Carried Interest Redux

Hedge-fund managers, for whatever obscure reason, were and are paying taxes on their billions of ordinary income as though it were interest income ... at a rate equivalent to the long-term capital-gains rate. This is called a "carried interest" tax rate and has enraged the Obama administration and many ordinary citizens ... including myself. I have blogged about this in the past ... see: Carried Interest. A few years ago the highest capital-gains rate was 15% and this was why Warren Buffet's secretary was paying taxes at a higher rate than her boss.

The solution to this imbalance from our heads-up-their-tushes government was to increase the maximum capital-gains rate to 20% ... and not to eliminate this carried-interest tax treatment. And now the Obama administration, still in a snit, is suggesting that we raise the maximum capital-gains rate to 28% ... again treating the symptom and not the disease.

The result of course is that, in order to extract meaningful income taxes from hedge-fund managers, some non-millionaire ordinary investors are being punished  ... perhaps this is because of many hefty Wall Street political donations?

This is plainly stupid! Fix the problem ... don't paper over it!

Smiling Cobra

John Hinderaker, my favorite at the Powerline blog, loves our president almost as much as I do  He states that by the time he leaves office we will have $20 trillion in national debt ... see: Powerline blog ... but then he goes on:

Americans everywhere are counting down to the end of the Obama presidency. The damage he has wreaked is beyond calculation. He has hobbled our economy, trashed the Constitution, eroded trust in government, politicized one federal agency after another, poisoned relations among the races, stifled opportunity for poorer Americans, weakened our armed forces, conducted a perverse foreign policy, made the U.S. a laughingstock abroad…the list goes on and on. And we have almost two years yet to go!

But John ... you forgot ... he has a sharp crease in his pants.

Orange Jump Suits

ISIS apparently is using orange jump suits on its prospective corpses as a propaganda threat and a backdoor symbol to endorse President Obama's vow to close Gitmo ... not that the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison has ever forced any orange-jump-suited Muslims to be 72-virgins martyrs. This [non]Islamic state of rabid radicals have apparently deciphered our pipsqueak president's delicate sensibilities ... and concluded that this subtle message will get through to him ... and cause their compadres to be released ... so that they might rejoin their jihad. And so far they have been right.

Ah, but there might be a solution to all our prexy's Neville Chamberlain madness! Can't we just dye the Gitmo jumpsuits some other color ... perhaps pink ... like Sheriff Joe Arpaio does in his Arizona prison? That might just send the right defiant message to these ISIS sissies. Then, if they followed suit (excuse the expression), they would be reduced to puerile silliness.

reddit Gallery CCXXXVIII

Another excursion into the world of reddit Pictures. See: reddit Pics for sources.  Do yourself a favor and click on pictures to enlarge them.

Prior to the Salk Vaccine

Exposed Coal Seams in Alaska

Antartica

Bug Called a Phylliidae

Geddy-Up

The Anchor

Brian Williams, NBC's extolled anchor[man], lied about his experiences in a helicopter at the beginning of the Iraq war and then he lied about his lying ... see: Washington Post Story and Fox News Story and Daily Mail Story.

So what else is new?

Afterward: For quite a few more words on this issue ... see: The Diplomad.

His High Horse

Our puke of a president spoke at the annual National Prayer Breakfast this morning and I think that I am again agast by how un-presidential he always is. Here is an excerpt from the apologia he gave to this religious crowd:

And, first, we should start with some basic humility. I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt -- not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us, and doesn't speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn't care about others, that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth.

Him? Humility? Not full of himself? I have yet to see one iota of humility in this man … he who claims he can make the seas recede and our planet heal. To me it’s a wonder that his head didn’t explode as he spoke these pious words! But. the heavens didn’t part and lightning didn’t strike him down, so he was able then to pontificate further:

Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history [those who seek to hijack religions for their own murderous ends]. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was [sic] justified in the name of Christ.

A little reading of history will reveal that the crusades were 800 years ago and were meant to recapture Christians’ most holy places from the Muslims … and the Inquisitions, however shameful, were 500 years ago during the time that Spain was retaking its land from the Muslims. And those who even know a smidgen of slavery’s shameful past will recall that Muslims were the primary slave traders in Africa. And, in the meantime, Christianity has experienced a fundamental reformation, slaves in this country were emancipated 150 years ago and Jim Crow laws were overturned 50 years ago. But, brutal slavery is still a widespread and evil blot practiced in the Muslim world.

And ISIS, in the name of Islam, is committing heinous acts on a daily basis! Not 800 years ago … not 500 years ago … not 150 years ago … not 50 years ago … but NOW! And it would, I think, have been very appropriate, nay necessary, for President Obama to have augmented his idiotic moral equivalencies with a call for a reformation within Islam. But he won’t praise or even acknowledge to the slightest those Muslims who have so advocated recently … see: A Modern Crusade.

If you wish to read the entire transcript of this Reverend Jeremiah Wright's protégée’s pap pronouncements please go to: Christian Post Article. 

But first take a healthy dose of Pepto Bismol.

Afterward: For more strong words on this matter from John Hinderaker see: Powerline Blog.

Aphorism Agenda

Dog Whistle

The Obama administration has the enviable knack for establishing imaginative vernaculars for their chief executive as a way of pushing his agenda. These bon mots are sometimes insults cloaked in a velvet glove. Here are a few examples with translations:

Degrade ISIS -- we will not send them any more Ramadan good-wishes cards.

Settled science -- Al Gore says it is so.

Bitter clingers -- a way of dissing "white folks" to non-whites and getting away with it.

Dog whistle -- white folks' way of referring to blacks in a oblique way so as not being called racists ... for examples "inner city" or "Detroit" ... i.e., a silent sound that only other whites can hear.

New car smell -- a suggestion that tired, old politicians (such as Hillary and Mitt) are not what America wants in the next election ... rather we need a fresh face like Elizabeth Warren.

Hope and change -- an oblique way of suggesting that President George W. Bush took this country in the wrong direction without saying exactly where we need to go. (We have unfortunately found out.)

You folks -- a way of seeming to belong to a group liking hamburgers while consuming copious quantities of waygu beef.

Dreamers -- the wrapping of illegal immigrants in a term that presupposes they are all young, ambitious and benign.

Let me be clear -- this may be a lie but I am saying it forcefully.

I won --- shut up you losers and let me do my silly stuff.

Islam is a religion of peace -- except for that scallywag, Osama ben Laden,

Driver-less Cars

There is an exciting meme circulating in techie land ... and that is driver-less cars ... first Google then Über and now Apple ... see: Tech Times Story.

I think that this technology will probable succeed except for one small issue ... the human driver in the other car. I know that I often look to the driver of the other car for visual cues as to what to do ... the eyes, the hand gestures, the demeanor (passive or aggressive). I think that it is unlikely that computer algorithms will ever be able to pick up such subtle visual cues. And, at least initially, seeing a driver-less car approach may cause mishaps just from the shock itself. Thus, while driver-less cars may not run into things, things may run into them.

Also, what happens when two or more driver-less cars converge? Will their defense protocols cause them to hesitate causing an infernal gridlock?

It's bound to be an insurance company nightmare.

Hot Potato

The outbreak of measles traced to Disneyland in California is causing a bit of a ruckus. To vaccinate or not to vaccinate ... that is the latest media buzz.  If possible, politicians (should) run away from this hot potato because it's a no-win situation. But, not aspiring to any political office, lets me offer a few comments:

First, there is the question of individual freedom. There are many groups who are exempt from the state forcing this medical procedure upon them ... I think the Amish sect for one. Therefore, it seems that the government has already conceded exemptions ... and, therefore, the barn door is already open.

Second, parents who decide against vaccinating their children should be made aware of the statistical trade offs in this choice. If vaccinating brings a one in a million risk of a serious side-effect versus a one in ten thousand risk of other onerous consequences from not getting vaccinated, then they can and should act rationally. However, if the odds are reversed then this also needs to be well communicated to them. Moreover these odds obviously change as the population of un-vaccinated children grows or shrinks. Parents should also be well informed of this changing dynamic. The public policy of forcing vaccinations presupposes that many parents will not take into account these trade offs ... possibly a realistic assumption in a country that elected Barack Obama twice.

Third, and I hate to bring global warming into this discussion ... but when our government makes claims about global warming as "proven science" and anyone with a half a brain can see that this is bull hockey, additional "scientific" claims by our government are then easily discounted. The government and media-trumpeted fallacies of the dangers of butter, salt, etc.also add to the public discrediting of all such governmental pronouncements.

Fourth, I do believe that the analogy that has been made between our government quarantining suspected Ebola carriers and forcing vaccinations is a false one ... because there is now no recourse for the general public against infection by Ebola. An educated public can easily protect itself to a significant degree against contracting measles.

And lastly, the tying of vaccinations to autism by some prominent media figures ... such as Jenny McCarthy, Deidre Imus, and Robert Kennedy Jr..... were all based on very feeble scientific evidence. This really is the genesis of much of the current anti-vaccination movement. I personally think the upsurge in autism could easily be being caused by the increased use of designer drugs by one or both parents ... see: Yes We Cannabis. Now, I wouldn't be that upset if the autism-anxious parents of America started a boycott of designer drugs.

Groundhog Day

Watching the endless media repeating of the New England Patriot interception of the bizarre goal-line pass by the Seattle Seahawks in yesterday's Superbowl, I am feeling very much like Bill Murray in his cinematic looped experiences in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania ... reliving Groundhog Day over and over and over and over. And I am certain that the world will have these Patriot winning celebrations burned into our brains over the next weeks. The only politician who will be exempt from these eternal and infernal Groundhog Day festivities will be Bill de Blasio, Mayor of New York City, who dropped last year's groundhog ... sending it to its maker ... see: NY Daily News Story.

This mayor attempted to blame white police officers for this miscue, but even the liberal media wasn't buying this lamo excuse. But Al Sharpton's was.

Growing Old Is Not For Sissies

This title is a quote from my wife ... possibly recycled ... but it is so, so true. My wife just had a new knee installed and I am scheduled to have the same operation in mid-June. Unlike my wife, I am not looking forward to this bit of bodily reconstruction. (I keep imagining an archaeologist finding my bones in a thousand years and marveling at my metalic knee.) Watching my wife in her current struggles to get through the day have upped my trepidation levels to near sissy-dom ... particularly on top of the stress of my stenosis.

Being of an age, I have watched many of my friends and family go through the geriatric gauntlet ... and so I am we'll aware of the travails that still await. Unfortunately there is no option to forgo this penalty for living ... since Ponce de Leon never found that Nirvana in Florida ... although hordes of oldies are still drawn there in similar pursuits. So I must live out my existence on this big blue marble awaiting that old man sharpening up his scythe.

But as Shakespeare once said "a coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once." And, realistically, I know to which crowd I belong. Moreover, as a young man, I used to read that avant garde publication, The Evergreen Review ... and I still recall a Turkish poet's entry that went something like this:

You lie
When you tell me about this thing called death.
Heaven and earth shall pass away
Before I'll cease to be.

He lied.

reddit Gallery CCXXXVII - More NSFW

Another excursion into the world of reddit Pictures. See: reddit Pics for sources.  Do yourself a favor and click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

 Actual 1971 Jeans Ad

A League of Her Own

Curves of Cataluña

Jane Mansfield

Rack and Racket

The I’s Have It

In a recent speech in India, President Obama referred to himself 118 times in the course of three minutes … see: PJ Media Video! Can we have a more self-absorbed chief executive?

And we think that a “cult of personality" exists only in Russia …

Non Sequitur

The warmists are blaming our recent severe winter weather on global warming ... see: Washington Post Story. This was once called a non sequitur, but, with the bizarro world that we now are living in, a goodly number of liberal lemmings are nodding their heads in alarming agreement. (Isn't it also strange that global warming has become a political hot potato?) Can we now draw the following conclusions using the same pretzel logic?

- Losing weight can best be done by eating lots of cake, ice cream and cookies.

- Water-boarding is torture but killing by drone strike is not.

- The shortest route from New York to L.A. is by way of New Delhi.

- The best way to defeat one's enemies is by not identifying them by name.

- Smoking cigarettes is good for one's health.

- Paying more unemployment benefits creates jobs.

- Wings are not required for commercial airplanes to fly ... but tray tables are.

- Forcing banks to give mortgages to unqualified people helps them out.

- Carbon dioxide, the basis of all life, is an air-pollutant.

- Thought crimes are more dangerous as real ones.

Afterward: Greg Gutfeld had a good one ... drug dealers are undocumented pharmacists.

Good for Her!

Michelle Obama has refused to cover her head with a jihab when meeting with Saudi Arabian dignitaries as she and Barack stopped in Riyadh on their way back from India ... see: Yahoo News Story. This clearly-planned slight combined with our president's poor negotiating skills does not auger well for the Saudi's putting a stop to oil price declines which are damaging our oil-fracking industry. This combo already has probably cost us any such concessions ... but at least someone in this country has the chutzpah to stand up to these 9th century potentates.

(Barack, on the other hand, was again caught chewing gum while in India ... another pointless grade-school slight ... see: Politico Story.)

I don't often compliment our first lady, but in this case, "you go girl!"

Afterthought: I must have forgot ... President Obama hates the oil fracking industry in America ... so why would he try to protect it?

Luegenpresse

Some Germans have an interesting term for their main-stream media, it is “liar press” or luegenpresse in German … see: Breitbart Article. I guess that it was inevitable that a polarization like this would occur when militant Islamists in Europe keep pushing their agenda and the media there keeps papering over what is occurring. Eventually demonstrations, like what have occurred in Leipzig, Dresden and elsewhere in Europe, boil over and things start getting uglier and uglier on both sides.

The PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West) movement in Europe and now in Germany is disturbing in many ways. It is reminiscent of the fascist anti-Semitic frenzy that characterized Germany during the Second World War with all its brutal consequences. Yet it is also in some ways similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement and anti-Ferguson police riots here in the United States … both of which were instigated and encouraged by a biased media determined to scandalize our societal norms by pushing an unrealistic agenda.

To this observer, it seems that the consequences of the Second World War are still being felt in the West’s obsession with tolerance and diversity … perhaps to a fault. There is so much diversity in Europe that many countries there are in danger of losing their national identity. And many European countries are so tolerant that they allow sharia-law “no-go” zones where non-Muslims dare not go. (Could we possibly call them “ghettos”?) Both of these over-reactions to the horrors of the last big war have created a vacuum into which Muslims have stepped. Who really knows what percentage of these Muslims are militant extremists … but it is big enough to intimidate those who aren’t.

This is obviously a dangerous situation which is also slowly creeping into the social fabric of the United States … augmented by a president and much of this nation’s luegenpresse who have not yet had the scales fall from their eyes. I actually believe that a more realistic treatment of these diversity and tolerance issues relative to our Muslim communities here would serve them far better in the long run.

But unfortunately, I don’t expect that this will occur anytime soon.

Deflategate

Zzzzzzzz ...

The Day I Almost Died

I think it was sometime in the Fall of 1965. I was living on York Avenue in New York City in a rather upscale apartment building with a doorman with whom I had a good, jocular relationship. I was leaving this building in the morning to go to work when, in front of the building, our doorman was holding open the back door of a long black limousine. As a prank I entered this car's back seat and sat down as though the doorman was waiting for me ... to the surprise of the doorman, the limo driver, the front-seat passenger and the entourage of those right behind me.

The doorman, his face ashen, quickly grabbed my hand and pulled me back out of the limo ... to the relief of everyone. The intended passengers then entered the car and sped off. The doorman next took me aside and told me who these poobahs were. They were the Cuban delegation to the United Nations including, presumedly a few bodyguards. I then surmised that the front-seat passenger must have also been a bodyguard.

I then quickly realized I had come within inches of becoming an international incident ... with the strong likelihood of being pumped full of Cuban lead.

I gave the doorman a large tip that Christmas.

reddit Gallery CCXXXVII

Another excursion into the world of reddit Pictures. See: reddit Pics for sources.  Do yourself a favor and click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Sand Sculpture

Royalty

Napoleon's Pistol

Paper Cutting

Long-tailed Widowbird

The Cult

An MIT professor emeritus of meteorology, Richard Lindzen, who apparently isn't one of the 97%, has called climate alarmists a "cult." He says that, as evidence keeps mounting that global warming is nonexistent, "they get more and more fanatical." Read how one real scientist deals with these global-warming loonies here: Breitbart Article ... and how he deals with 2014 being the hottest year on record.

(One wag recently commented that 97% of scientists can't agree on anything.)

Afterward: The author of this article, Howie Carr, hosts a radio talk show here in Boston on which he occasionally offers to sell "Honest Howie's Carbon Credits." I wonder if the owners of any of the 1,700 private jets that flew to Davos, Switzerland this week will buy such credits? They are there to attend a conference at which one of the topics of discussion is ... you guessed it ... global warming.

After Afterward: See also: Breitbart Article.

Currency Wars

The world is a boil with currency devaluations, interest rate cuts and quantitative easings (QEs) by numerous central banks. Because of the recent slump in oil prices, the Canadian central bank has just cut its lending rate … with another commodity exporter, Australia, expected to follow suit shortly … see: CNBC Story. And today Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank is expected to announce the start of another QE program totaling perhaps 500 billion euros … see: Another CNBC Story.

I have in the past commented on what has degenerated into a major pissing contest between the central banks of the more developed nations and what the consequences that might result are … see: Race to the Bottom. It seems to this observer that the world has been lulled into an expectation, led by the now retired Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, Ben Bernanke, that central banks are the panacea for all the world’s economic woes.

Clearly monetary policy, in the long run, cannot solve basic economic malaise … yet the world’s stock markets now seem addicted to the opiate of easy money and very low, even negative, interest rates. This cannot all end well … at some point, possibly sooner than we wish, as Obama’s reverend, Jeremiah Wright, would say, “the chickens will come home to roost.”

What is now an illogical deflationary monetary and commodity spiral, I somehow expect, will flip into run-away inflationary in a nanosecond. Money is, after all, just gussied-up pieces of paper representing a political promise. Be prepared for these promises to be broken …

What's Wrong with this Picture?

I found this picture on reddit with the title, "A Belgian Blue Super Cow"

Detoxification

Scott Johnson has posted on the Powerline blog a way of detoxifying from last night's State of the Disunion address given by someone whose name conveniently escapes me. His post features a video of Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institute commenting on all issues big and small. A lot of it is right on ... some of it is not Sowell at his best ... but it is 50 minutes better spent than watching that haughty high-hat huffing and puffing last night. Grab a cup of java and a donut and enjoy this low-key return to economic and social sanity ... see:  Powerline Blog.

This fellow thinks and speaks So well.

New Ulcer Cure

Don't watch President Obama's State of the Union address tonight ...

Juxtaposition LIV

Muslim Women

Catholic Nuns

Posture Pictures

Mount Holyoke College has canceled its annual Valentine's Day showing of the play "The Vagina Monologues" on the basis of some of its "female" students may not have vaginas ( vaginae?) and might be offended ... see: Breitbart Story. Now, I may be of the old, old school ... but at one time, when entering Seven Sisters women's schools, the administrations would take front and sideways nude posture pictures of all their students ... assumedly checking for scoliosis ... and the rumored super coup for male Ivy Leaguers was to abscond with this portfolio of soft porn.

Clearly, if this scoliosis check was still in vogue, Mount Holyoke would have a much better notion if any of their entering students were carrying wood.

reddit Gallery CCXXXVI -- Circles

Another excursion into the world of reddit Pictures. See: reddit Pics for sources.  Do yourself a favor and click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

800 Year-Old Indian Stone Wheel

Waterlily Bottom

Man in the Moon

Japanese Manhole Cover

Tennis Rackets

Islamic State

There are some who are proposing that an Islamic state be established in the United States ... see: Breitbart Article. If this is to be the case, may I suggest that it be California? (I would recommend Massachusetts as an even-better candidate, except I happen to live there.)

Black Swan Events

L

2015 has had its first black swan financial event ... the removal of the peg between the Swiss Franc and the European Euro ... an event that has traumatized currency markets causing the Swiss Franc to appreciate 30% in minutes ... and sent the Swiss stock market down over 10%  ... see: CNBC Story. (Black swan events are out-of-the-blue occurrences, like a black swan landing on a koi pond.) And I have a suspicion that this may not be the only such unexpected financial event of this new year ... already speculation is growing that the Euro may be on its last legs ... see: Breitbart Article.

If I were to guess,  another such financial shock in the new year might well center around commodities ... in particular gold. Already there are rumors that China might be hording gold with the intent of establishing its Yuan as a gold-backed currency ... see:  Money Metals Story. If this were to occur, Gresham's Law (good money drives bad money out of circulation) would change the financial landscape overnight. The U.S. Dollar, which is now on a roll, would plummet and financial markets would suffer apoplectic fits. The United States might even be forced back onto a gold-standard itself ... that is, if we have as much gold in Fort Knox as we claim ... see: U.S. News Story.

The only thing that I could imagine that would deter China from making such a bold currency move would be the large amount of dollar-denominated debt that it currently holds ... it would be cutting of its own nose to spite its face. But also note, China has been gradually paring back such lendings to America  ...see: Bloomberg Article. Perhaps China's intent might be a longer-term strategy?

Religious Pluralism

China, it seems, has taken a pragmatic approach to radical Islamic terrorism. In China's Xinjiang region, it has banned all Muslims with full beards or wearing "hijabs, niqabs, burkas or clothing with the Islamic star or crescent" from traveling on public transportation ... see: Breitbart Article. The Uyghurs there are the mostly Muslim residents who have been causing a bit of mayhem ... but it appears not nearly as much as has been experienced elsewhere in the world. Nonetheless these Chinese radicals are now getting it as good as they have given.

As this Muslim zealotry metastacizes throughout the world, more countries may have to be as realistically repressive as China. I do sense that Europe is finally waking up to the severity of this jihad threat. Hindus have also fought long and bloody battles with Muslims after India achieved its independence from Great Britain. And Russia has been brutally combating these uprisings in its Muslim provinces for some time now.

And I suspect that eventually, whenever this radical Muslim threat hopefully subsides, most of these peoples will have some pangs of remorse for such measures ... a tale oft repeated in the past.

But in the meantime, true to form, the United States is once again leading from our president's behind on the issue of the Muslim fundamentalist threat. Will we need eventually to follow suit? My guess is that we will be forced to ... out of desperation ... but not for a few more years

Racism

Much like Michelle Obama once was, this chap was also subjected to blatant racism ...

(from reddit)

A Strategic Suggestion

The falling oil prices are causing problems for the shale oil industry players  in the United States ... postponing many new wells and putting a crimp on their payback of existing capital-spending borrowings. This is a seeming result of Saudi Arabia's refusal to cut oil production despite a world-wide glut of oil ... apparently as an opening salvo in its economic war on most of the other world's oil producers ... including America. It apparently believes that it can use this strategy to protect its long-term market share.

However, the United States does have one way to counter this aggression (if we would take some time out from our golfing). We could take a cue from our old railroad baron, Jay Gould (see: Pricing for Profit), and begin buying enormous quantities of Saudi oil and storing it in our strategic petroleum reserves (or creating new ones). This would be a win-win-win in that it would allow us to help out our shale-oil producers, prepare these oil reserves for any future oil shortages, and also top-off these reserves at rock-bottom prices.

That does, of course, presuppose that our current government could think strategically ...

What

does this mean? All is forgiven ... by whom ... Muslims ... Mohammad ... rather presumptuous, no? What is the "all" that is forgiven ... the Paris butchery ... the original slight against Islam ... the fact that President Obama stayed home to watch football? The magazine/newspaper Charlie Hebdo is printing three million copies of this assumedly defiant issue when it normally sells 60,000 copies. Suddenly the slaughter of those 12 innocents has increased its circulation 50-fold and it's first run of 500,000 is already sold-out .. see: ABC News Story or Wall Street Journal Story or Fox News Story or CNN Story. (It is interesting to note that in none of these links is the actual full cover shown ... is that what is to be forgiven?)

This kerfuffle reminds me a bit of the "Bring Back Our Girls" Twitter hashtag campaign over those African kidnappings by Boko Haram ... a victory of symbolism over substance.

And the Obama administration can't even bring itself to utter the words "Islamic extremism" ...