big Business, even as the leaders of Big Business have become the big donors to the Democrats. Trump showed that the way forward is a coalition of workers and small business owners. I’m thinking of the master plumber who fixed my latest plumbing problem — he has a handful employees and four trucks, and the undying hatred of the Democrats (he’s a boss, don’t ya know!). People who pass regulations just to pass regulations need avkick in the butt.
Hey John Henry, FYI:
I sent the author of the article below to your blog.
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/10/puerto-rico-electricity-prepa-hurricane-maria/?comments=1#comments
I just looked at the entries on this blog from late 2004. There were almost no comments at that time for most of the entries.
More comments on entries from late 2005, though still not as many as nowadays. BTW, saw a post about speculation that Trumpmwould run for NY governor. Interesting reading the comments 12 years later and he is President.
Mark, the "prevent" defense has been used for decades in the final two minutes of football games, often giving up huge chunks of yards in the hopes of not letting the other side score in a single deep pass. Somethimes they have kept the other side from scoring; sometimes they let let them march right down the field.
Oh really? Thanks for the condescending mansplaining as if I didn't already know about the asinine prevent defense -- of which the thing it usually prevents is winning the game.
Next time, don't be such a presumptuous ass.
Perhaps you'd like to explain to me about yanking pitchers after an arbitrary pitch count?
Well, Mark, regarding pitch count ... Oh.
If I lived in Puerto Rico and was one of the 50% of the people there who still don't have electricity four months after the hurricane, and then I found out that the people at the monopoly electric company PREPA had a huge warehouse of supplies that they'd been hoarding and not releasing for repair work... Torches, tar and feathers, nooses. I was without power for a week after Hurricane Irma, and I can't even imagine how miserable it would be to be without it for four months. And then to find out that the bastards could have been fixing things much sooner? I'd be ready for some swift, vigilante justice.
Big Mike said...
"In my book the ossified “leadership” of the GOP is still all caught up in a reflexive support for Big Business, even as the leaders of Big Business have become the big donors to the Democrats."
Chamber of Commerce. Hellspawn. But we need to start looking at how we're going to win, not how we're going to get even. Don't play to get even. Play to win.
@Jupiter, I never play to get even.
Mark, I wasn't trying to be an ass. Sorry if it came off that way.
Jupiter, that is the US Chamber of Commerce, the CC that deals with federal issues. They are open borders maniacs & they contribute to a lot of congressional campaigns. They aren't shy about saying that their goal is to reduce the wages USCC members have to pay to workers. They are shitheels that do everything that they can to separate Americans into pro-business and pro-labor camps. They are just as anti-American as internationalist unions like the SEIU.
Althouse I'd love to see a post on the Aziz Ansari story!/
Remember how Althouse yanked all y'alls chains the other day by calling Oprah the greatest living American?
I thought today that that title, in all seriousness, should probably go to Dolly Parton. Prove me wrong!
MM: "I just looked at the entries on this blog from late 2004. There were almost no comments at that time for most of the entries."
If I remember correctly, this blog's numbers began to climb significantly when Ms. Althouse began filling in for Glenn Reynolds during his occasional absences at Instapundit. That's how I found this blog. I don't know why she stopped doing that. I do remember she declined to blog for PJ Media when it was launched.
The blogosphere was an exciting place to visit during the Iraq War. Reynolds and Ms. Althouse were two of the top bloggers who weren't clicking their heels in blind obedience to the political left in those days.
Even though I don't live in Wisconsin, I really appreciated your coverage of the Scott Walker recall et al. It was first rate!
The Steelers talent is scary brilliant. I think that conference final would have been like that time the Islanders finally realized that they could beat Edmonton and “The Great One.” We will never see it on account of coach panic.
Even though I don't live in Wisconsin, I really appreciated your coverage of the Scott Walker recall et al. It was first rate!
I second that. I recall more than a few observations by Ann & Meade that what was happening in their little 'burg was foreshadowing what we would see nationally. Secret servers, lawfare, special investigations, overturning election results. Wisconsin was the test market for the national rollout for chrissakes!
@Greg Hlatky @7:06PM...Yours was a carefully written, master work hit piece on Ritmo/Toothless. It is right up there with the accusations against Alfred Dreyfus spelled out in Zola's J'Accuse. It plays on all biases against liberal intellectuals known to right wing puritans.
But you have wasted your time. Commenter Ritmo/Toothless has been around for 8+ years discussing every subject quite well. He has changed names a few times but we always know it is his style and wit. I suspect you cannot meet him at his level, and are responding to the way he pulls your leg with pithy satires.
But to succeed in the slander business, your audience must have no history of the target you are painting as a monster. So, as Zola said to the French Army General Staff, J'Accuse.
We will never see it on account of coach panic.
Watching these playoffs I've been struck by 1) the quantity of unforced errors at critical times in close games and 2) how most teams suck at clock management on offensive drives inside three minutes.
To gendersplain to Mark: what goes on here is a free flow of ideas. If somebody takes the time to read one of your comments and then is inspired to comment because of yours, maybe just accept the compliments and move on?
FWIW, I could read it as you thinking you're the first one to notice as easily as not. A comment expanding the idea you started helped your idea and the thread.
"I just looked at the entries on this blog from late 2004. There were almost no comments at that time for most of the entries."
There are many months in 2004 when the blog did not allow comments. I tried them first maybe around March 2004 but I quickly turned them off because of trolls who kept saying I was an awful person because I didn't blog about the Iraq war all the time. Like if I blogged about "The Apprentice," I was a terrible person because I didn't write in proportion to what was most important. I should be using my lawprof heft to stop the war, etc. etc.
I put the comments on again later in the year and have left them on except for a short period when I had a problem with trolls AND moderation wasn't working. Got that fixed.
Achilles: It must always be mentioned that Dick Durbin is a piece of shit who compared me to a variety of mass murdering tyrants.
Lem: If you are keeping track... strike "chain migration" from your vocabulary.
It is now racist to say those words.
Not surprising that Durbin, being a Dem, isn't getting the mockery and abuse he should be getting for that idiotic, nay, downright loony "chain migration" remark. It's the most wonderfully stupid comment made buy a pol since Hank Johnson worried about Guam tipping over, with the added dash of Durbin's characteristic borderline-psycho malevolence.
Notice how we never hear about the Wisco Supremes anymore since Roggensack was named Chief? And so much for Abrahamson claiming that she only ran for re-election because she WAS Chief. Her nasty ass is still on the court.
Congrats Ann. I'll make sure to treat myself on the Althouse portal today.
"Clean, Mr. Clean, was from some South Bronx shithole. The light and space of Vietnam really put the zap on his head."
That's from Apocalypse Now and its got the word shithole in it. That's from 1979. Just sort of popped in my head, just now, as if my brain had been working on it in the background, unnoticed, ever since this whole Trump/shithole thing hit the media-tubes.
A wasted mind is a terrible thing the have. Please give, and give generously, to the United Negro College Fund.
You see what I mean?! It's doing it again!!! Perfectly good brains cells discharging effluvia.
Perhaps I should add that I do not know what it means to have the zap put on one's head.
"If I remember correctly, this blog's numbers began to climb significantly when Ms. Althouse began filling in for Glenn Reynolds during his occasional absences at Instapundit. That's how I found this blog. I don't know why she stopped doing that. I do remember she declined to blog for PJ Media when it was launched."
The blog traffic went up when Glenn first linked to me, in March 2004 (after I emailed him about a post about Kerry and the death penalty, which was the first time he became aware that I had a blog). He then took to linking to me just about every day, and that built the traffic steadily.
Later I guest blogged and was one of 3 standard guest bloggers that he'd use when he was away. (The other 2 were Megan McCardle and Michael Totten.) I continued to do that over the years, but the thing was to go back to one's own blog when he came back, which is what I did the last time he came back. I want people to read me on my own blog and for this blog to prosper and be a special place. I don't want to be part of a group blog going forward. In fact, those guest-blogging stints were not a good way to get people to come to this blog, since I had less time to put into this blog. I prefer getting links from over there, not being there. But the other guest bloggers stayed and it became a group blog.
Now, it was really exciting in 2004 to move from here onto the big stage that is Instapundit, but the day to day work of doing Instapundit isn't what I want. I like owning the whole place and controlling the tone and the flow and the look. I always felt much better coming back to my own blog after guest blogging there. I feel much freer, of course, in my own place. When you're in someone else's place, no matter how much they leave you unrestrained, you feel a lot of responsibility to them.
I should be using my lawprof heft to stop the war, etc. etc. "
One of your commenters wasn't Joan Baez, was It? That is the most Dylanesque thing that I have ever read.
Althouse, referencing the last paragraph of your preceding post: those points are apparent and appreciated. Belated happy 15th blogaversary
Coruscating (sp?) That's the word that describes Pittsburgh's offense! They should rename the Patriots the Stealers.
This is a Tim in Vermont sock puppet, BTW. Kind of a writing exercise. The exclamation points don't go with the cigarette (note to self)
@Auntie Trump
Thanks for the identification. It's fine to use an alter ego as a creative device. I appreciate knowing it's you in the context of "One of your commenters wasn't Joan Baez, was It? That is the most Dylanesque thing that I have ever read." That made me laugh.
“I gave them my heart, but they wanted my soul...”
Also me, BTW. Auntie Trump good practice for me now, the cigarette is all about pithy aphorisms, along with the ironic tension of a female commenter speaking in aphorisms. Auntie Trump is all about resisting the urge to explain, BT is a mansplainer of the worst kind. And the tension of “Auntie Trump,” is she really anti-Trump or pro-Trump, like your damned uncle at Thanksgiving in his MAGA hat? Hmmmm... I am going to put BT away for a while, as he submits to the firm discipline of Auntie Trump. I think one sock puppet at a time is enough for me.
Although a transparent effort the sad thing is that Dim Tim made more sense as a sock puppet than as his normal hysterical self.
If you can’t tell you are bing mocked, does that make you the dim one?
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