Inauguration Days Much Warmer For Republicans

It's going to be unseasonably cold when Barack Obama takes the oath of office Tuesday, which is in keeping with a long-term trend for Democrats.

In fact, it's normally almost 7 1/2 degrees warmer when a Republican is sworn in on a January Inauguration Day than when a Democrat raises his right hand.

So said a 2001 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...

[hey, no worse than computer models...]

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Why Did UVa Cancel Classes Only This Time?

[HT:BF]
On Jan. 20, 2005, George Bush was sworn in as president of the United States. On Jan. 20, 2009, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. The University of Virginia decided to suspend classes on only one of these important days. Can you guess which one?

Explaining the liberal bias on college campuses can be challenging because it is often a combination of overt and covert action and inaction. The suspension of classes for the inauguration of Barack Obama -- but not for George Bush -- gives a clear example of this bias.

One might try to dismiss this suspension of classes as the decision of one administrator. However, this was not the decision of one man and he is not the only one defending it...

[Posted due to sour grapes Bush was treated the same? No - I'm not a Bush booster (except where he deserves it). The last point re: non-individual decisions to disproportionately and/or inappropriately see Obama as more than he is is potentially dangerous.

We need remember that he's a government employee that works for and is accountable to us - not someone we 'trust' to lead us out of the wilderness - but to inact policies inline with our direction.

Directing a deity is hard - let's keep it real and remember who's working for whom here.]

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ABCNews.com Scorns Bush in 'Historic Moments of Inaugurations Past'

A 14-picture slideshow of "Historic Moments of Inaugurations Past" that begins with an illustration of Washington's 1793 swearing-in and mostly includes flattering photos of other commanders-in-chief ends not with a photo of President George W. Bush but of left-wing protestors at his first inauguration.

Even President Nixon was shown flashing his "classic double victory salute" to inauguration attendees in 1969.

Yet when it came to portraying President Bush's inauguration, ABCNews.com photo editors decided to show protestors at the 2001 inaugural instead, including one holding a "Hail to the Thief!" sign (depicted above at right).

[what bias?]

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USA Today Rejects Christian Message to President Obama

This past week I read a public notice in USA Today that their editors were allowing people to write a message to President Barack Obama that would run in that newspaper's Inauguration Day edition. The cost was $15 a line.

"Hmmmm . . . I thought. Good way to get a message to our new president." So, after much soul searching I wrote and submitted my ad:

"Dear President Obama, 'We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give [an] account of himself to God.' (Romans 14:10-12)"

Well, the next day -- just one hour before the USA Today deadline for the Obama messages -- I received a call from someone at USA Today named Jennifer. She claimed that USA Today will not run any ads containing Christian, religious or Bible verses.

Mind you, unlike USA Today routinely referring to President George W. Bush as Mr. Bush and routinely having bashed our 43rd President -- my prose contained a positive message, especially since Obama professes to be a practicing Christian who will be sworn in as our 44th President, reciting his oath with his hand atop a Christian Bible.

In closing our telephone conversation, Jennifer promised that USA Today would send me an email explaining why my ad was rejected. After two hours I hadn't gotten it. So, I called Jennifer and she said she would have it out to me in 2 minutes.

That was 2 days ago.

[I don't happen to be a person of faith - but is this right? Papers should be able to reject disrespectful or offensive ads - but that's now what they're doing here: neither condition applies. They're imposing their bias that they simply don't 'do' religion. Maybe their call as well - but when next they claim themselves non-ideologues or paragons of unbiased 'professionalism', I'll think of this little bit of liberal fascism.]

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Time Mag: Obama a 'Prince' Like Jesus Born of 'Imagination, History and Hope'

This week's Weekly Standard magazine recited “some of the worst over-the-top reactions to The One's ascendance,” starting with Time's Nancy Gibbs who opened this week's cover story by comparing Obama with Jesus:

“Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope...”

She heralded the 'greater meaning' of Obama's victory and gushed over how

“an election in one of the world's oldest democracies looked like the kind they hold in brand-new ones, when citizens finally come out and dance, a purple-thumb day, a velvet revolution.”

[I would love to adopt the purple finger thing - it would put ACORN out of business]

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The Wiretap Vindication

[I know you're tired of hearing this with the blanket coverage in the MSM, but...]

Ever since the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program was exposed in 2005, critics have denounced it as illegal and unconstitutional. Those allegations rested solely on the fact that the Administration did not first get permission from the special court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Well, as it happens, the same FISA court would beg to differ.

... the Constitution bans only "unreasonable" search and seizure, not all searches and seizures, and the Fourth Amendment allows for exceptions such as those under a President's Article II war powers. The courts have been explicit on this point ... "the Executive need not always obtain a warrant for foreign intelligence surveillance." ... the President has "inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information" ... "FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."

For all the political hysteria and media dishonesty about George W. Bush "spying on Americans," this fight was never about anything other than staging an ideological raid on the President's war powers. Barack Obama ought to be thankful that the FISA court has knocked the bottom out of this gambit, just in time for him to take office.

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A Weapon with a Worker on Both Ends

It was Lenin who said that "a bayonet is a weapon with a worker on both ends." The idea is that appeals to patriotism and war are distractions from the more important task of smashing the capitalist system and establishing socialism.

The danger of Barack Obama is not that he will act openly on such leftist slogans, but that he has been so steeped in leftist dogma for so long he will accept the left's attitudes implicitly and automatically, without even realizing it.

A good example is Obama's reported selection of Leon Panetta—a Democratic Party functionary with zero background in intelligence or foreign policy—as the new director of the CIA. Panetta was reportedly chosen precisely because of his total lack of experience.

A widely held view among intelligence officials was that Obama's team had decided to automatically disqualify any candidate who might have been seen as tainted by association with the controversial interrogation and detention policies of the Bush presidency—essentially anyone who held a management job in the past eight years.

But aren't we in the middle of a war?

Certainly, says incoming Vice President Joe Biden, who tells a group of congressmen that Obama's economic stimulus is a "war" and who "likened the country's economic crisis to the attacks of 9/11." I agree. It's a war, all right—a war fought by our government against private enterprise, with effects more economically devastating than the September 11 attacks, judging from the recent performance of the stock market.

Obama's appointment of Panetta is a statement of contempt for the very idea that the War on Terrorism is important. It is an indication that Obama intends to ignore radical Islam's war against the West so that he can focus instead on his vast expansion of the role of government at home.

After all, a bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends.

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Hamas Fires from Media Headquarters, Reporter Laughs

[HT:RR]
Plenty of criticism has been heaped on the Israeli Defense Forces for firing on United Nations and media headquarters during the operation inside the Gaza Strip. During these incidents, UN employees and reporters claimed it was impossible for Hamas to fire rockets from these compounds and intimated the Israelis intentionally targeted the facilities. Here is one such report . [snip]

But we have at least one confirmed incident of Hamas's launching rockets from a media headquarters:

Al Arabiya reporter Hannan al-Masri is live on the air in Gaza when she is told that Hamas has just fired rockets from inside the Al Arabiya studio building, news which apparently strikes her as quite humorous.

Watch the video below and turn on the subtitles feature. The first laugh might be dismissed as nervous laughter, but the second one can't. She is clearly amused by the launch.

Video available here.

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Hamas: We'll keep smuggling weapons

A day after Hamas announced a truce with Israel, a spokesman for Izzadin Kassam, the group's military wing, stressed that Hamas would continue to rearm, despite efforts to stop weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip. ''Do what you like, but the manufacturing of holy weapons is our goal,'' masked spokesman Abu Obeida said at a Gaza press conference on Monday.

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Chavez Likens Obama's 'Stench' to Bush's

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez apparently doesn't appreciate Barack Obama's classifying him as a supporter of the Colombian terror group, FARC, likening the president-elect's odor to that of Chavez's nemesis, President Bush. In an interview airing on Venezuelan television and reported by The Washington Post Monday, Chavez said Obama has ''the same stench'' as Bush.

[I'm not seeing the change here]

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Russia Asks Obama To Change Course On Ukraine

Russia on Monday called on incoming U.S. President Barack Obama to end Washington's "anti-Russian" policy of granting swift NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the policy had destabilised Ukraine and helped to spark last summer's war in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.

"I would like to hope that the new people in the White House will learn from the mistakes of their predecessors,"

European states led by Germany and France blocked a U.S. drive at a NATO summit last year to grant Ukraine and Georgia a roadmap to membership. Officials said neither country was ready and that membership would unnecessarily provoke Moscow, which considers the ex-Soviet countries as part of its zone of influence...

[if Obama doesn't immediately signal unambiguous support of Ukraine he virtually guarantees its invasion by Russia]

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Russia Will Be a Troublemaker in 2009

The world enters 2009 with Russia in play in a way it hasn't seen in decades. The relevant comparison isn't 1998, when the Russians engaged in default and devaluation but remained within the bounds of their existing political and economic system (as Lenin said, two steps forward, one step back). The history to consider is 1989--as key aspects of the Russian system could change for the worse.

Where could this go? There will be near-zero state tolerance for dissent. And the strongest level of anti-Americanism (and, in many quarters, of broader xenophobia) of any significant emerging market in the world, creates the potential to make security a serious concern--and possibly lead to unrest that disrupts supply chains... [snip]

As the latest gas cutoff to Ukraine shows, the Kremlin puts realpolitik and national interests first. "market discipline" in the aftermath of Georgia did not prevent Moscow from again turning off the tap to Ukraine, and more instances of bare-knuckles foreign policy are likely in 2009.

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Hysterical Hansen Hype: Obama 'Has Four Years to Save Earth'

James Hansen, head of NASA's the Goddard Institute of Space Studies is still bloviating about the catastrophes that await us because of what yours truly and others refer to as globaloney (the belief that the earth is dangerously warming, that human activity is the cause of the warming, and that radical steps that would cause huge reductions in standards of living around the world are required to save the planet from extinction). Reporter Robin McKie carries Hansen's latest "we'd better act or else" warning at the UK Guardian.

Here are the first five paragraphs of McKie's article, if you can bear reading them (bolds after title are mine):

President 'has four years to save Earth'
US must take the lead to avert eco-disaster

Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added. [snip]

Space and time don't allow me to correct every error or to debunk every shoddy argument being made, but here are three egregious busts:

• The US is not the world's greatest carbon emitter. China became the biggest 18 months ago. This was noted in an article carried in .... the UK Guardian. A June 2008 article in the New York Times reported that China had increased its lead.
• Sea ice is back to 1979 levels.
• The alleged White House campaign to "silence" Hansen is an urban legend (scroll down a bit at link).

Of course, by posting on this I am giving Hansen's hysterics wider play. But I figure that commenters can offset the negative impact of the increased exposure with additional debunking of their own. So have at it.

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.

Al Gore ice sculpture unveiled in Fairbanks as invitation to discuss global warming

FAIRBANKS — Al Gore can thank the Nobel Committee for honoring him with last winter’s Nobel Peace Prize. He can also thank Fairbanks businessman Craig Compeau for what could be the farthest-north likeness of the former vice president: A 5-ton ice sculpture of a “shivering” Gore, created during a recent spell of bitterly cold weather in Alaska and aimed at confronting global-warming theories...

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[If 100,000$ won't do it, I doubt an ice sculpture will...

FLASHBACK: $100,000 Offered to Prove Global Warming: Can You Save Al Gore?

As soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore continues to duck every person on the planet willing to debate him about his unproven anthropogenic global warming theories, one well-known skeptic has put his money where his mouth is.

On Monday evening, the website JunkScience.com, owned and managed by Steven Milloy, announced The Ultimate Global Warming Challenge.

As laid out in this video, entrants are asked the following in order to receive $100,000 while, at the same time, saving Al Gore from looking like one of the biggest charlatans to ever walk the face of the planet:

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Gore Losing the War: 59% Don't Believe Man Is Warming the Planet

He won an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize, but a recent poll suggests the Global Warmingist-in-Chief Al Gore is losing his propaganda war to convince Americans carbon dioxide is destroying the planet.

In fact, the number of people who believe that long-term planetary trends are responsible for the relatively small increase in temperatures in recent decades rose ten percent since last April while those viewing it as a man-made problem has decreased by six percent.

Talk about your inconvenient truths.

This has got to be bad news for a man that has bet his reputation as well as his fortune on people buying into his junk science. As reported by Rasmussen Reports Monday:

Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity.

Seven percent (7%) attribute global warming to some other reason, and nine percent (9%) are unsure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. [...]

In April of last year, 47% of Americans blamed human activity versus 34% who viewed long-term planetary trends as the culprit. But the numbers have been moving in the direction of planetary trends since then.

On the eve of the inauguration of a president that has bought this nonsense hook, line, and sinker, we can only hope Congress is paying attention to how the electorate feels about this issue.

Stay tuned.

[I disagree that Obama actually buys this. And the 'war's not of opinion, it's in Congress: the real danger here is that so much money and political power are on the line that our 'representatives' will pursue anti-global-warming policy despite what we think, unless we're very 'unambiguous' in communicating our wishes. I.e., we need another 'comprehensive immigration' moment...

BTW: Britons are ahead of us here: Survey Says: [super] Majority of Britons Believe Global Warming is Natural

So, let's get cracking {it's going to be a long road};



"Reject Global Warming Junk Science - Save Our Economy - Defend Personal Liberties"


Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Obama Transition: http://change.gov/page/content/contact/
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
CA Governor: http://gov.ca.gov/interact mailto:governor@governor.ca.gov
YOUR CA Legislators (Sen+Assy): http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

-- yes pervasive - as is the threat --

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...

and as always, pass it on...

FLAT-SCREEN TV'S TO FACE ENERGY-EFFICIENCY RULES IN CALIFORNIA

HT:NG]
State regulators in California are getting ready to curb the growing power gluttony of TV sets by drafting the nation's first rules requiring retailers to sell only the most energy-efficient models, starting in 2011.

Sales of television sets are growing by 4 million a year, the vast majority of them flat-panels. LCD -- liquid crystal display -- sets use 43 percent more electricity, on average, than conventional tube TVs; larger models use proportionately more. Plasma TVs, which command a relatively small share of the market, need more than three times as much power as bulky, old-style sets.

Officials say the standards, once fully in place, would reduce the state's annual energy needs by an amount equivalent to the power consumed by 86,400 homes. But the consumer electronics industry opposes the regulations, expected to pass in mid-2009, claiming it would remove they're profitable sets and so raise the cost of all other types...

[or we could product more power... hence the above 'pervasive' contacts list...]

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Don't Waste a Crisis?

By Victor Davis Hanson

Euphemism comes from the Greek word euphemia , which means "using the good word" -- usually in place of the accurate bad one. Recently we've become experts at it. Printing trillions more dollars and growing government to cover new debts isn't so bad if we call it "stimulus." That is far smarter than saying something honest like,

"I propose a new $1 trillion debt program."

The old-fashioned spendthrift policies we used to ridicule as congressional pork and "earmarks" are now justified under that ubiquitous nice word "stimulus." If funding another questionable museum in your district was once congressional pork barreling, it will now be a patriotic act to get the national economy moving again.

Yet much of what is driving this national hysteria in our reaction to the current economic downturn is psychological. After all, no plagues, wars or earthquakes have killed our workforce, destroyed our infrastructure or wiped out our computer banks. [snip]

We are going to have to pay these debts back by cutting federal spending and entitlements or raising taxes -- or both. Or we can convince panicky debt holders abroad to loan us even more money for years at near-zero interest rates. Or we can try simply printing trillions of new dollars to inflate the economy while hoping that creditors don't mind being paid with funny money.

What got us in this debacle was the lack of self-control on the part of consumers who borrowed to spend more than they could pay back, rapid growth in government debt, and Wall Street speculators who wanted obscene returns they had not earned.

It would be a pity if the government now trumped these bad examples and turned some helpful federal loan guarantees of troubled banks into a permanent state-run economy with crushing debt for generations to come.

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FOR REAL STIMULUS

The massive new spending program that is being pushed by congressional Democrats emboldened by their newly enhanced majorities is expected to be among the first votes after Obama's inauguration.

Unfortunately, they've intending the least effective way to give the economy a boost. Those who argue for hundreds of billions of dollars for infrastructure projects and "green jobs" have it all wrong. We and others have tried those remedies before and found them wanting:

• Japan followed the same Keynesian game plan after its real estate bust of 1989.
• To the applause of many American liberals, hundreds of trillions of yen were spent on infrastructure, raising outlays on big projects from 6.5% of GDP in 1990 to 8.3 percent % in 1996 -- even more than contemplated under Obama's plan.
• It didn't work; the 1990s were a "lost decade" for Japan's economy, and the country is still stagnating.
• Its infrastructure boom did have one lasting legacy, however: Japan is now the most heavily indebted nation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

According to research cited by former top White House economist Greg Mankiw, each $1 of tax cuts brings $3 in added GDP. This study is particularly significant because one of its authors, Christina Romer, is Obama's chief economic adviser.

Simply handing blank checks to Congress and the White House, and letting them pass an ill-considered stimulus plan with little transparency and no checks on spending is a very bad idea.

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ALL COULD BE WELL

The solution to the health care problems in this country is not more of what caused the problem -- a growing third-party-payer system -- but competition.

In markets where the procedures aren't covered by insurance or some other third party, and patients are responsible for paying their own bills, the providers almost always compete on the basis of price and quality. Herrick looked at the markets in cosmetic surgery, laser eye surgery, laboratory and diagnostic testing, prescription drugs, walk-in clinics, telephone consultations and concierge medical services. He found:

• Entrepreneurs competing for patients' business offer greater convenience, lower prices and innovative services unavailable in traditional clinical settings.
• Access to health care is increased where there is competition.

It should be obvious that when prices are set and services determined by a third-party bureaucracy, as in most of our medical care markets, the system is headed for trouble. The gross failures of the British and Canadian models are evidence that such a system cannot be sustained.

Rather than promote policies that give us more of what has corrupted most of the medical care markets in the United States, as well as ruined treatment in Britain and Canada, lawmakers need to encourage competition. Health care is not a right but a service, and like all services, it is best allocated when government intervention is low.

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Title IX Enforcement

The granddaddy of all gender equity concerns is Title IX. Originally passed in 1972, Title IX is a law that was designed to eliminate sex discrimination in schools receiving federal funds. In practice, it affects everything from sexual harassment policies to athletics (with increasing pressure to spread regulations further into classrooms, particularly math and science).

Since 1979, Title IX enforcement policies have centered around the concept of “proportionality,” which essentially means that the gender breakdown of athletes must mirror the gender breakdown of the student body at a given school. If 50% of the student body is female, 50% of the athletes must also be female.

Today, this creates big challenges for many schools, since females represent a strong majority on most campuses (about six in ten students nationally) and more men express greater interest in participating in athletics. To make the numbers work, schools are left with the option of increasing program options for women or cutting program options for men.

Unfortunately, the latter is all too common...

[this is social engineering, but not to worry - the victims are men]

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COMPENSATION AND LABOR PRODUCTIVITY

The relation between wages and worker productivity is a key determinant of the standard of living of the employed population.

According to research by economist Martin Feldstein, the share of national income going to employees is at about the same level as it was in 1970. But the use of an incorrect inflation adjustment has resulted in skewed findings showing a large and increasing gap between productivity and wages:

• The doubling of productivity since 1970 represented a 1.9 percent annual rate of increase, while real compensation per hour rose at 1.7 percent per year.
• Between 2000 and 2007, productivity rose at a more rapid 2.9 percent per year and compensation rose nearly as fast, at 2.5 percent per year.
• Total labor compensation has been remarkably stable since the 1970s, at 66 percent of national income in 1970 to 65 percent in 2007.

Feldstein concludes that two principal measurement mistakes have led some analysts to erroneously conclude that labor income growth has not kept up with productivity growth. The largest is a focus on wages rather than total compensation; because of the [often mandated] rise in non-cash benefits, wages have not risen as rapidly as total compensation.

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Panel chairmen fighting mad over snubs by Pelosi

Senior House Democrats have a message for their Speaker: We’re mad as hell, and we’re only taking it this one last time.

As congressional Democrats take the lead in responding to the sinking economy, subcommittee and even some full-committee chairmen — who normally wield significant influence in writing legislation — have been forced to wait on the sidelines as monumental bills are written in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office

“This is really set to come to a head soon,” said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who chairs the Energy and Commerce Oversight subcommittee. “The question is: Are we actually going to get a chance to legislate"

["the most ethical congress in history"]

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William Ayers turned back at Canadian border


An American education professor, one of the founders of a radical 1960s group known as the Weather Underground, which was responsible for a number of bombings in the United States in the early 1970s, was turned back at the Canadian border last night.

Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a leader in educational reform, was scheduled to speak at the Centre for Urban Schooling at University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. But that appearance has now been temporarily cancelled. [snip]

Kugler waited for five hours at the Toronto Island airport for Ayers. He was with a lawyer, but the border guard refused to allow Ayers to see the lawyer.

"The entire four or five hours he was not allowed to have representation at all. To me this is an issue of academic freedom."

[Right. I'm sure it was all about academics and not about the fact the guy bombs government buildings. Funny they'd have a lawyer on hand at the border for a simple academic.]

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