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California Admission Day Thu, Sep 9, 2021

Only knew this because I tried to schedule an inspection.

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Admission Day used to be an EBMWU holiday. It was exchanged for a new holiday four years ago: the Day after Christmas. Makes sense all the way 'round. More staff take vacation during the week after Christmas and the Day after Christmas, specifically than most other times of the year. 4th of July and Memorial Day weeks are the most popular vacation weeks each year. Also popular vacation weeks: Lincoln's B'day (Feb. 12) and Washington's B'day (3rd Monday in Feb.). Those are ski weeks for some folks.

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Thomas, who lives in San Francisco, is about to be resurrected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ix7TUGVYIo

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Cal/TCU

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About to check in for my flight.

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Booooooooooo

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yes but will they have 3 gallons of Mexican Martinis? Fuck no they wont!

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This is literally across the road from my AirBnB

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the audacity of these people

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AQI (air quality index) - what are people comfortable with? what about exercise?

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Ah, a question for me, a decade long resident of China. Anything below 100 I'm ok with outdoor sports. 100-150 I will ride around on a city bike, but not my road bike. 150+ - AQI mask on (although I once ran a half marathon in 181 . . . and ran my personal best 2:01:50)

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Bad AQI and a recent hot tub purchase have led to some hot tub sessions with the N-95 mask on. Since last weekend however, the AQI in the Sierra Foothills has improved dramatically.

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I have to be honest, I never check to see what the local AQI is.

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It's sad that everyone in the Western US now has to know that number all the time.

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I like it when its in the green, below 50, which it usually is in these parts, but anything in double digits is not really of concern. Didn't check it often until during last year's September fire event, when we lurched well above 600 for days. That was attention grabbing (and breathtaking, in more ways than one).

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I never cared about AQI, but recently it shows up on my taskbar and it won't go away

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Anything up to the moderate range (<100) and I basically don't notice any difference. Between 100-150 means I can probably smell the smoke but don't feel the effects much. I also don't generally exercise outside.

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I run outdoors everyday. I am much more sensitive to humidity than the AQI. I only even know what the AQI is when the news reports code orange or red. On a code red day I would back off the distance and intensity.

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We've had a few days in the Mid Atlantic this year where smoke from fires in the west blew all the way out here and pushed the AQI up to 120 or 130. I rode my bike anyway and didn't notice any difference. I'd probably stay in if it were above 150.

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i am in Jackson WY for the week and the plan was to ride my bike.

the AQI has been between 60-150. they say it is not great to be out exercising above 100.

however, i couldnt really tell too much. did one short ride on the first day (AQI 85). saw a BEAR while coming down a gravel road.

yesterday i rode 60 km w/ AQI 125. i knew it was a little high but it seemed fine and the road was pretty flat. opted not to do the steep uphill 5km climb.

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Bad Sign

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a lot of "UNMASK OUR KIDS" in my town, which is pretty disappointing. I don't think the kids care; it's really just adults complaining (many of whom don't have kids)

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There might be SOME cause to believe that for the very youngest school-age kids there is a danger of stalled development in reading facial cues, etc. Not sure it's very strong evidence at this point, since we haven't ever tested out long-term mask wearing in schools. The emotion around this is way overblown compared to that, though.

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Totally. The evidence isn't anywhere near strong enough to protest over.

That said, I think public health authorities could do a better job with mask mandates by tying them to some metric. Could be community spread, or local hospital capacity. If you're below that number, no masks needed. Go above it and the masks return. The problem right now is that it's vague and people who hate masks just get frustrated.

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Your speaking and thinking about people who actually do give some thought and credence to facts and metrics. The issue is with a segment that says they want this and don't want that, and then promptly do things that prevent "this" from being possible, and ensure that "that" happens. Incapable of associating actions with outcomes.

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I assume those people are unreachable. But there is a reachable segment who could be helped by clearer communication, IMO.

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I still see a lot of Trump/Pence 2020 signs posted in people's front yards.

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There is a thing that happens in the northeast - around NJ on the 95 where people hang American flags mostly, with a smattering of enough Thin Blue Line and Trump flags that the message seems a bit clearer.

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I live about two miles north of the Pentagon. About a dozen of the office buildings in the neighborhood have big American flags draped on their side facing the Pentagon in remembrance of 9/11. No political message, just remembering that horrible day.

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I used to live very close to there myself, but south--Crystal City. I used to see the Pentagon from my balcony. Moved away before 9/11, but it was still terrifying.

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"the 95"? Please, when in Rome

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maybe he started to type "the turnpike" and took a quick detour

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TST, that's how I ended up lost in Trenton once

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Trenton makes the world takes

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the only place I saw a Trump convoy slowdown in the run-up to the election was on the Garden State Parkway. There's definitely a strong "thin blue line" sticker on muscle car / comically over-lifted truck presence on the roads in New Jersey

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In Oakland, CA? Nah bro.

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They still go out to the overpass over 24 in Lafayette right before WC. Lafayette...check.

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My friend said up to and post election there was a weekly Wednesday morning trump street corner party in Danville

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I rarely see them in MD but they seem more common in PA, especially the rural parts of the state.

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One neighbor still has his on the fence. Another person in the neighborhood only recently took down his, but a Trump 2024 flag has been hoisted down the road.

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the only place I've seen them since the election was when I took the 16 y.o. to Salisbury for her first vaccine shot, there were some die hards out there who weren't giving up that easy (also, I assume, why I could get her an appointment on the first day that Maryland was vaccinating 16 year olds)

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It wasn't bad, but amidst the signs in the backdrop of College Gameday last Saturday someone was flying a Cal flag.

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Yeah, I noticed that.

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DBD AV Club

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Attended the Opera last week, Tosca (great performance by the leads, with the exception of Scarpia) kind of weird with everyone wearing masks, but even stranger was seeing Thee Oh Sees at the Chapel last night, a amazing orgasmic performance - everyone sorta wearing masks, dance circle/mosh pit started at the first chords. They were so good.

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Zombie episode of Marvel's What If . . . ?

Pretty bad IMO.

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Our Crumbling World

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GOP candidate for VA Lt. Gov is behind her opponent by 1 point, according to Monmouth Poll. There are 55 days until election day. Her bold strategy to her over the top: fire her entire election staff

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/571441-virginia-gop-lt-gov-nominee-lays-off-campaign-staff-ahead-of-election

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Psaki: White House 'confident in our legal abilities' to oust Trump allies from advisory boards

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/09/psaki-white-house-trump-advisory-boards-510812

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do they serve at the pleasure of the president?

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since when did law have anything to do with government

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Today in Covid 19

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Biden to sign EO requiring all companies with more than 100 employees have each of them either be vaccinated or tested weekly. Mechanism will be OSHA regulation.

https://twitter.com/cmsub/status/1436050489179787264

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Some historical perspective:

Henning Jacobson, a 50-year-old minister, put his faith in his own liberty. Back in his native Sweden, he had suffered a bad reaction to a vaccine as an infant, struggling for years with an angry rash. Now he was an American citizen, serving as pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. That gave him the full protections of the U.S. Constitution.

So when the Cambridge board of health decided that all adults must be vaccinated for smallpox, Jacobson sought refuge in the Constitution’s promise that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

The year was 1904, and when his politically charged legal challenge to the $5 fine for failing to get vaccinated made its way to the Supreme Court, the justices had a surprise for Rev. Jacobson. One man’s liberty, they declared in a 7-2 ruling handed down the following February, cannot deprive his neighbors of their own liberty — in this case by allowing the spread of disease. Jacobson, they ruled, must abide by the order of the Cambridge board of health or pay the penalty.

“There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good,” read the majority opinion. “On any other basis, organized society could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/09/08/vaccine-mandate-strong-supreme-court-precedent-510280

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Jacobson vs. Massachusetts. A landmark SCOTUS ruling that reverberates today.

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Locally (Bay Area CA) infections are falling rapidly

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Biden to sign EO requiring Federal workers get vaccinated*

* - unsure what opt-out options there are

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/09/politics/joe-biden-covid-speech/index.html

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separate from this, we got notified yesterday that GSA is requiring either proof of vaccination or evidence of recent tests to enter any GSA-managed buildings, so even without a mandate, this was becoming more likely

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We have had that for a couple weeks on any campus in the region, and to football stadiums as well.

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total new cases at my college are up to 100, all based on tests from Monday and Tuesday. Today was supposed to be my first in-person teaching lab since March 2020; instead, it's remote yet again!

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That's an incredible number for a single college. By comparison, the entire state of MD has been posting 600-800 per day for the last couple weeks.

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and we're not a large student body, and we have a vaccine mandate (with fewer than 10 medical exemptions). No employee (faculty or staff) cases as a result of the uptick thus far.

We'll see where we're at in two weeks :|

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I'm going to suggest that some of those students may have been submitting false documentation of their vaccine status.

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My guess is that you are dead on. It appears we will have had similar shenanigans at EBMWU when the dust settles over providing QR codes as proof of vaccination.

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One does have to wonder. I checked for the older daughter's campus and they have 9 active cases (19 total since mid August) with 99% of students vaccinated. That seems proportionately more plausible for breakthrough cases.

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unlikely in this area, and definitely unlikely that such a large number were falsifying documents. We're not seeing anything all that different from Duke, fwiw:

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article253851373.html

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Duke has 126 in the past week for just over 15000 students. That would be like you having 17.

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Don't think you want to compare yourself to Dook. /s(kinda)

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Pro

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NFL starts today.

Mychal Kendricks, Chad Hansen, Jordan Kunaszyk, Devante Downs, Patrick Laird, Richard Rodgers, Davis Webb, Jordan Veasy, Trevor Davis all got cut recently.

This may be the fewest Cal players in the NFL ever with only 14 right now. Sad

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Indicative of the past 10 years of .500 football.

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Adam Wainwright pitched into the ninth inning, and the Dodgers’ ninth-inning rally fell short, falling to the Cardinals on Wednesday night at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

https://www.truebluela.com/2021/9/8/22662079/dodgers-cardinals-september-8

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Frankie Montas steps up again, leads A’s to victory

https://www.athleticsnation.com/2021/9/8/22664109/oakland-game-139-chicago-white-sox-score-result

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When Montas is on, I don’t understand how anyone ever hits him.

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I wanted to watch some of this but the Yanks-Jays ran long on the mlb network.

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LaMonte Wade Jr. is batting 0.600 in the 9th inning this season.

https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1435733949800763392

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It's ridiculous how many good players the Giants have picked up off the scrap heap.

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What's even more ridiculous is that a team which many pundits had projected, at best, for a 3rd place finish in the NL West is leading MLB with 90 wins with 22 to play.

I read last week that this same team is the first in history to have a winning percentage in each month that is at least .600. Maybe the 2021 Giants are the first NL team to achieve the feat, but certainly they are not the first MLB team.

The 1927 Yankees were 110-44 (.714) over 154 games. In no month was their record any worse than August of that year in which they were 16-10 (.615). The '27 Yankees had three months in which their winning percentage was no less than .741 (rounded off from .7407; September record was 20-7). Their record in June and July was an astounding 45-13 (.776); June was 21-6 (.777), July was 24-7 (.774).

But come October 4, all playoff teams start with a record of 0-0.

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Can't really blame the pundits for this one, because this Giants performance is really out of the blue. There was reason to think they were improving, but not THIS much.

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On the basis of the '20 season, I agree. The '20 season was also an outlier season in that the schedule was greatly reduced and some players opted out. That scrambles anything that resembles the usual basis for predicting anything about the following season. The data set is so small as to not be reliable. Compare 900 games (all regular season games in 2020) to a full schedule (2,430 games +/- in 2021 or even 2019). Vastly different sets of data.

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USMNT starts best midfielder at right back. Plays awful. Subs in a real right back, moves Adams to 6, scores 4 goals and is feeling a lot better about qualifying after an up-and-down 3 games.

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What a night-and-day difference between halves. This is more like what we expected to see.

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Other College

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Stanfurd is starting against a different quarterback against U$C than the one who started against K State, but played most of the game. They still only scored 7 points with the backup. Is that good or bad for 'furd?

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It won't really matter if their O-line keeps getting manhandled by three-man rushes.

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Recruit Sam Yoon commits to UCLA. Rob going through the 5 stages of grief.

https://twitter.com/samyoon66573353/status/1435800217123639300?s=21

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meh, afraid to compete

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Maryland is hosting Howard. Their bands are combining and it might be a spectacle.

https://twitter.com/DraftHBCU/status/1435094500125417473

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Cal

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I'm always skeptical about these "best" lists whether they are about schools or anything else. But since this has Cal #1 I'll accept it.

https://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/

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Giving weight to upward mobility and diversity was always going to launch Cal to the top.

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this is the correct response

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feeling a bouncback performance vs TCU!

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Pump that sunshine, paulie....Garbers is an issue. ;-)

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sunshinepump.gif

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Forecast has dropped from 99 to 93 in Fort Worth Saturday. KEEP DROPPING

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google weather has it around 91 degrees at KO, 33% humidity

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Nice. Not too humid, not too dry.

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yes!

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I was too until I read Christopher's offensive preview today

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Duggan is decent but that preview made him seem all world. Evans is a good back and they have 1 or 2 decent receivers. Their oline is just ok and Duggan is a better runner than passer

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Things we have going against us. Bill "Shit Sandwich" Musgrave. Peter "Thanks for the job, Bro!" Sirmon. Justin "I wish I was coaching in 1736" Wilcox. Ughhhhhhh

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Things we have going for us. I will be attending in person and I haven't seen Cal lose in person in approximately a thousand years. The Fire Starkey juju is real (eff u Ole Miss, UNC, Northwestern, Texas home and away, UCLA several years back when we sucked, Armed Forces Bowl). I actually can't remember the last time I saw a loss in person

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well now we know who to go after if things don't go well

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is true story

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I think your juju is stronger than mine -- every game I've been to since I graduated has been a loss EXCEPT the ones we've gone to together

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I've seen a ton of L's over the years. I went to all the home games in the mid 80s and early 90s... but for whatever reason, haven't seen an L in person in at least 10 years and probably more like 20.

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That is impressive! Given this is Cal we are talking about, that's WAAAYYY beyond anything cherrypicking could pull off.

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Go Bears!!!

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