When I was younger, I was thinking that people can be either artists or scientists. Then i realised that this is a wrong thought as i have met many people who can be both.

Now my question is the following :If we take as granted the fact that scientists tend to be realistic and logical and artists tend to be romantic and utopians, is there more chance to meet a scientist who can appreciate and be inspired by art or an artist who can appreciate and be inspired by science?? Please vote i want to know your opinion about that!

http://www.thinkaloo.com

When I go to a museum or gallery I love to listen to the audio tour and learn more about every single painting or sculpture. What usually holds me back from buying the audio tour and adding myself to the museum's long list of benefucktors is my humble student income realities. That's when my artistic mind gets practical. If they can't make audio tours free for students, why can't they place audio ads to play in between or at the start/end of the tracks? It's a win-win deal for all. Museums make money without charging their best and most unprosperous customers whose poverty-stricken beggarly hearts and minds will certainly appreciate it. Are any museum benefucktors reading this?? Please take note! :)

http://www.thinkaloo.com

la french presidente is a head over heels clown. just a few french fries short of a happy meal, his protocol says whoever stands next to him gets the short end of the stick. carla knows she'll never get to see the long end of it so she's made peace with her hormones. what-you-see-is-what-you get releases me from the embarrassment to explain who's the long of it and who's the short of it. let's just appreciate the fact that she's a perfect roll modele for all french men with altitude insecurities. sarkozy serves her a big head on short sticks and steep heels, she shoes him flat and modestly. to cut a long story short, if you're no more than 5'5" arms-stretched, the more you heel the more your dick will never heal. sexy french first wife...you got seriously dick-changed there.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

If courier pigeons can be relied to carry business data cross country, why not rely on them to carry flowers and a love letter to my girlfriend on Valentine's day and on our anniversary? The developing world makes use of pigeons because they lack basic infrastructure. The developed world can make use of pigeons because we lack romance that's truly original, authentic and utterly imaginative. I see a large new market opening up and great business opportunities for Winston and his family. Some birdie num num for tip would be greatly appreciated by Winston :)

"An IT company in South Africa pitted an 11-month-old courrier pigeon armed with a 4GB memory stick against the ADSL service from the country's biggest web firm, Telkom. Winston the pigeon took 2 hours to carry the data 60 miles - in the same time the ADSL had sent 4% of the data."

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Look, I have been taught to be polite. So, in my case, if I am at a party with my family, I smile at someone. No harm done, right?

Well, to them-- yes. Some people look at me and just... glare. I mean, what have I done wrong? And then when my younger sister smiles at someone, they have a huge grin on their face.

And then I am there looking dumbfounded, thinking.... What the heck? I don't say or do anything, but merely walk away.

Obviously you guys don't know me, but I'd like to hear some of your theories. If you can come up with any from the little information I have given you.

And if you are going to feed me crap, I'd rather not hear it. And no, I am not fishing for compliments. I don't have time for that rubbish..

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Hello everyone. I am here to talk to you about the flaws society has when dealing with the college system. Yes society, us, we have a major flaw in how we view college.

Let me give you an example, There are two students that want a certain job at the same time. Student A went to a 4 year college and got a bachelors degree for that job. Student B went to a 2 year technical school to gain the skills necessary for that job.

Now based on this, who do you think will get the job? Of course almost everyone would say student A. But now why is student A more likely to get the job than the other student? Both students have all the skills needed to work in that job. So why? Is it because student A's college is more prestige then a technical school? It can't be, how famous and renowned a school is would have nothing to do with a person's ability to do the job. Maybe it is because student A can analyze a book and write a 10 page paper on it. Well that can't be it either, if the job has nothing to do with reading books then being able to do that would be pointless. Or is it because student A spent the time and money to pay for an expensive college. Now that would not make any sense, for it should not matter how much money you spent or for how long you it took you to finish. So once again why is student A going to get the job and not student B? The truth is, there is no real reason. Student A is getting the job just because he has a piece of paper that says bachelor's degree on it. So who's fault is it that this is happening? I will tell you, the fault lies within our society. The people as a whole are to blame for this. You have to see that society says people without college degrees are inferior to those that do. Society will openly judge a person based on, if they have a degree or not. Society will completely ignore all of the work experience you gained if you do not have a degree. A person with a degree will even get paid more for doing the same work. I know people that have great jobs but can never leave that job because they will never get hired in the same field because they do not have a degree.

These people have worked very hard without a degree to get to where they are. But since they do not have a degree they are the first ones to get laid off or replaced by others that are fresh out of college. So some of these people have decided to go to college and are wasting 4 or more years of their life just to get a piece of paper labeled degree. Not to mention the thousands of dollars they will spend for classes they do not need. How is this fair? We say we have an equal opportunity market, but only people that have the financial stability to go to college will have greater opportunities. This leaves poor families with no chance to compete when they cannot afford to go to such colleges.

Why does society see college as the only way to have a stable career? Society has to remember the fundamental idea that drives colleges. A college is a business. And what do all businesses want, to increase their profits. Which, by the way, colleges are doing very well at. Colleges are gaining such large profits by using one word.

Requirements. If you only went to college and took the classes that you needed for a particular job then this system would not be so flawed. But colleges use the word requirements to force you to take more classes and spend more money while taking those classes. An example of these requirements is all the liberal arts classes one must take. If you are not going into a career that requires you to write analytically then you are just wasting your time. And yes I do admit that most jobs will need you to write up a paper or a report but you do not need 4 different classes to teach you how to do that, especially when you should have learned that from high school. Basically Just about all the requirements can be covered through high school and middle school, with simple refresher classes provided in college for those that need/want it. I am going to stress the word need because not everyone needs to relearn how to write a paper. This goes back to my first example, where both students have all the skills needed to work in that job, but student A pays more for requirements that are not needed and takes a much longer time to finish with the education. While student A is wasting time with useless requirements student B can be getting real world experience by working. Student B can even go to a different technical school and gain skills for a different career in the time it takes student A to finish college. But even when student B has the skills to do two different careers he/she would be seen as inferior to student A. This is a major reason why the system is flawed.

Now I propose a solution to this problem, I am proposing an idea for a new system to take over how people get degrees. The first thing that would need to be done is to disassociate all degrees from colleges. The next thing to be done is to set a system of exams that would determine whether a candidate is qualified for a certain degree. These exams would be similar to the bar examination and the divers test. The bar exam is a great example because you do not need a college degree by practicing attorney for an extended period of time. Another reason this is a great example is because it should not matter where or how you gained the skills needed for a career, being able to perform the tasks needed of you is all that should be important. I also say these exams would be similar to the driver's test because the driver's test proves that the exams do not have to be limited to pen and paper, but can be a physical exam based on the career the exam is for or even a combination of the both. Think about it, for the thousands of people working that do not have a degree but have the skills necessary for the career they want to spend one day or a week, however long the exam is, and take an exam that would give them the degree or certification that states they are qualified to pursue that career. This allows less fortunate families to find alternate ways to learn the skills needed for good careers. This also allows colleges to keep their study programs and requirements for people that are financially able to pay for, but after graduating from college they would still need to take an exam toward the career they want to be recognized as qualified. With this system everyone can follow their career with enough hard work and not just people financially stable.

This new system sounds great on paper but will mean nothing if it remains on paper. Nothing will change if society does not acknowledge the flawed system we have now.

If you agree with what I have said then please pass this on to others and help them understand what is happening. We are the people and the people have power when we act united as one.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

They call them organized beaches in Greece, "Organized" obviously being an euphemism for stealing your money, an act of organized charity you are made to feel grateful for. Just to enter the premises and sit under an umbrella you pay 40 Euros!! That's Asteras in Vouliagmeni. You hope your 40 Euros buys you something of substance, like coffee, drinks, sunscreen, magazines or whatever will add some comfort to your "organized beach experience"? Forget about it. The only thing your 40 Euros will get you is pretentious posing, thin Attica air and the promise of seeing Vandi or other Greek celebs only Greeks who pay 40 Euros for the umbrella entry know. No thanks! I rather look at myself in the mirror and since I'm a REAL celebrity pay a normal 5 Euro price for umbrella and coffee which is what all those cheap celebs pay anyway in return for luring the crowds to their pretentious "organized" dupe.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

I have the Nokia E71 cell, the guy who sold it to me told me it has everything I need. I'm generally happy with it but I noticed most super phones these days don't come with what I think is a very handy function. I'm surprised designers have totally missed it. When I want to change my profile to mute I have to go through the menu. An external mute button on the side that does the same thing or a shortcut press of existing keys is what's really missing from my cell. When I forget to set it at mute, a call comes in and rings loud. I must either answer, let ring or hang up. With the use of an external button I want to instantly change the ringing tone to mute without going through the menu. It's so easy to make.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

We all love the ride and thrill on the coaster because we are reassured it's safe. Nothing bad will happen. Muahaha. Enhance the adrenaline rush by tricking the emotional system visually, mess up our play-safe expectations and stake false appearances. Deceive the eyes of the uninitiated beholder. Muahahaha. Yes, manufacture it with The Best safety standards in the world. Advertise it as such, have it make it on Guinness records. But make it look shabby, wrecked and crumbling. Rusty railings and clearly broken-looking components. Make it rasp, squeak and creak from the moment you walk in. Most abandoned and derelict, it falls down like thick fog.

Homeless-looking staff ask who's brave to die today. A general air of incompetence enshrouds and ensorcells. Muahaha. Display death certificates for purchase before the ride for those who won't make it. Those who might can later exchange them for ones saying "I-got-lucky-this-time-only". Muahahaha.

Ladies, this is how all decent roller coasters should look like from now on. Muahahahahahaha...

http://www.thinkaloo.com

I ask for your support to put pressure to change the wording of this commercial. A German charity wants to link Aids with mass murder. Ahead of World Aids Day in December they created an ad that shows a couple having sex, but it is only at the end that the man is revealed as Hitler. The tagline reads: "Aids is a mass murderer." The worry is that people with HIV will be stigmatized. Is it fair to stigmatize people who had safe sex but caught the virus another way, for example by having transfusion of contaminated blood or through drug use? I don't think stigmatizing millions of people with HIV is fair. The tagline should instead be "Unprotected Sex is Mass Murder". We should fight against irresponsible behavior, not stigmatize people with the condition and make it even more difficult for those who have HIV but don't know it come forward and test themselves. Just one wrong word in the tagline and the message gets out the wrong way...

http://www.thinkaloo.com

1. Create a gentle cleaning solution. The ideal solution is plain distilled water. If more heavy cleaning is needed a 50/50 mix of white vinegar and distilled water can also be effective.
* Manufacturers no longer recommend using any cleaners with alcohol, ammonia or any strong solvents on LCD screens.

2. Put the solution in a small atomizer bottle, the type that you push from the top to get a fine mist. Don't use this, however, to spray on the screen itself.

3. Apply--a minimal amount of--the solution to a cotton cloth, such as an old T-shirt, lint-free microfiber cloth, or some other very soft cloth. A large cloth is best, since it will help to reduce the risk of leaving streaks across the screen from finger pressure. Do not make the cloth wet, only moist. A wet cloth can drip or run when cleaning the screen and the solution can weep behind the bezel and permanently damage your screen!

4. Wipe the cloth against the screen in a circular, or other consistent motion. Rapid circular movements generally eliminate streaks. Apply--a gentle--and even pressure to the cloth. Use only enough pressure to keep the cloth in contact with the screen. Take care not to press your fingers into the cloth or screen. Applying too much force when cleaning the screen can permanently damage the LCD matrix rendering your screen unusable.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

i suspect every pretentious dimwit out there suddenly wants to find out how it works. don't worry numskulls, i have it all figured out. but let's just say i'm not in the mood to impress every diehard sucker one of you, therefore, i won't give out my hullabaloo engineering hoopla and all that bling until i see some pennies for my thought first. i'll only let you know it's called a...clothes line. NOT! :D

http://www.thinkaloo.com

i suspect every pretentious dimwit out there suddenly wants to find out how it works. don't worry numskulls, i have it all figured out. but let's just say i'm not in the mood to impress every diehard sucker one of you, therefore, i won't give out my hullabaloo engineering hoopla and all that bling until i see some pennies for my thought first. i'll only let you know it's called a...clothes line. NOT! :D

http://www.thinkaloo.com

The Guru said. Please take a moment to contemplate with me the names of two of our nation's largest and most respected credit rating agencies.

Moody's...Standard And Poor's...Cheeze Everyone, that's the state of our economy.

Toxic, junk and AAA. Our beloved agencies gave the world the magic that turned all the former into all the latter. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world...The 70s saw the end of the gold standard. And now we see the beginning of the poor standard. But Don't worry, the Guru said. The Moody's They Are A-Changin'

http://www.thinkaloo.com

I was out with my friend and wanted someone to take a photo of us. I asked a cute girl who was jogging to take it. I gave her my camera and instructions how to use it. When I thanked her for taking the photo I told her that I was happy to hand her the camera because I noticed that she is very fit and a good runner but not as fast as I am and that's very important to know before I ask someone to take a photo of me with my camera. She asked why? I told her that's because if she runs away with the camera I need to be able to catch up to her..!! :)

http://www.thinkaloo.com

September 3, 2009

7:20 p.m. - 8:05 p.m., Greece

I had the most memorable evening swim complemented by a very touching and beautiful gesture. A love note on the beach meant for me.

I arrived at the beach on a beautiful sunset around 7:20pm. The place was empty and calm. I could only see two girls a few meters to my right lying on the beach facing the sunset and apparently taking looks at me as I made my way into the water.

I stayed in the water swimming for about half an hour till a beautiful full moon pinned like a silver plate took its turn on the sky.

I come out of the water and take a look around me. No one's there any more. It's getting dark and cold and the girls who were lying nearby are also gone.

I walk towards the spot I left my towel. As I make my way to reach it, I notice this note carefully placed on the towel with a stone acting as paper weight against the wind.

The girls I had seen earlier must have written it and placed it there. They were the only ones around. I didn't take a good look at their faces but they did at mine.

I don't know if they were Greek or foreigners but it doesn't matter. I know they were nice.

And their beautiful gesture proves it!

If you're not one of the girls but you clicked on the photo and read the note, you'll agree it was very nice of them what they did.

Imagine their beautiful gesture for a moment.

They saw me getting into the water and swimming far away from the shore. They must have been observing me even though I didn't notice them doing so. Most probably they spent a good part of their time talking about me while I was in the sea swimming for both of them :)

As they were "living" the beach, they scrapped a piece of paper and wrote those short and very nice words for me to read and remember the time, the place, the chance encounter that never happened, the presence of all of us being there.

No names. No contact details.

Just the memory of it on the paper whose back side hints at some kind of card game they might have been playing.

That was the kind of gesture to make the heart of any Spartan melt.

I'm "living" the place tomorrow so I won't be able to come back and look for them.

But I can return the gesture, I thought, by posting this beautiful note online in the hope that one day one of the girls will stumble upon these lines, see the note and take pleasure from knowing that their thoughts of me were well received and greatly appreciated.

I have my reasons for not mentioning the name of the place.

If they come across this post one day and see their note, they will know it can only have been the sweet boy swimming for them as they were "living" the beach that 3rd of September evening in Greece. Only he could have gotten the note. There was no one else at the beach at the time.

I don't know if they will ever get to read these lines. Even if they do one day, many years may have passed by then. But if the girls who wrote the note and left it on the beach ever decide to contact me, I would know it's them because they will be able to tell me the name of the place.

Whoever you are beautiful-girl-note-droppers, please know that you touched the Spartan's heart.

His only regret is that you weren't around to see the smile on his face as he picked up the note and read it...

http://www.thinkaloo.com

"I eat the sun," Japan's First Lady Miyuki Hatoyama says, raising her arms as if to tear pieces off an imaginary sun. "Like this: yum, yum, yum. It gives me enormous energy. My husband has recently started doing that too."

The land of the Eaten-San is stuck deep in the hole. Creative solutions were desperately needed. We looked around for some unique skills in people to get us out of the mess. Someone whose wife's resume includes being abducted by aliens and a trip to Venus to verify that the grass is green and the girls are pretty sure is the best person you want to hire for the job. I am confident we made the right choice.

So now, if we can all, following the example of our leader, start eating the sun, some of its warmth will go away.

We have it all figured out. If we can just let the people do what's natural to them then Global Warming will go the Kyoto path and global hunger will also be solved!

Here's the trailer for "Mission Impossible 2009: In the land of the Eaten-San", starring, in this life, Miyuki Hatoyama and Tom Cruise.

At least they seem to be genuinely in love. That should count for something, right?

http://www.thinkaloo.com

That's what we should consider calling a "private" guard working for the US Embassy in Afghanistan.

They are private, because they are not ashamed to show their private parts.

They are ferocious and fearless, because they're not afraid to shock the Taliban into retreat by showing up in the line of fire armor-free.

It's always with a great sense of fiction that I read such stories on the news. That can't be real...???

We are daily bombarded with news and opinions about the lack of progress in Afghanistan 8 years after the US, with the help of NATO, kicked the Taliban out of the country.

Hundreds of European and American soldiers get killed there, the Taliban are coming back from Pakistan to reclaim territory and sabotage all progress achieved so far and things are just not working well or as well as we would like them to.

As I follow the news in that part of the world I am always left wondering. Why? Why can't we succeed there? We are throwing military and economic resources in that country, yet we seem to be the ones into retreat 8 years after we supposedly Talibanned the place.

Something just doesn't feel right.

Then I read this news and that something which didn't feel right becomes clear.

"Allegations surfaced last week that contractor ArmorGroup North America allowed mistreatment, sexual activity and intimidation within the ranks of private guards hired to protect the embassy in Kabul. The company and U.S. officials are investigating."

"We've immediately taken several actions," said Ambassador Karl Eikenberry. "First of all, 13 of the employees of ArmorGroup have been terminated from their contracts. That's a combination of some management and any of the individuals that were involved in this very disgusting behavior that occurred."

Two things amaze me in this story. The fact that "management" is involved is the first. The second is the use of the word "disgusting" to describe how WE feel about it.

If it is "disgusting" to us in the West who are supposed to be a little more tolerant of parties, booze, boobs and gays, how are the locals supposed to feel about it?

The irony is that this has nothing to do with the Koran or Islam and the locals' morals, their tolerance or lack of it to things Western. This is us calling ourselves disgusted and us firing the people who we hire to guard us from the people we feel disgust for their hate of us and who we force to change with overwhelmingly superior force which also doesn't seem to bring the results we want.

First it was Abu Ghraib in Iraq. A few years later, Obama wants Guantanamo closed as well. One would expect that "management" of the private guards in the US embassy in Kabul would know by now that this is not the kind of behavior to permit under any circumstances whatsoever anywhere in the world, least of all in fucking Afghanistan.

Unless they really believe that place has been totally fucked up and the hopes for a better outcome there are a pie in the sky, it just doesn't make sense that these incidents still keep happening with the "disgusting" patterned frequency they are happening.

It is one thing when one private soldier does something indecent and a different thing altogether when 13 people, including management are fired for "disgusting" behavior in Afghanistan.

This is a US embassy spokesman referring to the incident NOT using diplomatic language. The most diplomatic of all institutions representing the US government is using emotional language to describe the way WE feel about the way the people we hire to do things we don't want them to do.

This is very unusual and sick. We seem to be at a loss as these incidents are popping up like dots in a pattern we can't seem to be able to put an end to or at least bring under control.

Sure. We fired all 13 of them. But that's only after the news came out and was impossible to cover up. For all we know, orgies are addictive and whoever claims they only took part once or they had to take their shirts off because it was too hot dancing so close to the fire, it's like claiming they smoked the poppy but never inhaled it. Yeah, right!

How on naked earth do we expect that just by firing the privates we can still win the locals' hearts and minds and TaliBan this Fucking Poppyland?

Oh yes, silly me. Of course I should have noticed the naked truth staring at me through the fire like a Talibani imbecile.

The privates' faces in the photo are covered in black ink so they are not exposed.

YES! That's something the Taliban and the locals can appreciate.

Cover Up!

If we can start by covering up the faces, at some point, we will learn to cover up the rest of the body and private parts.

That's the kind of logic we can expect all local Afghanistanis to appreciate.

These guys should really like us. They are so wrong hating us and not welcoming us there with OpenArms, ArmsUp, UnArmed, UnArmored and Totally EnAmored!

In my private parts, I know that's the case. But I'll keep it private for now, for my private pirate code of ethics doesn't allow me to expose all my private thoughts in public.

But I don't mind if You want to!

Yours EnAmored,
JackSparrow

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Am I allowed to buy life insurance on someone else's life and also own a licence to kill him? Right. Then why am I allowed to buy a credit default swap (a form of unregulated insurance) on a company whose bonds I own that will pay me shit loads more money if the company goes bust than if I sell the bonds in the market for a profit? If you can't have your pie and eat it too when it comes to someone's life, why allow it when it comes to their money? It's lethal and deadly. Not even the Mafia could collect life insurance on someone else's life, so why are we still discussing allowing the practice on Wall Street?

http://www.thinkaloo.com

You know how some people spend more time in their lifetime reading books in the loo than in a library or study room. Those who spend a lifetime studying in libraries don't give a shit about conducting an intellectual activity anywhere else but the library. Those who spend more time reading books in the loo give way too much shit about conducting their intellectual activity anywhere butt the library. Taking a crap becomes one with the intellectual process. When they don't flush right away, that's trying to retain as much as possible in their memory before it all gets flushed any way...:P:P:P

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Women often find themselves stuck with the following dilemma. Should I tell my boyfriend I am not happy with our sex life or hold back to avoid hurting his feelings? I want to ask men. What do you think of women who tell their boyfriends they haven't been good enough in bed only after they break up? Would you rather hear it from her directly or find out through gossip from others, in which case you can deny it's true, bitch on your ex and blame it on her?

http://www.thinkaloo.com

That will happen the day twitter allows users to text longer messages. Currently the limit is at 140 characters. Groups of little birds lift the whale out of the water. That's fun to imagine but you got to remember that whales only live underwater. Use larger birds to take the whale out on a longer ride and soon the whale will twitterend. What do you think makes twitter so popular? Sms-short messages or the fact that so many people use it?

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Is there anyone who claims they Never had a friend of the opposite sex that, at one time or another, they thought, "should I just sleep with him/her or not?"

Anyone who claims Never, they don't exist :)

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Go to this website and surprise your friends with a magic trick. This is not new, but I'm sharing the trick and the explanation for those who haven't seen it or tried it. It's smart. Definitely worth a few seconds to try it.

What you will see when you go to the page is this: you are at the Google homepage, and you casually ask someone to watch the Google logo. Then, you move two of your fingers to completely cover the "o"s in the Google logo. When you remove your fingers, to much surprise, the letters "o" will be missing from the logo. Now you ask your friend to move her fingers over the missing "o"s. After your friend removes the fingers, the logo will be complete again!

The trick here? It's not really the Google homepage you and your friend are looking at, it's a fake page. And when you click on the page, the letters of the logo will disappear after five seconds. Clicking again will make them reappear after five more seconds. So when you move your fingers to cover the Google logo, simply click anywhere on the page, and wait a bit before you remove your fingers...and when your friend covers the letters, you click again. (A third click, by the way, will change the page to an actual Google homepage so you can perform searches to "prove" the page is real :)

http://www.thinkaloo.com

I feel so depressed.

The Prime Minister announced early elections two years after he had announced early elections citing "Major crisis" then, citing "MAJOR crisis" now.

What so depresses me is that the emphasis in our leader's minds is in capitalizing major than in overcoming our collective crisis.

Elections might prove the best course of action to avoid worse later. But we will only know that after the result of the elections, won't we?

Some people might be feeling elated or relieved. Probably those who see themselves coming into power.

But I'm not feeling happy at all about how our Prime Minister declared my country's sense of buckruptcy. Real Bankruptcy on the horizon folks!

One thing in particular that saddened me was realizing once again that our political world governs everything in relation to what others have done worse, not in relation to their dreams for a better outcome.

They are definitely worse than us so that makes us so much better. Just like that. Vote for us!

If only Einstein had lived in Greece, he would have come up with the theory of relativity at a much younger age. The theory's spirit would have been so obvious to him and would have assured him about the universe too.

That's infinitely certain.

Since in Greece everything is infinitely uncertain, however, I work very hard to eliminate "relative thinking" from my system for the sake of healthy personal growth. It's not that I don't like my relatives or that I want to get rid of them, although getting rid of some of them would be nice.

It's their worst-habit superlatives I can't stand. It hasn't been easy to unplug those even though they never entrenched inside in any grave depth. So I've done it.

And the result has been wonderful. I'm on a path of healthy and rewarding growth when people around me seem confused and lost in theirs.

Yet I can see how those Goddamn bad habits still govern the thinking process of most Greeks around me. Feels like a leech sucking the blood out in remarkable piecemeal fashion. Appetizers first, tzatziki, garlic and a big fat greek salad next, taking us through to the main corpse and then to the Attica desert.

Leaders and followers we all dine alike in our pretty little minds. Everyone is allowed to check out any time we want but we never live for the exit. No will. That's why. It's all about here and now.

Do you still hope this time's here and now will deal a decisive blow to the Greek beast? Keep Walker.

Since no one else seems to be offering Dope or any hope to pin that last drop of dope on, I'll keep drooling on.

I don't know who to vote and I don't care who I will end up voting for in the end. I don't care about people, their names or their faces anymore. Thinking about it makes me sick. Sicking it further, well I don't think I deserve that.

Karamanlis and Papandreou. Same names for so many years. My grandparents voted for them and then they made sure the dealers stayed the same. So that I don't have to bother memorizing any new names. Thanks Grands. Whenever I look for my dope, the same dupes bring it to me.

The ship's sinking everyone. There's only one thought of solace that calms my panic.

Unlike the Atlantic, our warm Mediterranean waters offer hope that those who are good swimmers can make it to the shore alive.

No one will freeze and not everyone will drown, a lot more will be saved.

Captain! (that's what I call him when he gets horny......ideas)...My captain!! Put the old, the sick and the dying on life boats and let the sexy, young and the restless swim to the shore.

"Don't hold Kate!", Leonardo good-boy. That's an order. Throw her into the Greek sharks and shave yourselves onto rocky Mykonos where you can make love all day.

I'm ready for love baby. Greek-style!

Hot, sexy and pro-pleasurist. Full of dope and hope for the future. YeS!

The dope of the matter is, the buck stops with me. And that makes me feel so much better already! :)

http://www.thinkaloo.com

there are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. pay each one million for early retirement with the condition that a) they must retire (create instantly 40 million job openings and fix unemployment) b) must buy a new american car (auto industry fixed) and c) must buy a house or pay off a mortgage (housing and banking crisis fixed). if the fix doesn't gratify instantly, move everyone to canada. those who don't like canada can go to capitalist china. or is it communist? not sure

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I've often wondered why the ancients were so obsessed with virgins. Did they feel threatened by experienced women who are always better lovers? Anyone here care to comment?

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As a little kid I would never fail to pick up inappropriate words and use them in ways adults would understand but feel resigned to let go. This story is a true testament to my outrageous sense of humor as a little kid.

Once upon a time I got furiously mad at my parents for embarrassing me in front of their friends. I found myself in that strange frame of mind where all revenge is sweet and possible, just like the fruits of a tree.

I needed a clever way to embarrass them back so I thought to make use of the peach tree we have at our orchard. When guests would visit our place for the first time, my father would proudly serve them the fruits of that tree's labors. Without exception, I noticed, everyone would comment how delicious and aromatic those fruits were. And what a nice texture they had but little did they know why!

When my parents would excuse themselves to prepare dinner, the guests would shift their full attention to me and try to be nice to me although they had just heard from my parents what a prankster and little devil I was and all that embarrassing stuff.

That was the moment I was waiting for.

"Did you know who actually planted the peach tree?", I would innocently ask.

"Who?", they will ask back feigning surprise thinking it must have been my father.

"I did!", I'd shout back. "Let me show you"

You don't need to be a prodigy to know how gullible adults are when it comes to showing them something you have done all by yourself and you are so proud of. They will never say no.

"Here it is", I would point to the tree. "They taught us at school how to make trees nature's way."

"That's nice, so how did you do it?", they would ask back unsuspectingly.

"That was easy. I had just eaten a few peaches my father brought from the market. One of them was so small I ate the seed too. I would later go out and dig a little hole with my toy shovel, take my pants off and poo poo into the hole. I would cover it up and after that I would water it every day or pee into it to help nature do its work faster"

As I finished my sentence, an awkward smile would appear on their face.

"That's right. Why did you think the peach crap you just ate tasted so well? They all came from my ass!", I would say and laugh.

That's when all smile on the guests' face would suddenly disappear...

Changing into a serious face, I would finish them off,

"You know, we were told all about Birth from your Rectum at school, that it's nature's way of growing seeds into trees with the help of humans. I didn't know what a rectum was so I looked it up online and found out some people call it 'Anal Birth'. Don't you know? It's so cool! You should try it at your backyard too one day"

After my father beat the shit out of me that day, he told me to never go anywhere close to that tree again.

I didn't mind. My revenge had worked and there were so many other trees in our orchard.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

I never had a Facebook page nor an interest in starting one. Most people sound very surprised when I tell them that. Why, all of a sudden, am I made to look like an outcast? You can see it in their eyes, some people think this is anti-social behavior. I'm just careful about my privacy. I don't believe things ever stay private in Facebook. People I know use it all the time to stalk on others and then brag about it. Sometimes they only communicate with people through Facebook. I don't see what's socially healthy about it. When people sound too surprised when I tell them I'm not on Facebook, I know it's them, not me, who have an issue. They assume wrong. That's what I call a Facefool!

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One-way missions mean the astronauts will die in space or in another planet. One-way trips will save a lot of money. When people were exploring the Earth hundreds of years ago, they never expected they might return. Do you have moral objections to supporting one-way trips to space if the astronauts agree to die in space and are ok with never returning back to Earth?

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What would happen if we sneaked a tiny little clause in the fine print of new finance regulations that will allow our President to invoke Taxpayer Privilege in using inside info to manipulate the market on behalf of taxpayers?

Scenario 1. Health care reform doesn't pass. Health insurance and medical companies' stocks make a rally. The White House knows about the deal before the news reach the market and instructs the Treasury to buy health stocks. With the trillion profits it will make selling them after the news is out, it bails out taxpayers. That's Sweet!

Scenario 2. The health bill can pass but the White House announces that it doesn't have the deal it wants. Technically speaking, that is an accurate statement of the government's intentions. The market interprets it as no-deal on health care and stocks rally. The Treasury sells the stocks short. Profits and health care go back to the taxpayers. That's sweet-killing of two birds with one stone. Sweet nevertheless!

That's all good and nice in "A Perfect World" where free markets exist.

Since we don't live in "A Perfect World", we get to make up for loss of free markets with plenty of free imagination.

In executing some of my free supply of it, I imagine a unanimous vote on the Executive Privilege of allowing the President to invoke Taxpayer Privilege and have the market pay back taxpayers for free! :))

http://www.thinkaloo.com

I think this story will turn into a very funny movie one day. I'm willing to bet my bank's money on it. Here's how it got reported on the news:

"The FBI in Denver is on the lookout for a serial bank robber dubbed the 'Shaggy Bandit' for his resemblance to cartoon canine Scooby-Doo's human sidekick...According to the FBI, the Shaggy Bandit enters a bank, approaches a teller and demands money. He displays a backpack and generally gets the money (!) and is out the door before any customers even know what is happening."

He generally gets the money?? Just by asking? Never mind that demanding money from your bank, technically speaking, isn't a robbery. I thought the point of calling it a robbery is that it is forced. The guy enters the bank, doesn't carry a weapon nor does he display one. He demands money as in "Scooby-Doo me your money" or who knows what the magic words are, and just like that he gets it!?

J u s t - l i k e - t h a t? Awesome!

Some people might wonder if this is possible. It's true our government spent billions to bail out the banks. With so much money sitting around in the vaults, this guy might be showing us the fastest way to get it back into the economy.

It wouldn't surprise me if our banks are so flooded with taxpayers' money and so confused what to do with it, they are simply giving it away.

This guy is either too brilliant or working for Sacha Cohen on Borat's sequel and why not? a book called "How to ask your bank to give you money and generally get it..'

Zoinks!

Can you imagine Sacha Cohen playing the Shaggy-Bandit when this whole thing becomes a movie?

This is a heck of a story. I bet my money this will become a great movie. I 'm so sure about it, I will go raise my bank's money to prove it.

Now where did I leave my hat, sunglasses and backpack again? :)

http://www.thinkaloo.com

A friend showed this site to another friend who then asked her the following question:

"So is this a good site to follow if you never had to think for yourself?"

What do you say to her??

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The photo was taken a day after the fires took a break from work because a) they got tired b) felt lazy c) showed respect for the Acropolis d) found no more forest to rage through e) all of the above. Please believe everything I'm telling you because the sign in this photo is not a joke. It wasn't staged or meant as humor. It's for Real! The sign reads "FOR SALE". Now, I am no forensic expert, but there was a major fire around it, and the sign seems clean and white. In other words, brand new.

Whoever put the sign out there is the world's proudest Real Estate Arsonist advertising his services to all interested parties. Business-as-usual.

Don't call him an arrogant idiot for posting his phone number on the sign. He thinks he is so smart for not making the mistake to post his photo. That was an option which would have helped all potential invisible-forest buyers remember him better.

In a moment of greatness he toyed with the idea of putting a memorable photo of Nero burning Rome. Obviously modesty won over sociopathy. Full of national pride rushing through his lungs for lack of oxygen, the maverick 'signed' out of his sense of humor and settled for his phone's digits.

But ring him on these digits and you won't be the first one to do so. Surely some dingbat called him for a free consultation before you did. If you're put on hold for too long, don't hang up the phone. Enjoy The Doors song playing in the background, lighting vivid memories of previous years' small-scale fires around Athens.

Naive Leonidas sent his 300 to certain death in the Hot Gates when a call to this guy to sell Greek land to Xerxes by inviting his 1 million army to a burn-alive roadshow presentation would have done the job much better. Little did he know what his proud descendants are capable of.

I don't know what to say any more. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

That we are capable of burning down everything around Athens that's not made of concrete?

I and 10 million other Greeks knew of that great potential of ours from observing our progress every summer in blaming 'nature' for setting all the fires we never expected nor wanted to seriously prepare ourselves to prevent or control.

That we will invent Forest Estate Arsony and advertise it so publicly and modestly?

I admit this is not something that crossed my mind. Ever.

Don't you just love it when reality far exceeds your sickest, wildest imagination allowing people to embrace their full potential?

Everything is possible in Greece!

We will continue to take pride in setting business landmarks no fire can ever burn. Just give us a few moments after any fire and the signs will sprout before you can say "reforestation"

If you think Swiss when it comes to private banking, we'll make you think Greek when it comes to the best in Real Estate Arsony!

I hope we've proven well by now that we are no match for any country on this one. Therefore we'll soon be 'branching' out overseas. Under the business eponym "Prometheus And Associates, Inc.gr" we plan to offer full arsony and forest -selling real estate services to Spain, France, California, Alaska, Siberia and wherever else the winds of profit will drive our fired-up business spirits.

Don't worry.

Wherever you live we promise to ars-on your forest estate to the ground and...Sell it baby.

Even if you live on the moon or the stars where there's no tree left anymore because we took all green out and sold it to the aliens, you can bet your Ars-On that... we Will sell your land!

Be Happy folks.

It's all Burn and Sell. Made in Greece!

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Instead of buying new ribbon toppers, use a gift bow made from vintage film strips and a recycled button. Slap a safety pin or clasp behind it to turn it into a chic brooch for a snapshooting pal.

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There certainly is an area in the private lifestyle habits of the West that no Chinese or Western adult entrepreneur has yet bothered to finger a bit deeper for mutual benefit and profit. We all know that use of artificial lubrication in adult movies is becoming a rarity. Spitting saliva is nature's cheap and dirty substitute in endless supply. Browsing online, we witness its becoming the preferred choice for most adult industry professionals and amateurs. Incidentally, that's one thing the Chinese people do very well.

Spitting nasty, rude, filthy and dirty and doing so in public with furious zeal and great enthusiasm since Mao's Cultural Revolution.

Thusly the time has come for Beijing 2008 China to ban the practice at home and export some of its best spit-pros to the West, the one place where China's low-cost, utter-dirty spitting habits will find fertile career ground within the annals of our adult industry professionals.

Just spitballing a thought! :)

http://www.thinkaloo.com

India's health and welfare minister had this brilliant idea on how to control population growth: "Bring electricity to every Indian village so that people would watch television until late at night and therefore be too tired to make babies." Bring electricity? Applause. Good and sensible plus it will raise living standards! Watch TV until late at night?

Uppause. Not sure about that one. Unless the government bans all sexually explicit or implicit content and edit/censor kissing and lovemaking heavily, one wrong scene out there and the danger of having India's population double overnight becomes "conceivably" unstoppable!! :)

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Following court orders, Google revealed the name of an anonymous blogger who posted rants about model Liskula Cohen. Cohen supposedly "forced" Google to reveal the blogger's identity by suing the company. Google defends revealing the name as compliance with the letter and spirit of the law. Remember Yahoo in China? They had also claimed compliance with local law after revealing the identity of a Chinese blogger exercising freedom of speech which doesn't exist in China. The US, however, is Not China!

If Cohen was upset with the postings and the anonymous blogger refused to take them down, she had every right to ask Google to delete the postings or close the account. That's the right course of action. Revealing the identity without the consent of the blogger was a big mistake both of the courts and of Google. The US is not China.

We can protect the good name of our citizens by acting against libel without damaging the conditions that help foster a free speech society. When you can close the account and simply remove the postings from the Google servers it doesn't make sense to apply the law to reveal online identities every time someone makes a rant about something or someone.

For me, closing the account would have been the right thing to ask that Google do and the right thing for Google to do no matter what it was asked by the court to do!

http://www.thinkaloo.com

What about a comedy skit or movie involving astronauts fighting over who gets the window seat? I'd like to see this fictional situation turned into comedy. We've seen mechanical failures and heroic crews trying to land the spaceship safely back to Earth. But what if everything in the mission is going so well except for who gets to sit in the window seat?? :)

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Castro praises Obama in Cuba's state-run newspaper - Granma (lol) - for his efforts on health care reform. Uh-oh!! I can hear the drums already...

Why can't foreign leaders' advisers advise the eggheads to heap praise on Obama After the reform has passed? Castro's cheeks are so rosy. Why not? If his doctors have him on advanced Republican voice therapy listening day and night to GOParrots and foxes gargling on Obama's "Socialized Medicine", they've just invented the elixir of life and hope for the incurably socialist. Ever wondered how Castro's spirits are so high and his health so vindicated? Now you know. I'm afraid some pig at the CIA might have to pull the plug on this 81-year-old Granma. Just shut up morons. If you like Obama so much, follow what he did with Iran. Do Not Disturb!!

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I know we all have our moments on the road. And hopefully those around us forgive the random indiscretion. However, there are people who egregiously run stop signs, speed, and put the rest of us in danger. There are those who make this a habit, in neighborhoods with kids, because of shortcuts. Let's do something about it. Bad Driver Listings. The idea is to have a twitter-like site organized by geography for bad drivers, with license plate numbers and counts, how many times someone was cited for running stop signs, speeding etc

http://www.thinkaloo.com

I don't like it when people leave voice messages. It's very expensive for me to listen to those lengthy messages , especially when you need to hear all this extra info about the time and date of the message. It would be great if there was a service where you can receive a voice message to your cell phone as a text message. There is already the voice recognition software so I don't see why that would be hard to do.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

I decided to pay some attention to the debate in America on health care reform and I just don't get how Americans think. I really don't. Those who oppose the reform worry that private health insurance companies won't be able to compete with a public option which will be a basic health insurance plan offered by the government mainly to the 46 million or so uninsured who can't afford private insurance anyway and who the private companies don't want to insure either. That doesn't make any sense. Is Harvard out of business because Berkeley is a public school?

Shouldn't the focus on health care be that everyone is covered? Why is it mandatory to have your car insured but not your health? Why should each and every car in America be required to have insurance under the law but not each and every citizen? Shouldn't the debate on whether insurance be optional or mandatory be about cars and not about health? What kind of freaking luxury is it to debate how to deny more health insurance or less health insurance to 46 million uninsured people while having figured out already and without any ado how to have each and every freaking car insured!!

I guess it must be true that in America people seriously believe that cars are more important than...people!!!

So sad America lets its own people down first and then preaches about values to everyone else. Fortunately for everyone else, no one buys American bullshit about values any more. If everyone else in the world has been smart enough to figure that one out, that leaves Americans next!

What the...

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It's always after good sex and a strong climax, as I drift to a calm deep sleep that I get this image in my head, a tiger licking his paw and mouth after a good meal in the jungle. I don't know when it was the last time I watched a wild life documentary on TV but it seems the image somehow stuck in my mind and my brain can't help making a strong connection between sex, food and the wild. I was told I get a nice smile on my face as I drift to sleep and I know it must be the image of the tiger that triggers the meal memory in the wild. However, the imagery never visits me if sex was not Wow! or the orgasm cataclysmic. It has become an unfailing sign of good sex for me. I wonder if all good sex needs to be of a wild nature or somehow associated with the wild to be real good...

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Society tells us to appreciate what we have and when we can't, it asks us to put ourselves in the shoes of other people and compare what we have with what they have. It asks us to take a step back and realize how our life and situation is not as tough or bad as that of other people. That's what the Australian show, World's Strictest Parents is all about. Spoiled kids are sent abroad to stay with parents who are very strict. They come back full of love and appreciation for their parents who they now see as the sweetest people to have as parents. Time for a short commercial break...

Have a Kit Kat!

Two girls in Afghanistan had their fingers cut off by the Taliban because they voted in national elections. Maybe that was a mild punishment for Taliban standards, but if it was their parents or family who executed the punishment, it wouldn't surprise me if in the depths of their souls these two girls will never feel their parents' parenting as a loving, sweet experience.

So if you are raised by a Taliban parent in Afghanistan or in the slums of Africa or India, where on Earth or Hell do your parents send you so that you will learn to appreciate their "parenting style" after you come back??

Pop idol has been showing in Afghanistan and may one day become popular there. Who wants to be a Millionaire without growing poppy seeds and selling heroin may become very popular too. It was supposedly a popular show in the slums of India, so why not in Afghanistan and other progressive places in the Middle East or North Korea?

I don't think I will need to convince many of you that the World's Strictest Parents show can not have the same success in the above mentioned countries if Taliban kids were sent in the West.

That thought is so reassuring it's almost true. But is it true?

There's something about the show that troubles me. It's the implied message that the World's Strictest Parents are always to be found somewhere abroad, somewhere outside Australia.

I think it would be more beneficial to Australia if the show sent the kids to live with some of the World's Strictest Parents that are to be found inside the country.

We have plenty of dysfunctional homes and families in Australia. Watching the show, we are happily and merrily distracted to forget about that.

Australians would not feel very good about themselves if the show had a domestic focus. I assume that's true for all audiences everywhere. Who would feel entertained if it wasn't some "strict" foreign parent living abroad making our children love us more at home?

It's always very convenient to be made-believe that the worst is somewhere out there to be found even if the source of all and any things wrong or worse can be found here at home too.

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I'm telling you this on the strictest confidence and not at all in the hope of getting any venture capital out of you. Though if you did want to invest in this brilliant idea, I can guarantee you a return of at least 1 million by this time next year.

What idea? Well, I was sitting in London with some of my co-workers, and the women were explaining how little walking around they would be doing on account of wearing heels. I asked why they didn't take a pair of flats for later in the evening, and together we developed the idea of the collapsible heel. Stick with this cos it's brilliant: After a bit of swanning around at a wedding or other 'event', when a woman feels her bunions aching and the onset of blisters, if she is wearing a pair of my Patent Collapsible Heel Shoes, she can merely untelescope the heel, unclip the hinged sole retaining flanges and realign the reticulating splines and hey presto, she's wearing flats!!! Whaddaya think?

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I've had another great idea. This time next year we'll be millionaires! All I need is the start up capital, are you in?

What is it? OK, OK but keep it under your hat...

COCKTAIL SAUCES!

It came to me while I was eating a salad with a delicious, home-made dressing - I mean 'carefully crafted'. I thought that a hint of white rum would let me combine two activities; an evening meal and an evening cocktail, in one delicious indulgence.

There are so many advantages to this - food that gets you drunk, completely new flavours such as basil and vodka, garlic brandy and also the time saving thing for our busy lifestyle.

And why stop at salad dressing? Cointreau Ketchup, sake and soy, Pastis and Dijon mustard.

We've got to hurry though, I'm sure someone at Baileys must have thought of this. Their product is a meal in a glass already.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

To become acquainted with the so-called humane process of government information extraction (some may call torture), citizens could volunteer their time to test the legitimacy of these techniques based on a compilation of given intelligence. The volunteers would be given intelligence that is worthless or vital to the tortures, yet the subjects and the tortures would be unaware of its validity. Given the proper incentives (say money) for the tortures to extract the information and subjects to keep it, and base the payout to a final decision as to whether the victim is a threat and/or hiding potential information, we may collect enough information about torture to weigh its benefits versus its costs

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A group of protesters carrying "Assault Rifles!!" demonstrated outside Obama's speech and none of them was arrested by the police because they had the right, under the law, to bear arms and they were simply exercising it!!

Hellooo?? America, what's wrong with you? What about the law of common sense and of basic human intelligence?? Why can't it be also written in your Constitution?

Why doesn't everyone simply go out of their homes every day carrying an assault rifle to make the point that the law allows people to carry arms with them wherever they go? It would be such a safer place if we could all do that, wouldn't it?

Life, liberty and the pursuit of Self-Defence!

No more crimes, no more shootings, everyone would feel secure and protected carrying their favorite assault rifle. What a perfect world it would be!!

Being a European, I naturally find this logic totally ridiculous. What worries me though is how long this President will last.

He tries to reform his country's broken health care system and people are out on the streets carrying Assault Rifles already!!

Perhaps Obama should drop all other reform about health care and make his priority that every American be checked for his or her mental health first.

I seriously worry about Obama's physical survival and that's because his physical survival is the surest way to lead to his political extinction in that nation of losers who feel they become somebody if they carry assault rifles around. Rifle dickheads and absolute morons.

As if the US doesn't have a serious enough issue with shootings. As if mentally disturbed young kids won't be inspired by seeing these guys on TV carrying guns at Obama events and try and do the same at school.

I know this is probably a very prePOSTERous thing to say, but some people in America are seriously fucked Up!

I was hoping that this wouldn't be the case, but after reading the news, I can't help but be reminded of where America's lack of mental sense can lead to when I take a look at Shepard Fairey's famous Obama poster, "Hope"!

It's all Bloody Red on Obama's left side!!

And this so very eerie thought brings too many chills on me to continue with any further associations.

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Some people who are against ever having a female President in America come up with the silliest argument: her period/menopause. They mistakenly, in my opinion, draw some example ammunition by referring to Hillary Clinton's recent emotional outburst in Africa. Why do people always use such a silly argument to deny women a chance?

I have nothing against the people who are against a female president. Everyone has the right to be in favor or against. My problem is with the reasoning they use to make their argument.

Assuming they are not joking and seriously espouse the logic as sufficient enough to justify being against a female president, it seems to me they would get our country in deep trouble had they been the President themselves.

But you don't have to stretch it that far to demonstrate their hollow grounds. The people who employ such kind of hollow logic to justify their behavior and choices usually find themselves in trouble with their personal life and relationships.

The best one can do, I think, if one knows such people personally is to expose their logic by referring to examples of how disastrously it works, examples drawn from their personal lives.

There's a better chance they will get the silliness of their logic even if they don't change their mind about ever having a female president in America.

The problem is not with the opinion itself necessarily, but how it is justified.

Menopause?? That's silly! Period.

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