EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 1765
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28563 Posts
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Simberto
Germany11342 Posts
Thus, modern psychology is often concerned with how exactly the brain works (something that behaviourism doesn't really care about at all). But that does not mean that behaviouristic training methods do not work in a lot of circumstances. Reinforcement and punishment in the behaviouristic sense can be used to effectively shape behaviours. They are not as efficient in making children learn skills and/or facts. | ||
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ZerOCoolSC2
8940 Posts
"How does one man have so much power?" One hears that question asked in Washington a lot these days, often with exasperation and bewilderment. And it is not always a reference to President Trump. Quite often, the man in question is Mitch McConnell, the Republican senator from Kentucky. The man who calls himself the "Grim Reaper" — of signature Democratic initiatives. McConnell's status stems from his office as the Senate majority leader — elected by his party colleagues to lead their conference in the chamber. But few who have held this office have been able to wield it with this kind of results. In today's Senate, McConnell can decide virtually by himself what the chamber will do — and even what it will consider doing. You may have first noticed McConnell early in 2016 when he proclaimed the Senate would not consider any nominee appointed by President Obama to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia. McConnell made this announcement on his own, within hours of Scalia's death. This year, McConnell has issued similar summary judgments on House-passed bills to reform election laws, combat foreign interference in U.S. elections and strengthen gun control. In each of these instances, the question arose: How can one man make this kind of momentous decision and make it stick? Source | ||
Falling
Canada11279 Posts
Which means in turn, that when you look at a sample size of spanked kids, you might be looking at the result of the child being problematic with his temper in the first place, which obviously isn't going to give him better scores than unproblematic children who are also spanked less. I've been doing a little reading on methodology, and it appears this something many of the studies have not accounted for- cross-sectional correlation. Meaning they've looked for correlations within a given time period, but did not account for which one preceded the other. Child temperament, particularly defiance would be one of the key things to watch for. And then as I thought, most studies don't differentiate very well and lump together different forms. from the Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor meta-analysis, only four of the 75 studies "explicitly limited spanking to their stated focus of 'hitting a child on their buttocks... using an open hand'. Those were the four studies that found spanking to be as effective or more effective than the three alternatives investigated for enforcing cooperation with time out in defiant 2- to 6-year-old'" Their previous meta-analysis lumped together overly severe physical punishment, but even in this one "they still included a few studies with overly sever usage, such as 'spanking the face, hitting on the head or back.'" Define your terms. I found this interesting: "Incredibly, Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor have failed to find any disciplinary response that is linked to reductions in children’s behavior problems, despite investigating eight other disciplinary responses in a large international study.10,11 That is because their reliance on correlations makes all corrective actions look harmful or ineffective, just as it would all cancer treatments.12,13" (That is looking at the outcome one year after application) Research on Disciplinary Spanking is Misleading (It's a pdf download) A longer one that doesn't involve a download that talks about four fallacies used in the research on discipline. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01494929.2016.1145613 | ||
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Ryzel
United States520 Posts
On August 18 2019 03:17 Simberto wrote: It is true that behaviourism (Which is the theory with reinforcement and punishment) is no longer as prominent as it was before. But the reason is not that it doesn't work in a lot situations, it is that it doesn't work in every single situation. The ultimate goal of behaviourism (at least in the context of children and schools) is basically to find the perfect set of stimuli to make people into the best possible members of society, in a completely reproducable way. As it turns out, this seems to be impossible, because people are indeed different, and not only based on what previous stimuli they have experienced. Thus, modern psychology is often concerned with how exactly the brain works (something that behaviourism doesn't really care about at all). But that does not mean that behaviouristic training methods do not work in a lot of circumstances. Reinforcement and punishment in the behaviouristic sense can be used to effectively shape behaviours. They are not as efficient in making children learn skills and/or facts. Again, source please? The ultimate goal of applied behaviourism is to manipulate the functional relationships between behaviors and consequences to reduce behaviors that are deemed problematic, and to increase behaviors that are deemed beneficial. I'm kind of lost by the last sentence in your first paragraph, but applied behaviourism is extremely individualized and requires careful observations and interviews to determine the functional relationships between the individual's behaviours and consequences, as well as determining which behaviors are problematic and which are beneficial, and why. And again, yes they are. How does one demonstrate that they know a skill or a fact? By demonstrating it as a behavior. Behaviors are "an observable and measurable act an organism does, including covert (unseen) actions (like thinking, dreaming, etc). Behavior is not limited to challenging behaviors, rather behavior applies to all observable and measurable acts emited by a living organism (e.g. breathing, eating, singing, yelling, laughing, reading, running, etc.)." As a quick example, any time you are offering corrective feedback, you are engaging in behaviorism, because it serves as a stimulus that indicates the previous behavior (stating the wrong answer) did not result in the desired consequence. On August 18 2019 03:11 Liquid`Drone wrote: And yea, behaviorist approaches to learning work, there's no doubt about that. The question is if the accidental learning (only do things when there's a tangible reward or lack of punishment, instead of because of 'internal motivation') outweigh the benefit (often producing the desired behavior quicker than through other approaches). Operant conditioning is used to create what you're calling "internal motivation". You pair rewards (praise, good grades, etc.) with the desired response, and the desired response in and of itself begins to have the same reinforcing qualities as the rewards. Then you slowly fade the rewards, and you're left with "internal motivation". | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22739 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28563 Posts
On August 18 2019 06:12 Ryzel wrote: Operant conditioning is used to create what you're calling "internal motivation". You pair rewards (praise, good grades, etc.) with the desired response, and the desired response in and of itself begins to have the same reinforcing qualities as the rewards. Then you slowly fade the rewards, and you're left with "internal motivation". That's still adults deciding what is the desired behavior. Pedagogues favoring Piaget over Skinner will often feel that this is too controlled, too much viewing children as learning machines rather than independent actors pursuing their own goals and dreams. (obviously this depends a bit on age). I mean I'm not saying you're wrong. I believe behaviorism has a place in pedagogy, we're still at the point where some knowledge and skillsets need to be attained even if doing so isn't enjoyable, and behaviorism is very good at motivation. But there isn't a consensus among pedagogues in terms of what types of adults we want to inspire future children to be, and which approach you take yields different results. My impression is that the more behaviorist approaches had fallen out of flavor for a couple decades in Norwegian (and quite possibly german, although I don't know that) pedagogy, however with more modern digital learning platforms, it's seeing a big resurgence. I'm not fully positive towards that. | ||
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Excludos
Norway7969 Posts
On August 18 2019 06:32 GreenHorizons wrote: Between the Nazis and antifa Trump threatens antifa with being labeled a terrorist group ahead of protests today https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1162726857231544320 The usual "Hey look over there!" that Trump keeps getting rewarded for doing. So what happened to that massive immigrant caravan group that was going to invade America anyways? You know, the one we had to set up the national guard at the border for? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22739 Posts
On August 18 2019 07:49 Excludos wrote: The usual "Hey look over there!" that Trump keeps getting rewarded for doing. So what happened to that massive immigrant caravan group that was going to invade America anyways? You know, the one we had to set up the national guard at the border for? Maybe, but I think it's more insidious than that. Since 9/11 "terrorist" has experienced an ever expanding definition and allowable countermeasures as well as executive power to determine who is a terrorist. Proud Boys seem to model themselves after brown shirts and we're entering a new version of Nixon's drug war. With Biden leading the Democratic nomination still it's quite possible Trump gets another 4 years to work it out as well. | ||
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ggrrg
Bulgaria2716 Posts
On August 17 2019 21:56 Liquid`Drone wrote: My honest response to all this is that while there are legitimate issues (I have addressed these), I still think barnevernet is overall an extremely positive force for children in Norway. When they do stuff wrongly, the consequences are terrible either way. But I am 100% convinced that a less intrusive barnevern would err on the side of accepting abuse more than it currently errs on the side of taking away too many children from their parents. I don't defend doing it when it's wrong and I acknowledge that there are cases where it's wrong. The thing is just, compare these stories to adults who were abused who wonder 'how come nobody saw or did anything'? The latter is a way, way more common phenomenon, and in my opinion, a child being abused for 12 years is not a better outcome than two parents losing parental rights for a duration of time (even if they were good parents.) Both are terrible outcomes, obviously, but you need to realize that the reason why barnevernet exists is that a lot of parents abuse their children. Not in %, but in absolute numbers, it's a whole lot - a country with 5 million inhabitants will have far more than a double digit number of children being abused in some form, at least unless there's a proactive institution influencing people's behavior. I do not doubt that there are many cases in which barnevernet has helped tremendiously. The issue at hand is that barnevenet is making horrendous errors of judgement with terrifying regularity. We are not talking about an isolated case. Alone the number of cases accepted by the ECHR is outright scary. Additionally, there are many more cases refused by the ECHR solely on the grounds that the legal means to combat the decision in Norway have not been fully exhausted yet. While this may sound like the proper way to handle the situation in a structured manner, seeing this from the point of view of the victims of this injustice a multi-year, emotionally and financially draining court battle does appear extremely unfair. I also disagree that the amount of beneficial barnevernet interventions has any bearing when criticizing the institution. Reducing the argument to lives saved against lives destroyed (because we are talking about destroyed lives here - families that are torn apart on a whim; parents that cannot function at all any more, spending every waking hour mourning the loss of their children; kids that are mentally scarred for life - How long do you think does it take for a 5 year old torn away from its mother until it stops crying the day away? A week? A month?) relativizes any injustice in an inhumane manner. Besides the personal misfortunes of parents being unjustly separated from their children, there is the glarring issue of structural deficiency within barnevernet. The institution itself is effectively unaccountable for its action. Noone inside can expect any personal consequences regardless of the shit they stir up. No other institution within the country has any oversight over barnevernet or can intervene in its dealings. Barnevernet itself has far reaching rights to impose any action it deems necessary. Barnevernet can and does take children away without due process, without proof - solely based on hearsay or the personal suspicions of an employee. Additionally, it can and does resort to the most severe action - taking children away - without ever making an attempt to alleviate the situtation in any other manner. This coupled with the fact that a non-insignificant amount of their interventions happen on presumptions or a single instance of unproven voiced concern, creates an outright dystopian reality. I also have the impression that there's been a highly efficient smear campaign going on - as evident by x)mz's first post and links, where they paint the situation completely differently from the more neutral (not pro-barnevernet) article from thelocal.no. I also think it's generally wise to adhere to the customs and cultural practices of countries you live in, and when a country explicitly forbids any corporal punishment, maybe you just like shouldn't engage in that matter. Virtually every case I've seen so far (every case I can remember) has the parents admitting that they did at least occasionally spank their children as part of the child rearing. Oh, you have no idea. The amount of click-bait articles circulating about barnevernet in Bulgarian alone are countless. The institution itself has been the target of criticism in the yellow press and in reputable media alike all across Europe and in a fair amount of countries outside the continent. But it begs the question: Is it really a smear campaign when the misfortunes written about are real and legitimate? Truth is you will be hard pressed to find articles talking about the upsides of barnevernet. Just as true is the fact that there is no shortage of disgusting injustices committed by this institution. You say that you are not aware of any case where it did not turn out that the parents were using corporal punishment. Then I can recommend the documentary in my previous post. The couple whose newborn was taken away was not accused of any abuse, the child was taken away because the mother was assumed to have a "undetermined mental disability" due to her being treated for depression as a young teenager. In another case a father had his child taken away with the reason being sexual and physical abuse - both of which later disproven in court - his child was still not returned. Outside the documentary, just on top of my head, there is the case of the Bulgarian mother who was alleged in physical abuse, which was also proven wrong in court - despite that the children were not returned; there is the case of the Czech couple whose sons were taken away on the pre-text of sexual abuse - the parents were exonerated in court, but the children were not returned. As a matter of fact, the parents have been denied any rights to even see their sons - a decision justified "among other things by too high media coverage of the case and that they became accustomed to the foster parents". Ultimately, children being taken away without the presence of physical or sexual abuse does happen. This injustice is compounded by the fact that it many cases the children are removed for a year or more until barnevernet finally gives in on their outrageous claims. Even more terrifying is the fact in multiple cases, the children are never returned and the parents completely stripped of their parental rights despite all of the initial reasons for the measure being without a shred of doubt proven as completely wrong. ...This is illegal, it is considered abuse (even if light spanking once is only 'mild abuse'), and fines or jail time is not how you enforce this; it's taking parental rights away. Wow, this is a loaded statement. Personally, I deem this dogmatic resolve to impose extreme measures not unlike what fascism or fundamentalism call for... I for my part can imagine a lot of ways to get parents in line. In my opinion, alone a hefty fine with the future threat of stripping parents of their parental rights would make them think twice before hitting their child again. But for the sake of argument, let's say my assessment that a child being slapped once a year is nowhere near as mentally scarring as this child being allowed to see its parents for only 10 hours per year is in fact wrong. Let's go back to the undeniable fact that barnevernet does make incredibly wrong decisions, the fact that these decisions are often based on absolutely nothing, the fact that even when the injustice comes to light there are absolutely no consequences for the perpetrators, and the unfathomable insanity that in some of those cases the children are not even returned to their parents. There is a serious structural defect in the way barnevernet operates and the statement that they do more good than bad is of little solace to everybody who has been wronged by them. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28563 Posts
But like, for 2018, barnevernet received 57000 messages of concern. They ended up investigating 48000 of those cases, and in 19000, they committed to some form of action to improve conditions for the children / help the parents out. in 1588 cases, they removed the children from the parents. So 85% of reported cases are investigated, 41% of investigated cases result in some form of action (which can be simple advice and tips, economic help if parents are too poor to provide necessary materials for the kid, or homes the children can visit if the parents are temporarily not suitable (often used for people with drug or alcohol problems), and in ~8% of cases that action is kids being taken from their parents. In 42% of cases the actions relate to the children getting some help because they're not developing at a normal pace, in 31% of cases they try to help the parents be better parents.. (norwegian sources) 4% of norwegians aged 0-22 have had some interactions with barnevernet, but most of those have never received help outside their own home. I also fundamentally disagree with the idea that good doesn't outweigh bad - in principle. I think that's just wrong. The question is whether the ratio is good enough, which it might not be (although personally I think the ratio is better in Norway than in most other countries because being more intrusive lets us uncover more cases, and I don't accept that a family of 4 being ruined because the two children are wrongly displaced is a bigger tragedy than 4 other children being abused for 12 years. ) | ||
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FueledUpAndReadyToGo
Netherlands30548 Posts
On August 18 2019 06:32 GreenHorizons wrote: Between the Nazis and antifa Trump threatens antifa with being labeled a terrorist group ahead of protests today https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1162726857231544320 I mean I'm sure a fraction of Antifa just go to protests purely to be a dick, derail protests and have a scuffle with law enforcement or the opponents because they enjoy that. I think it's stupid but it's hardly terrorism. Looking at the twitter sphere people are posting video's of some skirmishes as ' proof' of this terrorism. But it's all grasping straws really. People looking for a fight will find it at these protests, just like they find it at a bar or at a sports match. There's not much more to it. Meanwhile people have all but forgotten already about the maga bomber. It's weird. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
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Ben...
Canada3485 Posts
On August 18 2019 07:49 Excludos wrote: I'll see if I can find the piece I read on Fox's reporting of the "caravan", but to surprise absolutely nobody, within a day or two of the midterms ending, Fox had essentially stopped reporting on the migrant caravan completely and Trump basically didn't mention it nearly as frequently. A few weeks later they started talking about it again at a politically convenient time for a day or two, and then did again right before the SOTU so he could blab about border security.So what happened to that massive immigrant caravan group that was going to invade America anyways? You know, the one we had to set up the national guard at the border for? It's almost like the entire thing was complete bullshit and they just use it to fearmonger and distract from other, actual issues going on. Just like all the antifa fearmongering. | ||
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Gorgonoth
United States468 Posts
On August 18 2019 10:02 Nebuchad wrote: Stuck at the airport in San Francisco reading about Portland, meh. Good luck to antifa and all sympathizers. Antifa has been documented using violence. Why are you wishing good luck to a group which has attempted to firebomb a government building and beaten up journalists? They condone violence as a political tool. As early as 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI warned state and local officials that antifa had become increasingly confrontational and were engaging in “domestic terrorist violence.” + Show Spoiler + https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/350524-antifa-activists-say-violence-is-necessary The use of violence should be condemned whether it comes from far left or right. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9351 Posts
On August 18 2019 14:17 Gorgonoth wrote: Antifa has been documented using violence. Why are you wishing good luck to a group which has attempted to firebomb a government building and beaten up journalists? They condone violence as a political tool. As early as 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI warned state and local officials that antifa had become increasingly confrontational and were engaging in “domestic terrorist violence.” + Show Spoiler + https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/350524-antifa-activists-say-violence-is-necessary The use of violence should be condemned whether it comes from far left or right. Its no coincidence that antifa has become more confrontational the more fascism becomes mainstream and accepted in America. I fully support them and it doesn't surprise me that Trump's government wants them labelled as terrorists - which I'd like to remind you is fucking ridiculous given all the actual terrorist attacks that are coming from white supremacists and fascists. When was the last time antifa killed someone? Gorgonoth when you see a fascist shoot up a church, synagogue, gay club or mosque - and get held up as heroes for it - does it really make you think you can talk it out with these people? The rising tide of fascism in the US needs confronting. https://www.businessinsider.com/extremist-killings-links-right-wing-extremism-report-2019-1?r=US&IR=T Every extremist killing in the US in 2018 had a link to a right-wing extremism, according to a January 2019 report from the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. The report zeroes in on incidents such as the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018, and the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October 2018. There were at least 50 extremist-related killings in the US in 2018, according to the report, making it the fourth-deadliest year on record for domestic extremist-related killings since 1970. Yeah we should really be very worried about ANTIFA *eyeroll* | ||
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Gorgonoth
United States468 Posts
On August 18 2019 14:26 Jockmcplop wrote: Its no coincidence that antifa has become more confrontational the more fascism becomes mainstream and accepted in America. I fully support them and it doesn't surprise me that Trump's government wants them labelled as terrorists - which I'd like to remind you is fucking ridiculous given all the actual terrorist attacks that are coming from white supremacists and fascists. When was the last time antifa killed someone? Gorgonoth when you see a white supremacist shoot up a church, synagogue, gay club or mosque - and get held up as heroes for it - does it really make you think you can talk it out with these people? The rising tide of fascism in the US needs confronting. https://www.businessinsider.com/extremist-killings-links-right-wing-extremism-report-2019-1?r=US&IR=T Yeah we should really be very worried about ANTIFA *eyeroll* Please substantiate for me the claim that fascism has become mainstream and accepted in America. According to that idea, fascism is something which a majority or even a significant minority of U.S. citizens agree with or even have a neutral attitude towards Facism. My point is: I want Antifa as well as the proud boys, three percenters, and any other group that is violent to be classified as a terrorist organization and to be fought by the U.S. law enforcement for the benefit of public safety. I feel the exact same when there are shootings, violence, or damages to property done by any group to any people. Antifa has committed actual acts of terror. It's not a made-up thing that Fox News or Breitbart or right-wing people parrot with no factual evidence. By saying you fully support antifa, you are supporting the use of political violence against people you disagree with. That is not something that I will ever support. White supremacy is despicable and ugly. Violence against other human beings is wrong, no matter what the justification. I don't understand why this concept of defending political violence is becoming more acceptable at both ends of the spectrum. I think its terrifying. Once you let the genie out of the bottle by saying its ok because "Antifa only responds to violence equally," or "Facism has to be confronted at all costs". I believe that's a point of no return for our society. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9351 Posts
Calling them terrorists is like calling liberals terrorists. It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. If it was an organization that you could join then maybe (you'd still be wrong) but it isn't. What I mean by this is that you can't join antifa, if you decide that you are going to do some anti-fascism, there are no rules by which you do that and no-one is going to tell you how to do it. There's no structure or people at the top guiding it. Its just people fighting against fascism using any means necessary. So what you are saying when you say antifa are terrorists is that: People who take direct action against fascism are terrorists This is actually a very common misconception about antifa so i'm not having a go at you about it, but its worth thinking about, because it shows how these messages spread and support the rise of fascism. Also when Trump openly courts and is supported at the highest level by fascists and gets elected president, that means that fascism is mainstream. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22739 Posts
On August 18 2019 15:01 Gorgonoth wrote: Please substantiate for me the claim that fascism has become mainstream and accepted in America. According to that idea, fascism is something which a majority or even a significant minority of U.S. citizens agree with or even have a neutral attitude towards Facism. My point is: I want Antifa as well as the proud boys, three percenters, and any other group that is violent to be classified as a terrorist organization and to be fought by the U.S. law enforcement for the benefit of public safety. I feel the exact same when there are shootings, violence, or damages to property done by any group to any people. Antifa has committed actual acts of terror. It's not a made-up thing that Fox News or Breitbart or right-wing people parrot with no factual evidence. By saying you fully support antifa, you are supporting the use of political violence against people you disagree with. That is not something that I will ever support. White supremacy is despicable and ugly. Violence against other human beings is wrong, no matter what the justification. I don't understand why this concept of defending political violence is becoming more acceptable at both ends of the spectrum. I think its terrifying. Once you let the genie out of the bottle by saying its ok because "Antifa only responds to violence equally," or "Facism has to be confronted at all costs". I believe that's a point of no return for our society. What acts of terror? The "genie out of the bottle" line is silly, genie was never in the bottle. It's just fascist political violence is called "law and order" or some other bullshit euphemism. You consider the US the biggest/most powerful terrorist organization in the world too right? Since... Violence against other human beings is wrong, no matter what the justification. And you are supporting the use of political violence against people you disagree with. That is not something that I will ever support. So not a supporter of the US then either? | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7814 Posts
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