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Few new videos Child shot dead by a sniper in Rastan March 5th http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRGfb2XrWtg School hit by artillery shells in Rastan March 5th https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxZJSYHfeY8 This video possibly shows a civilian transport aircraft landing at a military airbase, not sure if that's actually dodgy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5AtbeMA0Ck Tracked vehicle being destroyed in Baba Amr, unknown date https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufdHzNniTxM
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 14:27 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 11:15 |
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Crazy fighting in Yemen http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...9CsR_story.html quote:SANAA, Yemen — Sneaking across the desert behind army lines, al-Qaida militants launched a surprise attack against military bases in south Yemen, killing 107 soldiers and capturing heavy weapons they later used to kill more troops, officials said on Monday.
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 16:28 |
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I've been keeping an eye on Yemen just a short while now and it is really messed up. Just this Saturday, militants destroyed several buildings in a southern city, and yesterday al-Qaida showed up at the outskirts of a southern province they control with more than 40 "military vehicles" and fought off the Yemeni army which apparently ran out of ammunition before al-Qaida did. Another militia was reported to have "surrounded" an entire mechanised division of the Yemeni army in the same province. It's all hosed up. A new southern commander has been appointed and I think that the Yemeni army is planning to invade said province (Abyan) soon which could lead to anything.
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 18:45 |
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McCain just called for airstrikes in Syria. Which is to say, strap in for a diplomatic shitstorm either way.
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 19:23 |
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J33uk posted:McCain just called for airstrikes in Syria. Which is to say, strap in for a diplomatic shitstorm either way. Look at this stupid poo poo[ quote:"To be clear: This will require the United States to suppress enemy air defenses in at least part of the country," McCain will say. "The ultimate goal of airstrikes should be to establish and defend safe havens in Syria, especially in the north, in which opposition forces can organize and plan their political and military activities against Assad. These safe havens could serve as platforms for the delivery of humanitarian and military assistance -- including weapons and ammunition, body armor and other personal protective equipment, tactical intelligence, secure communications equipment, food and water, and medical supplies. These safe havens could also help the Free Syrian Army and other armed groups in Syria to train and organize themselves into more cohesive and effective military forces, likely with the assistance of foreign partners." It's basically what happened in Libya without an understanding of any of the differences!
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 19:41 |
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I'm disappointed in McCain's shortsightedness. He's a military man, he should know better. I really wonder if he's shilling for the military industrial complex, or if he's dipping into a realm of senility. Maybe it's both.
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 19:51 |
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McCain tends to have a blind spot when it comes to torture. Or see red, I guess. Either way his judgment is not the best where its involved.
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 20:02 |
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Lascivious Sloth posted:For lying about being assaulted, most likely. Also, they are conservative Salafists. Mayhap there is something about changing/modifying the body in their interpretation of the Qur'an? Cosmetic alterations in general (tattoos/piercings/surgery) are verboten in a number of conservative sects, yep, with exceptions for severe deformation or injury. (I seem to recall a particularly conservative scholar specifically calling out dental braces as uncool at one point, but it's been loving ages since I talked jurisprudence with any Muslim friends and I am not particularly educated on the topic other than that, so that might just be me misremembering.) Also, I can't recall how severe a violation they represent, but they sure ain't something encouraged in official representatives of the community. Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Mar 5, 2012 |
# ? Mar 5, 2012 20:19 |
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Xandu posted:Based on all the reporting surrounding the Khost incident, I get the impression that they tell them and that it's not a secret to close family members. That's how it goes as far as I know. My girlfriend's grandfather was killed in the line of duty and they know what happened to him, but his star on the Memorial Wall does not have a name in the "Book of Honor".
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 20:27 |
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Brown Moses posted:Look at this stupid poo poo[ Look at how the increased Iran tensions have caused us to go look for a base to defend Israel from.
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 20:52 |
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magiccarpet posted:Look at how the increased Iran tensions have caused us to go look for a base to defend Israel from.
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 20:54 |
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magiccarpet posted:Look at how the increased Iran tensions have caused us to go look for a base to defend Israel from. Absolutely. Why bother with Turkey, where we already have a large military infrastructure, and instead bomb Syria to obtain a platform possibly tens, nay, dozens of miles closer?
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 21:01 |
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Golbez posted:Absolutely. Why bother with Turkey, where we already have a large military infrastructure, and instead bomb Syria to obtain a platform possibly tens, nay, dozens of miles closer? Guys, guys, you're neglecting the most important fact here: the US war machine is lubricated by the blood of Muslims.
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 21:08 |
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Brown Moses posted:Few new videos Yeah, I dont think I want to watch that Heartbreaking whats going on there.
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# ? Mar 5, 2012 22:44 |
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spiralbrain posted:Yeah, I dont think I want to watch that You don't want to watch that. It isn't the action of a child being shot by a sniper, it's a dead child, that was killed by a sniper. I should not have watched that, but what's going on there is terrible and ugh no words.
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 02:11 |
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Oracle posted:McCain tends to have a blind spot when it comes to torture. Or see red, I guess. Either way his judgment is not the best where its involved. His idea is wrong but he's moving in the right direction. More serious pressure needs to be put on Syria and if the consensus in the West shifts towards military force it might shove Russia into stepping in themselves and getting Assad to accept an out.
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 04:40 |
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Sil posted:His idea is wrong but he's moving in the right direction. More serious pressure needs to be put on Syria and if the consensus in the West shifts towards military force it might shove Russia into stepping in themselves and getting Assad to accept an out. Part of the problem is that when theres anything going on in the world, Mccain wants us to start bombing. Remember, this is the "bomb bomb bomb Iran" guy. Theres not a war this guy (one of my senators ugh) doesnt want. So his credibility internationally is probably a little diminished, since he ALWAYS wants to go to war.
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 04:54 |
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Sil posted:His idea is wrong but he's moving in the right direction. More serious pressure needs to be put on Syria and if the consensus in the West shifts towards military force it might shove Russia into stepping in themselves and getting Assad to accept an out. Why should Assad step down especially when the military side of things is really moving in his favor?
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 04:57 |
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Sil posted:His idea is wrong but he's moving in the right direction. More serious pressure needs to be put on Syria and if the consensus in the West shifts towards military force it might shove Russia into stepping in themselves and getting Assad to accept an out. Russia will 100% call the west's bluff on that. They need to keep up the appearance of support for Assad but if the US goes against the UN and sinks into another Middle East quagmire that's still a win for them. Assad backing down under western military threats via a Russian backstab would kill their credibility for their allies. Fangz fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Mar 6, 2012 |
# ? Mar 6, 2012 11:36 |
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Ahh crap. This isn't good. Eastern Libya declares semi- autonomy quote:Tribal leaders and militia commanders in oil-rich eastern Libya have declared a semi-autonomous region, raising fears that the country might disintegrate following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 14:04 |
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Lascivious Sloth posted:Ahh crap. This isn't good. Why is the automatic response to say "this isn't good?" Why shouldn't there be an independent (I know that's not what they're saying but I'm asking as an exercise) Cyrenaica? Then they could have their king and be separate from Tripolitania who marginalized them for so many decades. Who gets Fezzan in the divorce? Golbez fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Mar 6, 2012 |
# ? Mar 6, 2012 14:35 |
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This points towards another of the NTC's failings in the post-Gaddafi Libya, and it's interesting with in the context of other cities in Libya holding or planning to hold their own local elections. It seems they are rejecting the NTC's attempts to organise the country from a national level to a local level by first choosing to establish their own local government. The question is what happens once the national elections come around?
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 14:51 |
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Also, aren't most of Libya's oil fields in the eastern part of the country? If Cyranecia only uses the profits to benefit the East and impoverish the western areas of the country, it would be a reverse of how things were under Qadhafi.
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 16:40 |
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suboptimal posted:Also, aren't most of Libya's oil fields in the eastern part of the country? If Cyranecia only uses the profits to benefit the East and impoverish the western areas of the country, it would be a reverse of how things were under Qadhafi. Which I'm sure is a major reason for them wanting to be autonomous. Though, if Cyrenaica were to secede totally, it could no longer be said that they are impoverishing Tripolitania. Tripoli would be on its own.
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 16:46 |
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Syrians asking for help from the people of Mars after the people of Earth fail to help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k86zOlYYBk Damaged buildings in Rastan dated 06/03/12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qu15_Bdf6U FSA sniper shooting an Assad soldier, Idlib dated 06/03/12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjDDOOcXt2E Brigadier General Adnan al-Qasim Farzat defecting to the FSA dated 06/03/12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPG44s3oLMY quote:I declare my defection from the Syrian army to the Free Syrian Army, because of the artillery bombing against Rastan which is continuing violently. Damage done to a mosque by Assad regime shelling dated 06/03/12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39L-Wq76Yws Damage done to buildings in Homs dated 06/03/12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpEAo7nfzb Homes looted and trashed in Homs dated 06/03/12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-dJnPY7Xxc
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 17:00 |
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Al Jazeera got a look at the draft for the US drawn up UN resolution on Syria. It's pretty much the same old "Everyone stop killing everyone. Withdraw troops. Allow access." stuff. And once again it doesn't really matter if it passes or not because the hour is far too late.
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 18:39 |
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Lots of misleading reporting today on Eastern Libya "breaking off" into a separate state. It seems more accurate to me to describe it as a push for decentralization of power and federalism than anything else. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/05/libya-east-federalism-idUSL5E8E5A2O20120305 posted:"We would like in Cyrenaica to take care of housing, education and other things and would delegate national security, defence ... to the central government," said Mohammed Buisier, a Libyan-American who is helping organise the congress. This can't be seen as terribly surprising or even necessarily a preclude to violence given Libyan history. http://gulfanalysis.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/iraq-and-libya-parallels-and-non-parallels/ posted:When it comes to Libya, unlike Iraq, the country actually does have a history of twentieth-century federalism as well as complete territorial fragmentation. During the first years after independence, from 1951 to 1963, Libya had a federal state structure which among other things featured extensive taxation powers for the three federal regions (Benghazi in the east, Tripoli in the centre-north and Fezzan in the south). That tripartite federal structure, in turn, was based on complete administrative separation in the 1940s, when developments in the Second World War and the ouster of the Italians in 1942 had led to the creation of three separate zones of occupation with their own administrations. Although the ethno-sectarian geography of these lands did not correlate perfectly with the tripartite administrative configuration, Benghazi stood somewhat out thanks to a strongly influential puritan Sufi movement (the Sanusiyya), whereas non-Arab (particularly Berber) influences were said to be somewhat stronger in the west and the south. In contrast to the situation in Libya, Iraq remained a centralised state from the formal inception of the monarchy in 1921 until the beginnings of experiments with Kurdish autonomy in the 1970s. And we shouldn't paint Eastern Libyans with such a broad brush, not all are in favor of more autonomy. Mary Fitzgerald talking about this on twitter https://twitter.com/#!/MaryFitzgerldIT posted:Headlines re eastern #Libya declaring semi-autonomy are misleading. Today's 4000-strong conf step in that direction but many in east opposed Interesting map as well, dividing it into Fezzan/Tripolitania/Cyrenaica
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 22:33 |
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My understanding is this group is little more than a political party or movement, not anything that actually wields any power, so it's not like Libya is breaking up into a federation or anything (yet).
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 23:38 |
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Golbez posted:Why is the automatic response to say "this isn't good?" Why shouldn't there be an independent (I know that's not what they're saying but I'm asking as an exercise) Cyrenaica? Then they could have their king and be separate from Tripolitania who marginalized them for so many decades. I guess Iraq sort of showed the futility of trying to jam people who really don't like each other into a single nation state.
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# ? Mar 6, 2012 23:57 |
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I dont have a problem with Libya splitting up into semi autonomous entities, but I just have a really bad feeling its not going to happen without a lot of violence. Yes, Ive read what others have said here that its not guaranteed to devolve into a civil war but I have a really cynical view of that part of the world. I just think, theres so many weapons and everyones armed, political power is up for grabs now that Ghaddafi is gone, most of the oil is concentrated in one area, and people arent exactly used to the country being separated. Its been quite a while since it was like that. It kind of reminds me of Sudan, and how it took a civil war for the south to split off and now theres still fighting going on and most of the oil is in the southern half. I hope Im wrong about all of this, I hope for the best in Libya but I wont be too surprised if it gets really ugly over there again in the near future.
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# ? Mar 7, 2012 01:00 |
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Charliegrs posted:I dont have a problem with Libya splitting up into semi autonomous entities, but I just have a really bad feeling its not going to happen without a lot of violence. Yes, Ive read what others have said here that its not guaranteed to devolve into a civil war but I have a really cynical view of that part of the world. I just think, theres so many weapons and everyones armed, political power is up for grabs now that Ghaddafi is gone, most of the oil is concentrated in one area, and people arent exactly used to the country being separated. Its been quite a while since it was like that. It kind of reminds me of Sudan, and how it took a civil war for the south to split off and now theres still fighting going on and most of the oil is in the southern half. I hope Im wrong about all of this, I hope for the best in Libya but I wont be too surprised if it gets really ugly over there again in the near future. It's sort of false hope thinking people can put aside their difference and build a functional nation state after such a tough experience. Especially after being manipulated for many years by the regimes divide and conquer strategy. It's just really hard for a people to overcome the inertia created by past history.
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# ? Mar 7, 2012 01:02 |
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etalian posted:I guess Iraq sort of showed the futility of trying to jam people who really don't like each other into a single nation state. On the other hand, Iraq is still together, though it has adopted a somewhat federalist model.
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# ? Mar 7, 2012 01:05 |
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These are why, despite all the rhetoric coming from Arab states, Turkey, and the West, there won't be any action aside from low-level moral support to Syria:quote:Gulf Arabs Deny Arms to Syria Rebels quote:Ties With Russia, China Constrain Turkey's Options on Syria
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# ? Mar 7, 2012 03:33 |
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A little sad this thread is losing flow of information. Combining the fall of Homs, and the lack of international assistance has left a bitter disappointment and feeling of defeat. Is there any indication on how the FSA is reacting? Are people still protesting? Are rockets still falling on Rastan and Idlib? The only news I'm reading are news bites of the Red Crescent struggling to distribute humanitarian aid while 'violence continues'.
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# ? Mar 7, 2012 20:25 |
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A UN person and the red cross got into Baba Amr today and described it as deserted. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/03/201237102653391566.html People are still protesting and fighting, the opposition is continuing to fall apart. Syrian state TV leaked some behind the scenes footage on activist videos from Baba Amr that show that they can be misleading, it's all in arabic unfortunately. Pro-Assad people have been using this as evidence to claim that the Syrian opposition is totally discredited and a joke, but that's really the wrong takeaway. http://qifanabki.com/2012/03/06/the-youtube-revolution-truth-lies-in-syria/
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# ? Mar 7, 2012 20:32 |
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Apparently most,if not all, the supposedly leaked footage was livestreamed over the last few months by activists, and Syrian State TV claimed it was found in Baba Amr when they rolled in. For example, watch this clip from the original stream from about 10 minutes onwards http://bambuser.com/v/2339510 This version of the clip was on State TV, which claims the man in the video pointed to tell people to play a clip of gunfire in the background https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8xzoFwOQIE&t=14s As you can see the State TV clip has mysteriously gained the sound of gunfire which didn't exist in the original broadcast, but this is still the one that's floating around being debated.
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# ? Mar 7, 2012 21:32 |
Lots of Libyans I know tossing this around on Facebook. "I am Libyan and the so-called 'Barga Conference' does not represent me"
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# ? Mar 7, 2012 23:12 |
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This is good news, sort of. http://saudijeans.org/2012/03/07/free-hamza-kashgari/ quote:Hamza Kashgari, the detained Saudi writer accused of blasphemy, will be freed in the next few weeks after a court in Riyadh accepted his repentance, multiple sources said.
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# ? Mar 8, 2012 01:54 |
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Xandu posted:This is good news, sort of. please post the video of the crybaby imam again e: nevermind here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9kAVlnGMTU e2: AUGH SexyBlindfold fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Mar 8, 2012 |
# ? Mar 8, 2012 03:03 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 11:15 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRV_ku8dqlQ Syrian deputy oil minister, Abdo Hussam al-Deen, defects. Looks to be him based on other images I've found of him. quote:please post the video of the crybaby imam again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9kAVlnGMTU
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# ? Mar 8, 2012 03:05 |