[Babylon Bee Fish] YOSEMITE VALLEY, CA—A young child was stung by a fish Tuesday while frolicking through a meadow in Yosemite National Park. The three-year-old girl, daughter of George and Shelly Quicken, allegedly provoked the wild fish when she began picking flowers for her mother.
The Quicken family was surprised to see a fish in the middle of a meadow and even more surprised when it stung the young girl.
"I've never seen a fish move like that," said Shelly Quicken. "It was FLYING!"
"Now I see it every time I close my eyes. It flies through my nightmares," she wept.
George Quicken admitted he thought the whole thing was a joke until he saw the stinger in his daughter's thumb. He acted quickly, plucking out the stinger with a pair of tweezers and preserving the evidence for marine biologists.
"I don't understand it!" he insisted. "Climate change must have forced an early evolution. Now they are invading the land. Soon, they could be anywhere."
Park rangers say the fish was black and yellow in appearance and capable of flying through the air at an incredible speed. Unlike other fish, it is actually repelled by water, which means it could be anywhere at any time.
"Listen, it's called a bee," said Ranger Tetradomadon. "Some court classified them as fish to put them on an endangered list, but they're just bees. Ya'll need to relax!"
The Quicken daughter was hospitalized out of an abundance of caution due to her history of fish allergies. Curiously, doctors claim to have seen no allergy symptoms present themselves.
At publishing time, rangers have had to shoo fishermen away from the park's meadows. No Fishing signs now blanket the otherwise grand landscape of the majestic national park.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/08/2022 07:38 ||
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[CFP] Mexico’s president is reviving calls for a continental super-state that would combine North American employers and South American employees — and sideline tens of millions of middle-class Americans.
#1
Kamalamadingdong yesterday called for U. S. companies to invest 3 billion dollars in central American countries in order to reduce unlawful immigration.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/08/2022 8:17 Comments ||
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#2
Yes. With those countries' penchant for marxist politicians and nationalization of foreign assets, that should go over in a big way.
However, don't count on the stupidity + greed + pandering of US corporations.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/08/2022 8:23 Comments ||
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#3
Don't count out, I meant...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/08/2022 8:24 Comments ||
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#4
You can ALWAYS count on the stupidy + greed + pandering of American corporations. That's why every commercial must have at least one black actor, yet Uncle Ben has been sent to the TV commercial gulag.
Posted by: Too Old To Work ||
06/08/2022 8:33 Comments ||
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#5
Another reason to hate the UniParty:
"The same continent-wide superstate was pushed in 2001 by President G.W. Bush and Mexico’s then-president, Vicente Fox. Their unpopular “Any Willing Worker” plan would have allowed U.S. employers to easily import low-wage employees from central and south America. It was derailed following the 9/11 attack.
"The policy would spike Wall Street and Fortune 500 profits by giving them floods of cheap foreign workers plus many new foreign consumers."
#6
As long as the culture is tolerant of corruption (that's just the way it is) in those countries, no amount of aid or redistribution will solve the problem. Just look around here as we become just like them with an self-centered self-indulgent ruling class that cares less about the vast majority of the people (upon whom their position rests) than their next whim of alternate religion experience.
#7
Not just toleration of corruption, but no protection for property rights. Why improve your land if the local strong man can just have a "court" hand it to him?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/08/2022 8:51 Comments ||
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#10
Latin American workers and factories would be better than relying on China for anything.
We don't need a super-state, we don't need a free trade zone. we need Latin American countries to create areas that encourage foreign manufacturers to invest.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
06/08/2022 12:12 Comments ||
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#12
As long as I can remember I keep hearing the term "developing countries" and this whole time our government has been extremely generous with "foreign aid" for them and yet they are still poverty stricken, backward hell holes. How many centuries will it take them to "develop"?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/08/2022 13:10 Comments ||
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#13
^ 'Bout the same time frame as Detroit.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/08/2022 14:55 Comments ||
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#14
The US will become a Developing Country long before any of them become Developed.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
[ColonelCassad] Former Ombudsman of Ukraine Lyudmila Denisova commented on her stories about "atrocious" rapes.
She said that when she spoke in the Italian Parliament, she saw fatigue from Ukraine. And so she began to compose fairy tales in order to somehow push Italy to make decisions that Ukraine and the Ukrainian people need.
“Maybe I went too far. But I was trying to achieve the goal of convincing the world to provide weapons and put pressure on Russia,” the ex-ombudswoman said.
In principle, this is all you need to know about "raped Ukraine".
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.
ForeignCombatants.ru
is our database of foreign mercenaries and volunteers taking part in hostilities on the side of Ukraine war" in Ukraine. Although there are enough veterans in the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine, the vast majority are airsoft players and e-sportsmen.
Despite the huge number of publications in foreign media about the hard lot of mercenaries in Ukraine, no one has yet thought of creating a single public database to show the scale of the disaster.
Together with the @vatfor project, we did this: with the help of volunteers, we collect, catalog and translate information into foreign languages.
The purpose of the ForeignCombatants.ru project is to convince adventurers to abandon the role of "cannon fodder" and show how the Ukrainian authorities simply use them all.
If you want to join the volunteer team and help, you are welcome: write to @fcomb_bot
#5
More than likely this database would be used to punish the guys who went, if they make it back home. Or too keep an "eye" on them.
Posted by: Chris ||
06/08/2022 12:04 Comments ||
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#6
While we are at it:
What ever happened to the syrians?
What about the chechens and kazakhs?
What about the various black africans?
Its almost as if russia has more foreign mercenaries than the ukraine.
Or are they suddenly now a part of the Russian military?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/08/2022 16:22 Comments ||
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#8
Or are they suddenly now a part of the Russian military?
If you had read the translated Russian language reports -- which you didn't -- you would know that Wagener is actively involve in Ukraine. On the side the Russians.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Oleg Airapetov
[Regnum] The consequences of the weakening of the Red Army in the Denikin direction soon manifested themselves in full force. In May 1919, the Volunteer Army took control of the Donbass. Having repulsed the counterattack of the Southern Front, it began to move up and down the Dnieper. At the end of the month, Makhno betrayed the Bolsheviks. Grigoriev's rebellion only delayed the inevitable conflict for a while. Trotsky had a negative attitude towards the anarchist movement in Ukraine.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
[ColonelCassad] 1. Shoigu announced the complete liberation of Svyatogorsk and residential areas of Severodonetsk.
2. It was also announced the opening of a land automobile corridor to the Crimea. Work is underway to open a railway connection.
3. The ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol started working. They will be actively used, including for the restoration and development of the territories liberated from Ukraine.
4. The total number of the military of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Russian captivity is almost 6500 (with border guards, policemen and SBU officers, just 8000+ runs, which Pushilin spoke about earlier).
5. Over the past 10 days, 51 units of Western equipment have been destroyed in Ukraine, including 21 155mm howitzers.
6. Since June 1, the experience of the NWO has been introduced into the training programs for Russian troops.
#2
This is the culmination of an absolutely foolish strategy by the Ukrainian general staff. Instead of withdrawing from the Donbas to consolidate and regroup in more defensible positions to the west, or « reculer pour mieux sauter ».
Instead, the Ukrainians are losing not just what was always going to be lost (the Donbas), but also their best troops and huge numbers of the heavy weaponry supplied by the West.
There are now said to be discussions of a cease-fire between Zelensky and Putin. All the pressure on Putin is coming from his own general staff: they insist that Russia NOT negotiate, rather, to continue winning, to push on and seize even more land, to take Odesa. Hard to disagree with their logic.
#3
One wonders whether Lloyd Austin is advising the Ukrainians. The worse their fate, the more weapons the US defense industry including Raytheon can get Congress to pay for and send to Ukraine.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/08/2022 12:50 Comments ||
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#5
All the American and British media blather about heroic resistance and "taking back Severodonetsk" was just more information-war bullshit.
Even The Guardian is now admitting that the Ukrainian dead-enders have evacuated the city and that resistance in Svyatogorak has also collapsed.
2h ago
"Ukraine now only controls outskirts of Sievierodonetsk, says governor: Ukrainian forces have been pushed back by a Russian bombardment in the frontline eastern city of Sievierodonetsk and now only control its outskirts, according to the governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai."
#7
Total shitshow. NOW they tell us -- the Ukrainian jokers are lying even to Austin and Milley.
Big NY Times article today quoting Haines and other US Intelligence Community officials to the effect that they know next to nothing about "the state of Ukraine’s military forces and strategy in the Donbas."
As a result, we don't know what the fuck these assholes are doing, why they're doing it, and therefore whether or not they're about to be encircled and annihilated in the Donbas.
Here's The NY Times today, finally spilling the beans: "The United States provides regular, near real-time intelligence updates to Ukraine about the location of Russian forces, information that the Ukrainians use to plan operations and strikes and strengthen their defenses.
"But even in high level conversations with Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or Lloyd J. Austin III, the secretary of defense, Ukrainian officials share only their strategic goals, not their detailed operational plans.
"Ukraine’s secrecy has forced U.S. military and intelligence officials to try and learn what they can from other countries operating in Ukraine, training sessions with Ukrainians and Mr. Zelensky’s public comments, American officials said.
"Ukraine, the officials said, wants to present an image of strength, both to the public and to its close partners. The government does not want to share information that could suggest a weakening of resolve, or give the impression that they might not win.
"In essence, Ukrainian officials do not want to present information that might encourage the United States and its other Western partners to slow the flow of arms."
Posted by: Billy Budd ||
06/08/2022 20:29 Comments ||
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#8
Christ. FFS, how many times have we been down this path?
A corrupt little client state full of grifters who tell our military and intel community a bunch of lies in order to scam billions in aid.
The "Army of the Republic of Vietnam" and its bright aging lies.
The "Iraqi National Congress" and their ridiculous scams.
The Afghan Army, Karzai, the whole fucking shitshow that conned us out of hundreds of billions.
And now the Brave Ukrainians, refusing to even tell us what the hell they intend to do with aid that in three months dwarfs what we sent to the other grifters. All so they can get their asses kicked and lose over 20 percent of their territory.
When will our Swamp creatures take off the Kick Me sticker plastered to their backs? Sweet Jesus, what idiocy
Posted by: Billy Budd ||
06/08/2022 20:36 Comments ||
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#9
When will our Swamp creatures take off the Kick Me sticker plastered to their backs?
You don't think the swamp critters are making money off this mess? Does the name Biden ring a bell? I bet Nancy Pelosi has some interesting stock trades lately.
#10
Well, this has been obvious from the beginning. The picture presented to the American and British public about Ukraine's battlefield success has always been full of lies and exaggerations. The German and Austrian press has presented plenty of examples of stunning Ukrainian failures, but none of this has been given to the US. It's quite astonishing that this information was withheld from Austin and Milley and the Biden people.
The New York Times is clearly preparing their readers for the inevitable: "another intelligence failure"
This woman is saying aloud what we in Europe already knew:
" 'How much do we really know about how Ukraine is doing?' said Beth Sanner, a former senior intelligence official. 'Can you find a person who will tell you with confidence how many troops has Ukraine lost, how many pieces of equipment has Ukraine lost?' "
"...the public information about Ukrainian casualties, equipment losses and morale is incomplete. There may be a potential cost if the intelligence community cannot present a fuller picture to the public or Congress about Ukraine’s military prospects, Ms. Sanner said.
"If Russia advances further, the failure to understand the state of the Ukrainian military could open the intelligence community to accusations that it failed to deliver a full picture of Ukraine’s prospects in the war to policymakers.
“ 'Everything is about Russia’s goals and Russia’s prospects for meeting their goals,' Ms. Sanner said. 'We do not talk about whether Ukraine might be able to defeat them. And to me, I feel that we are setting ourselves up for another intel failure by not talking about that publicly.' "
#11
Fuck. "Another intel failure." From the folks who brought you the Iraq shitshow and the Afghan debacle
Send these incompetent bastards to prison. Enough of this garbage. Fuck Zelensky and those other lying bastards in the ass with a shit covered punji stick
Posted by: Billy Budd ||
06/08/2022 21:00 Comments ||
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#12
^ Your (understandable) outrage is better directed at Austin and Biden, I think. Zelensky is no better than he ought to be, as they say.
He and the Ukrainians are merely doing what's done by every ambitious third-world mountebank with a grudge against American neo-conservatives' latest bête noire. He presented himself as an heroic champion of 'freedom' and 'democracy,' made theatrical appeals as another Holocaust-style victim in Washington and Hollywood to Congress and to Jewish media executives and Wall Street money men, and asked for billions in American military supplies. It's an old routine, and a supremely lucrative one.
As always, the money is squandered or stolen, the neo-partisans are defeated on the battlefield and abandon their weapons, and the little man who cried wolf absconds with hundreds of millions to a safe offshore haven, never to be heard from again.
#13
It's like a conversation between Yoda and Miss Piggy in here.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/08/2022 22:40 Comments ||
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#14
Yes, they're getting us ready for the eventual collapse. Getting out front of the mass panic story to come.The Narrative has changed, no turning back. The Ukrainians are being completely routed.
Posted by: Billy Budd ||
06/08/2022 22:41 Comments ||
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#15
We’ve seen what the Obama administration did when Israel informed them about plans for Iran, and no doubt other things. And the Biden administration copies Obama’s methods slavishly, the Obama who promised Russia that after his reelection he would be free to act instead of pleasing the electorate.
Given that, would you trust the Biden team with your abilities and plans? I certainly would not.
As for the New York Times, cher Jean-Paul, if they reported the sky was blue I would check for myself from several different vantage points. They combine all that is Pravda and Izvestia in one well-written, fabricated package. Anyone who believes what appears in their pages without checking other sources is a naive.
One must ask, though, what makes Jewish media executives different than non-Jewish media executives? Do you know many personally, or is this the kind of general knowledge absorbed from the atmosphere? In order to judge the validity of your claims, we must understand from whence comes your knowledge.
#16
@RobCrawford - I assume you are American. If so, could you please tell me or us how you feel about being lied to repeatedly by your leaders about this war?
From what we've seen, you (like many others) have consistently mocked one side and swallowed every lie, half-truth and fable promoted in the press by the American and British military and intelligence establishments.
Now those same press outlets are admitting that most of what they printed was false.
How do you feel about being duped?
Was it your fault, or theirs?
Or both?
#17
how you feel about being lied to repeatedly by your leaders about this war?
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." - Winston Churchill
Why should this war be different than any other war? Did de Gaulle always tell the exact truth during the war and after, when he was president? Did he never keep silent, misdirect, or speak outright untruths?
#18
The German and Austrian military and intelligence analysts, and publications like Die Welt and Der Spiegel, have reported objectively and without efforts to push a slanted narrative. The French outlets also, and same for Chinese and Arab media. All have noted when Russians were defeated, and have also noted the many colossal defeats which the Ukrainians have suffered.
Only the American and British press outlets have consistently -- until the last few days -- pushed a relentlessly, absurdly one-sided view of the actual progress of events on the battlefield.
Now we understand why. US intelligence is being deceived and kept in the dark by their Ukrainian client -- just as they were by Ahmed Chalabi, Hamid Karzai, and the South Vietnamese leaders Diem and later, Thieu.
Again and again, America embraces mountebanks and little third world Napoleons who lead America into foolish overseas adventures that end in disaster. Plus ça change...
#19
The German and Austrian military and intelligence analysts, and publications like Die Welt and Der Spiegel, have reported objectively and without efforts to push a slanted narrative.
The Austrians are neutral. The postwar Germans keep their distance from America and know better than to push war propaganda.
#20
Jewish media executives in the US have pushed the absurd notion that Zelensky is a kind of Warsaw Ghetto resistance figure up against Russian Nazis. Zelensky made outrageous slurs against Kissinger, whose family actually did escape the Nazis, while hiding behind his own sordid history of supporting the notorious neo-Nazi brigades and the Ujraunuans' beloved Nazi, Stepan Bandera.
Zelensky has tried again and again to exploit the Holocaust. Here is a summary by a Times of Israel writer:
"...both sides are guilty of inappropriately invoking the Holocaust. Already early on, Zelensky compared Ukraine, to Ukraine has shared images of Putin as Hitler. Using images of the Holocaust to establish victimhood is never a sound strategy.
...Putin is not an antisemite. His affinity for Jews and the Jewish people is well known. Stories about his Jewish childhood friends, neighbours, and teachers are countless. Like the time he visited Israel and bought his 93-year-old former teacher an apartment in Tel Aviv. Putin has spoken publicly about the elderly Jewish couple who helped raise him, and the Jewish judo coach who was a major influence on his life. Putin maintains close ties with the Chabad movement. It could be argued that Putin’s public embrace of the Jews has contributed to the decline in antisemitism in Russia in recent years. Of course, none of this makes his war Kosher.
"Many of Ukraine’s national heroes, from Stepan Bandera to Bogdan Khmelnitsky are drenched in Jewish blood. But these butchers aren’t consigned to history. As Ukrainian nationalism rises, they are celebrated in today’s Ukraine, with dozens of statues, parades, street signs and even a bank note. The neo-Nazi Azov brigades form part of the Ukrainian National Guard.
"It’s Zelensky, married to a Christian and who reportedly had his children baptized, who has repeatedly attempted to make this a Jewish issue. Zelensky told Jewish leaders that Russia bombed the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial, a claim later revealed to be untrue. He made a similar dubious claim about the Jewish pilgrimage site of Uman.
"Ukraine’s President has attempted to drag Israel into the conflict on numerous occasions, and lashed out with a special venom reserved for Israel when it hasn’t gone his way. He accused Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet of ‘not being wrapped in our flag’. That’s the same religiously observant Bennet, who broke Shabbat flying to Russia attempting to negotiate peace.
"Zelensky demanded to speak at Yad Vashem. When this was rebuffed, a Ukrainian official called it a corrupt institution. Zelensky did speak to the Israeli Knesset, though some Arab MKs boycotted his speech. He again compared Ukraine’s situation to the Holocaust and urged Israelis to help Ukraine in the same way the Ukrainian nation helped Jews during World War II. Needless to say, his Holocaust revisionism did not go down well in Israel...."
Jew-hate and America-hate are a large part of Der Spiegel’s raison d’être. They wouldn’t know objective, unslanted reported if it dropped a steaming pile of fresh horse apples onto their collective shoes.
War propaganda they may avoid, Herr Reiter, but anti-war propaganda sends happy shivers up and down their spines, having, in my observation, learnt all the wrong things from losing their last two.
#22
No their reporting on Ukraine has in general been balanced and objective, with expert military analysis. The American and British press by comparison (as Jean-Paul points out) has been a comical pastiche of lies and fables.
The notion of Zelensky, husband to a shiksa, as a Jewish Resistance fighter is so absurd it makes one think of the stories concocted by the National Enquirer.
#23
Given his patron's financial support for the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and his homage to Stepan Bandera, Zelensky's attempts to exploit the Holocaust are really obscene.
#24
It is this constant effort to conflate the jews' history with that of Ukraine which is so absurd. Ukraine and Ukrainians were and are the most anti-Semitic nation in Europe. Only the Hollywood- and New York-based descendants of Holocaust victims fall for this nonsense.
Mr. Wife is not Jewish. That does not make my Jewishness or Zionism any less. In fact have my mother’s relatives back in Hildesheim before the war were Christian, which did not prevent them from suffering from the connection under the Nazis.
Americans are currently struggling with inflation and certain categories, like fuel prices, get an outsized amount of attention. It makes sense. There are few products people buy as frequently that have as volatile a pricing scheme. It's also universal. In a car-driven society, the pain at the pump is a metric most people are aware of.
But inflation certainly doesn't stop there. Everything gets more expensive. But for many items, like cars and kitchen cabinets, purchases are typically few and far between. In terms of social and political stability globally, food prices are something that I find much more concerning.
The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization does amazing work tracking global food prices and agricultural trends. They do work on par with the USDA, and I consider both to be preeminent sources of information in their field on the topic of American/global agriculture. And they publish their information for free.
The FAO publishes monthly updates to global food prices. The picture is...not good. We've seen global food inflation drop a couple ticks in April and May of 2022 due to some softening in global oilseed markets (Indonesia has relaxed their palm oil export ban a bit, and we've seen some declining demand for oil seeds due to price) but the overall picture is still one of a stark increase in food costs. It's a product of both an overall global inflationary environment, and a series of shortages due to conflict and poor weather (like the challenges facing Ukraine's grain exports).
2021, shown as the orange line, saw a pretty steady and straightforward increase in food prices between January and December, well over 2020 (in pink). 2022 is the aggressive, near-vertical line in red. The flattening out we see is again in large part due to some relaxation in food oil prices, but the news is certainly not good for global consumers. (And all of us in that bucket!)
If you want to break costs down into primary commodity groups, the FAO has you covered there as well. Peek at the second chart. Vegetable oils, the top line in green, is showing the greatest year-on-year increase. But prices have risen steadily across all globally traded commodity groups like cereals (including wheat) and dairy. We'll have to see how the sugar harvest plays out in Brazil this year, but meat prices are also slowly but steadily inching upwards--as much a product of rising feed import costs as it is growing demand for poultry and fears over a widening avian flu epidemic.
All of which represent a more expensive global food price environment. Large importers of food like Egypt are already scrambling and, according to some, purchasing Russian cargoes of stolen Ukrainian wheat. This is an issue that the US is starting to take seriously. And for countries dependent on food aid, like Syria and Yemen? Challenges abound, to say the least. While this is only one part of the global inflation story, it is one that most people globally will feel most acutely.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Babylon 
[CFP] Mexico’s president is reviving calls for a continental super-state that would combine North American employers and South American employees — and sideline tens of millions of middle-class Americans.
Americans are currently struggling with inflation and certain categories, like fuel prices, get an outsized amount of attention. It makes sense. There are few products people buy as frequently that have as volatile a pricing scheme. It's also universal. In a car-driven society, the pain at the pump is a metric most people are aware of.
