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Read or Condemn Yourself to Death by Ignorance

For those courageous souls brave enough to look and see what is,

who are unwilling to blindly accept

the lies and rules of tyrannical authority.

The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.

One word of truth outweighs a world of lies.

-----

If perchance a post of mine you think extreme

heed this from Kahlil Gibran:

“In battling evil, excess is good;

for he who is moderate in announcing the truth is presenting half-truth.

He conceals the other half out of fear of the people’s wrath.”

-----

One of my goals is to think and act as if I fear no man’s wrath or deed.


Observation And Integrity

Wednesday 29nd June 2022


G’day,

Hope this finds you fit and well.

Here is a sampling of what recently crossed my digital desk.

I hope you get something from it!

You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Researchers find fossil of dinosaur killed on day of infamous asteroid strike?

Your Impact Is Not Insignificant

The Controllers Are Not Elected

Blood Isn’t Thicker Than Propaganda

Inflation And The Cost Of Labor = Unemployment - The Decline of the USA

US Ranchers

Successful Interception Of Moving Targets Using An Energy-Based Laser Weapons

How To Eliminate Statism

Martha Gellhorn, The Only Woman At D-Day

Saddest Birthday

Assault On Men

Luongo: Russia’s New Rules

The ’3.5% rule’: How a small minority can change the world

Standing Our Ground - Our Declaration

False Data Correction

Not Your Normal Travel Advisory

Have a great week!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
You have never talked to a mere mortal.
 
C S Lewis
 
 
 

‘It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.’ CS Lewis.

 
 
 
 
Researchers find fossil of dinosaur killed on day of infamous asteroid strike?
 
Meteor And Dinosaurs
 
 
 

Scientists studying a fossil site in North Dakota unearthed a leg believed to be from a dinosaur that actually died on the day of the infamous asteroid strike blamed for wiping out the monstrous creatures. The amazing discovery was reportedly made by researchers working on a BBC documentary centered around the fateful turn of events which spelled the end of the dinosaur’s dominion over the planet. During an excavation at the fossil-rich location known as Tanis, the team found what they describe as a “perfectly preserved“ thescelosaurus limb that, remarkably, still contained some of the creature’s skin.

This material allowed scientists to determine that the leg dates back to 66 million years ago, when a massive asteroid struck the planet and set into motion the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. Alongside the remarkable limb, researchers also found evidence of fish that died of sudden suffocation from debris thought to have come from the event as well as some pieces of the enormous space rock that walloped the Earth. “It“s absolutely bonkers,“ marveled natural history professor Phillip Manning, who is working on the program, “the time resolution we can achieve at this site is beyond our wildest dreams.“

Making the case for why they believe that the thescelosaurus specifically died due to the asteroid strike, the scientists noted that the leg appears to have been “ripped off really quickly“ and that there is no evidence of disease nor any sign of scavengers having gotten to it. “The best idea that we have is that this is an animal that died more or less instantaneously,“ explained professor Paul Barrett from London“s Natural History Museum.

 
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Your Impact Is Not Insignificant
 
Your Impact Is Not Insignificant
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
The Controllers Are Not Elected
 
The Controllers Are Not Elected
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
Blood Isn’t Thicker Than Propaganda
 
 
 
 

An interesting read on the results of decades of war against the extended then the nuclear families.

 
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Inflation And The Cost Of Labor = Unemployment - The Decline of the USA
 
US Unemployment Rate
 
 
 

To me, it is fascinating how everything dovetails in together when the computer is monitoring everything on a global scale. The projection that unemployment could reach 15% in 2020 not only came true, but it did so tied into the whole COVID scam which has provided the mechanism for government control over the population and to implement one aspect of the intended Agenda 2030 and the elimination of Democracy. But more serious than that, we still face the risk of more than 25% unemployment in the post-2024 period.

 
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US Ranchers
 
US Ranchers
 
 
 

I’d like to be a fly on the wall in several meetings I anticipate happening to try and slow or stop this!

 
 
 
 
Successful Interception Of Moving Targets Using An Energy-Based Laser Weapon
 
Laser Weapon
 
 
 

“This is a historical moment for weapons systems. For the first time, an energy-based weapons system actually works. I am not talking about ideas, but a system that works,” said Brig.-Gen. Yaniv Rotem, Head of Military R&D in the Defense Ministry.

 
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How To Eliminate Statism
 
How To Eliminate Statism
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
Martha Gellhorn, The Only Woman At D-Day
 
Martha Gellhorn
 
 
 

She wasn’t supposed to be there of course. She was meant to be in relative safety, sitting on a transport barge in the English channel with all the other journalists. But the previous evening, Martha Gellhorn had boldly boarded a hospital barge with her press credentials and the story that she was there to interview nurses. It was a sham, of course, but it got her onboard, where she found a bathroom and locked herself in.

She spent a miserable night, horribly seasick, but when she crept out of her hiding place the next morning, she had a front-row seat to one of history’s greatest moments - the invasion of Normandy, June 6, 1944. Thousands of ships and 160,000 men faced the great cliffs as tons of bombs rained from overhead. It would be perhaps the greatest news story of all time, but Martha found that it wasn’t her skill as a writer that was needed. The sea was filled with dead and wounded soldiers, and she leapt into action, helping wherever and however she could.

At nightfall, she waded ashore with the medics and found herself on Omaha Beach, a stretcher-bearer with blistered hands, soaked to the skin with sea water and exhaustion. She would labor through the night, the daring she had known the night before transformed into bravery as she followed the mine sweepers.

In the days to come, Martha Gellhorn would leave that place a different person; no longer an observer of history, but a participant…the lone woman in the D-Day invasion. Heroism sometimes arrives on a wave of opportunity, and we either rise or we don’t.

 
 
 
 
Saddest Birthday
 
Saddest Birthday
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
Assault On Men
 
Assault On Men
 
 
 

As they have been doing this so effectively for so long that the men are feminized and marginalized, the next phase of the operation kicks into gear, the attack on women and children. Allowing men identifying as women to compete in women’s sports, introducing gender confusion and sexuality to children. Nothing, I repeat nothing is more destructive to a person than shaking their stable datums and introducing uncertainty. The most valuable thing you can do for a person is to increase their certainty. Preferably with true data!

 
 
 
 
Luongo: Russia’s New Rules
 
Putin
 
 
 

Great article, well worth reading.

 
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The ’3.5% rule’: How a small minority can change the world
 
Non Violent Protest
 
 
 

Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.

In 1986, millions of Filipinos took to the streets of Manila in peaceful protest and prayer in the People Power movement. The Marcos regime folded on the fourth day.

In 2003, the people of Georgia ousted Eduard Shevardnadze through the bloodless Rose Revolution, in which protestors stormed the parliament building holding the flowers in their hands. While in 2019, the presidents of Sudan and Algeria both announced they would step aside after decades in office, thanks to peaceful campaigns of resistance.

In each case, civil resistance by ordinary members of the public trumped the political elite to achieve radical change.

There are, of course, many ethical reasons to use nonviolent strategies. But compelling research by Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, confirms that civil disobedience is not only the moral choice; it is also the most powerful way of shaping world politics – by a long way.

Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.

Chenoweth’s influence can be seen in the recent Extinction Rebellion protests, whose founders say they have been directly inspired by her findings. So just how did she come to these conclusions?

The organisers of Extinction Rebellion have stated that Chenoweth’s work inspired their campaign (Credit: Getty Images)

Needless to say, Chenoweth’s research builds on the philosophies of many influential figures throughout history. The African-American abolitionist Sojourner Truth, the suffrage campaigner Susan B Anthony, the Indian independence activist Mahatma Gandhi and the US civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King have all convincingly argued for the power of peaceful protest.

Yet Chenoweth admits that when she first began her research in the mid-2000s, she was initially rather cynical of the idea that nonviolent actions could be more powerful than armed conflict in most situations. As a PhD student at the University of Colorado, she had spent years studying the factors contributing to the rise of terrorism when she was asked to attend an academic workshop organised by the International Center of Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), a non-profit organisation based in Washington DC. The workshop presented many compelling examples of peaceful protests bringing about lasting political change – including, for instance, the People Power protests in the Philippines.

But Chenoweth was surprised to find that no-one had comprehensively compared the success rates of nonviolent versus violent protests; perhaps the case studies were simply chosen through some kind of confirmation bias. “I was really motivated by some scepticism that nonviolent resistance could be an effective method for achieving major transformations in society,” she says

Working with Maria Stephan, a researcher at the ICNC, Chenoweth performed an extensive review of the literature on civil resistance and social movements from 1900 to 2006 – a data set then corroborated with other experts in the field. They primarily considered attempts to bring about regime change. A movement was considered a success if it fully achieved its goals both within a year of its peak engagement and as a direct result of its activities. A regime change resulting from foreign military intervention would not be considered a success, for instance. A campaign was considered violent, meanwhile, if it involved bombings, kidnappings, the destruction of infrastructure – or any other physical harm to people or property.

“We were trying to apply a pretty hard test to nonviolent resistance as a strategy,” Chenoweth says. (The criteria were so strict that India’s independence movement was not considered as evidence in favour of nonviolent protest in Chenoweth and Stephan’s analysis – since Britain’s dwindling military resources were considered to have been a deciding factor, even if the protests themselves were also a huge influence.)

By the end of this process, they had collected data from 323 violent and nonviolent campaigns. And their results – which were published in their book Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict – were striking.

Strength in numbers

Overall, nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to succeed as violent campaigns: they led to political change 53% of the time compared to 26% for the violent protests.

This was partly the result of strength in numbers. Chenoweth argues that nonviolent campaigns are more likely to succeed because they can recruit many more participants from a much broader demographic, which can cause severe disruption that paralyses normal urban life and the functioning of society.

In fact, of the 25 largest campaigns that they studied, 20 were nonviolent, and 14 of these were outright successes. Overall, the nonviolent campaigns attracted around four times as many participants (200,000) as the average violent campaign (50,000).

The People Power campaign against the Marcos regime in the Philippines, for instance, attracted two million participants at its height, while the Brazilian uprising in 1984 and 1985 attracted one million, and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989 attracted 500,000 participants.

“Numbers really matter for building power in ways that can really pose a serious challenge or threat to entrenched authorities or occupations,” Chenoweth says – and nonviolent protest seems to be the best way to get that widespread support.

Once around 3.5% of the whole population has begun to participate actively, success appears to be inevitable.

Besides the People Power movement, the Singing Revolution in Estonia and the Rose Revolution in Georgia all reached the 3.5% threshold

“There weren’t any campaigns that had failed after they had achieved 3.5% participation during a peak event,” says Chenoweth – a phenomenon she has called the “3.5% rule”. Besides the People Power movement, that included the Singing Revolution in Estonia in the late 1980s and the Rose Revolution in Georgia in the early 2003.

Chenoweth admits that she was initially surprised by her results. But she now cites many reasons that nonviolent protests can garner such high levels of support. Perhaps most obviously, violent protests necessarily exclude people who abhor and fear bloodshed, whereas peaceful protesters maintain the moral high ground.

Chenoweth points out that nonviolent protests also have fewer physical barriers to participation. You do not need to be fit and healthy to engage in a strike, whereas violent campaigns tend to lean on the support of physically fit young men. And while many forms of nonviolent protests also carry serious risks – just think of China’s response in Tiananmen Square in 1989 – Chenoweth argues that nonviolent campaigns are generally easier to discuss openly, which means that news of their occurrence can reach a wider audience. Violent movements, on the other hand, require a supply of weapons, and tend to rely on more secretive underground operations that might struggle to reach the general population.

By engaging broad support across the population, nonviolent campaigns are also more likely to win support among the police and the military – the very groups that the government should be leaning on to bring about order.

During a peaceful street protest of millions of people, the members of the security forces may also be more likely to fear that their family members or friends are in the crowd – meaning that they fail to crack down on the movement. “Or when they’re looking at the [sheer] numbers of people involved, they may just come to the conclusion the ship has sailed, and they don’t want to go down with the ship,” Chenoweth says.

In terms of the specific strategies that are used, general strikes “are probably one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, single method of nonviolent resistance”, Chenoweth says. But they do come at a personal cost, whereas other forms of protest can be completely anonymous. She points to the consumer boycotts in apartheid-era South Africa, in which many black citizens refused to buy products from companies with white owners. The result was an economic crisis among the country’s white elite that contributed to the end of segregation in the early 1990s.

Nonviolent protests are more likely to attract support from across society. Here a pro-reform protestor faces security forces in Morocco in 2011 (Credit: Getty Images)

“There are more options for engaging and nonviolent resistance that don’t place people in as much physical danger, particularly as the numbers grow, compared to armed activity,” Chenoweth says. “And the techniques of nonviolent resistance are often more visible, so that it’s easier for people to find out how to participate directly, and how to coordinate their activities for maximum disruption.”

A magic number?

These are very general patterns, of course, and despite being twice as successful as the violent conflicts, peaceful resistance still failed 47% of the time. As Chenoweth and Stephan pointed out in their book, that’s sometimes because they never really gained enough support or momentum to “erode the power base of the adversary and maintain resilience in the face of repression”. But some relatively large nonviolent protests also failed, such as the protests against the communist party in East Germany in the 1950s, which attracted 400,000 members (around 2% of the population) at their peak, but still failed to bring about change.

In Chenoweth’s data set, it was only once the nonviolent protests had achieved that 3.5% threshold of active engagement that success seemed to be guaranteed – and raising even that level of support is no mean feat. In the UK it would amount to 2.3 million people actively engaging in a movement (roughly twice the size of Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city); in the US, it would involve 11 million citizens – more than the total population of New York City.

The fact remains, however, that nonviolent campaigns are the only reliable way of maintaining that kind of engagement.

A couple commemorate the Velvet Revolution of 1989, which helped bring down Communist rule in Czechoslovakia - another example of Chenoweth’s “3.5% rule“ (Credit: Getty Images)

Chenoweth and Stephan’s initial study was first published in 2011 and their findings have attracted a lot of attention since. “It’s hard to overstate how influential they have been to this body of research,” says Matthew Chandler, who researches civil resistance at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

Isabel Bramsen, who studies international conflict at the University of Copenhagen agrees that Chenoweth and Stephan’s results are compelling. “It’s [now] an established truth within the field that the nonviolent approaches are much more likely to succeed than violent ones,” she says.

Regarding the “3.5% rule”, she points out that while 3.5% is a small minority, such a level of active participation probably means many more people tacitly agree with the cause.

These researchers are now looking to further untangle the factors that may lead to a movement’s success or failure. Bramsen and Chandler, for instance, both emphasise the importance of unity among demonstrators.

As an example, Bramsen points to the failed uprising in Bahrain in 2011. The campaign initially engaged many protestors, but quickly split into competing factions. The resulting loss of cohesion, Bramsen thinks, ultimately prevented the movement from gaining enough momentum to bring about change.

Chenoweth’s interest has recently focused on protests closer to home – like the Black Lives Matter movement and the Women’s March in 2017. She is also interested in Extinction Rebellion, recently popularised by the involvement of the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. “They are up against a lot of inertia,” she says. “But I think that they have an incredibly thoughtful and strategic core. And they seem to have all the right instincts about how to develop and teach through a nonviolent resistance campaigns.”

Ultimately, she would like our history books to pay greater attention to nonviolent campaigns rather than concentrating so heavily on warfare. “So many of the histories that we tell one another focus on violence – and even if it is a total disaster, we still find a way to find victories within it,” she says. Yet we tend to ignore the success of peaceful protest, she says.

“Ordinary people, all the time, are engaging in pretty heroic activities that are actually changing the way the world – and those deserve some notice and celebration as well.”

David Robson is a senior journalist at BBC Future. Follow him on Twitter: @d_a_robson.

 
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Standing Our Ground - Our Declaration
 
Indigenous Custodians
 
 
 

We have today issued a Declaration calling on @albomp and @annastaciamp and their governments to recognise our original sovereignty of the land and enter into treaties with us as the rightful Custodians of Country.

Our continued sacred ceremony, called the Waddananggu, confirms our connection to Country and our presence is evidence that our rights and interests have never been abandoned, lost or signed away in any Indigenous land use or cultural heritage agreements, or mining lease.

We are calling on supporters to stand with us by demanding that your governments recognise the original sovereignty in the land, the source of our laws and customs, and enter into treaties with us as the rightful custodians of Country.

Read the full Declaration and find out how you can support at the link in our bio.

 
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False Data Correction
 
False Data Correction
 
 
 

In the interests of truth and sanity...

 
 
 
 
Not Your Normal Travel Advisory
 
 
 
 

Shared from a no vax travel group of which I am a member. If you don’t need to travel, skip this. My daughter chided me for it being very negative. Me, I’d rather know what the current true data is rather than operating on old data, “how things used to be”.

Not related to Vax, but super helpful for those traveling to and from Australia and USA or around States (like me) having experienced multiple delays of up to 20 hours.

Copied from a flight attendant: A Public Service Announcement to all of my friends that may fly this Summer! Very good and timely tips: Flying this summer is ROUGH! I feel like as a Flight Attendant I should attempt to share some tips to get you through airline travel for the foreseeable future.

1. Things are not good..... if its less than 7 hours - DRIVE! I’m not kidding. There is nothing enjoyable about flying right now. On any airline. If you must fly, keep reading.

2. Download and use the app of the airline you are flying. You can do everything on it - get your boarding pass, track your bags, see your incoming plane, and change a flight. It sure beats waiting in the long line to talk to an agent! Trust me - Usually these apps will tell you a flight is cancelled before the crew even knows!

3. Fly MUCH earlier than you need to - a whole day early if its important!! This week I saw many people miss important things like weddings, funerals, cruises, international connections, and graduations. The tears were very real, for very real reasons, and there was nothing I could do! If you have to be somewhere, spend the extra money, go a day early. Have a glass of wine and stay in a hotel, enjoy your night not being stressed while everyone else misses their events.

4. ALWAYS fly the first flight in the morning so you have all day to be rebooked if the shit hits the fan. Yes, that means it might be a 3:00 alarm, but morning flights don’t cancel nearly as often.

5. This is not unique to this year, but keep in mind summer is thunderstorm season. A single storm can shut down a whole airport. We can’t fly through them. Storms usually build as the day gets later. Book early flights!

6. Schedule long layovers - Your 1 hour layover is NOT enough anymore. 30 minutes, not a chance. 3 hours minimum.

7. What you see on the news is an understatement. We are short staffed and overworked. Not just pilots and flight attendants, but also ground crews. Without ground crews there is no one to park the planes, drive jetways, get your bags on/off planes, or scan boarding passes. This causes many delays that snowball throughout the day. Sometimes HOURS.(Another reason morning flights are best!)

8. When flight crews get delayed we time out. We can NOT fly longer than 16 hours. Its illegal. So it doesn’t matter if you have a wedding to get to, when we are done we are done. The way things are now, there are no back up crews, so when this happens your flight cancels. (Now you are starting to see why those morning flights are best!)

9. Avoid connecting in Newark. It is literal hell. You have a 50/50 chance your flight will cancel or missing your connection. They have been cancelling flights at their starting points just to keep the planes out of Newark because there just aren’t enough people to manage the planes, so the gates stay full. Also the restaurants are expensive, it is not a great place to be stuck.

10. Be nice. As stated above, we are overworked and tired. We will not help you if you are mean. No one cares that you are going to miss your cruise if you are an asshole. So even if we can help, we will save our help for someone nice. Tensions are high. Our patience is gone. If you make us mad - you will not be flying on our planes. We will leave you behind without a second thought, and laugh about you later.

11. Being drunk on an airplane is a federal offense, so don’t overdo it. If you drink too much at the bar waiting for your delayed flight you risk not being allowed to fly at all. We are too tired to deal with your drunk ass when we have legitimate issues to deal with.

12. Get trip insurance if you have a lot of money invested. I hate the whole idea of this, but I also hate the idea of losing money. Example: I was working a flight yesterday that waited over an hour for a gate. A family of 8 missed their flight to Rome. The only flight of the day. They were going to a cruise which they would now miss. They were all crying, there was nothing I could do. (Also a reason to fly a day early!)

13. Flights are FULL. If you buy the cheap seats you will not be able to sit with your family. It says so when you purchase your ticket!! Flight Attendants aren’t there to rearrange the whole plane just so you can sit with your family because you tried to save $100 on a third party website.

14. Speaking of third party websites and saving money..... Like I said flights are FULL. If a flight is oversold, and no one volunteers to give up their seats, who do you think is the first to be bumped? You guessed it, the family that saved a few $$ by using sites like Expedia, Kayak, Hotwire etc.

15. Pack smart. Don’t be “That guy” Don’t hold up boarding because you have your extenders open till they are busting and you can’t figure out how to make it fit in the overhead. (Passengers are stressed too, they can be aggressive when boarding a delayed flight.)

16. Take showers, brush your teeth, leave the perfume off, don’t eat stinky food (caesar salad and tuna fish I’m talking to you!), and bring headphones. Trust me. These things sound basic, but add to stress on crowded planes. If you are stuck on the tarmac for 3 hours after a 4 hour flight, you will thank me for this.

17. Bring a sweater if you tend to be cold. So tired of half naked girls asking me to turn the heat up. NO. Wear clothes!! Side note: If you dress like this and ask for heat, there’s a chance I will turn the AC up.

18. Thats not water on the bathroom floor. For the love of God wear shoes to the bathroom!

19. Don’t tell a Flight Attendant they look tired. We are and we know. You may cause us to ugly cry right there in galley.

20. Happy Travels!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Until next time,
dream big dreams,
plan out how to achieve them,
be continually executing your plans,
enlist people to your causes,
travel and/or read widely, preferably both,
all the while observing what you observe
rather than thinking what you are told to think,
think well of your fellow man,
take time to help your fellow man,
he sorely needs it and it will help you too,
eat food that is good for your body,
exercise your body,
take time to destress,
and do the important things
that make a difference -
they are rarely the urgent ones!

Tom

 
 

Most of the content herein has been copied from someone else. Especially the images. My goodness some people are talented at creating aesthetics! The small bits that are of my creation are Copyright 2006-2022 © by Tom Grimshaw - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. Also for entertainment and educational purposes. All rights to the original works go to those that hold them, no copyright infringement intended. All material used falls under fair use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998). (for commentary, criticism, education and satire)

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