Thursday, June 30, 2011

robert pattinson and kristen stewart 2011 mtv

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  • 2011 MTV Movie Awards - Show


  • Macaca
    12-23 10:55 AM
    Pelosi's first year

    San Francisco Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi made history as the nation's first female House speaker in January, but she's had a bumpy first year marked by successes and failures.

    Biggest successes

    Passed an energy bill raising fuel economy standards for the first time in 30 years, the equivalent today of taking 28 million cars off the road by 2020.

    Approved a major cut in interest rates on student loans to make college more affordable.

    Passed the strongest ethics reforms since Watergate, banning gifts from lobbyists and making earmarks more transparent.

    Secured the largest increase in veterans' benefits in history.

    Increased the minimum wage for the first time in a decade, from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 over three years.

    Biggest failures

    Despite repeated votes, failed to enact any major changes in Iraq war policy.

    Tried to expand the state children's health insurance program to cover 4 million more children, but was blocked by President Bush and House Republicans.

    Sparked a diplomatic fight with Turkey by pushing a resolution condemning the country's mass killing of Armenians during World War I.

    Abandoned the party's "pay-as-you-go" budget rules to avoid letting the alternative minimum tax hit 20 million Americans.

    Accepted Bush's spending limits in the end-of-the-year budget fight to avoid shutting down the federal government.




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  • prince_waiting
    08-05 11:03 AM
    1. Cigarette: A pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end & a fool at the other.


    2. Love affairs: Something like cricket where one-day internationals are more popular than a five day test.


    3. Marriage: It's an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree
    and a woman gains her master


    4. Divorce: Future tense of marriage


    5. Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the
    lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through "the minds of either".


    6. Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.


    7. Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody
    believes he got the biggest piece.


    8. Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine will-power is defeated by feminine water-power.


    9. Dictionary: A place where divorce comes before marriage.


    10. Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens &
    everybody disagrees later on.


    11. Ecstasy: A feeling when you feel you are going to feel a feeling you have never felt before.


    12. Classic: A book which people praise, but doesn�t read.


    13. Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.


    14. Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.


    15. Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.


    16. Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you
    actually do.
    17. Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to
    decide that nothing can be done together.


    18. Experience: The name men give to their mistakes.


    19. Atom Bomb: An invention to end all inventions.


    20. Philosopher: A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead.


    21. Diplomat: A person who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.


    22. Opportunist: A person who starts taking bath if he accidentally falls into a river.


    23. Optimist: A person who while falling from Eiffel Tower says in midway "See I am not injured yet."


    24. Pessimist: A person who says that O is the last letter in ZERO, instead of the first letter in word OPPORTUNITY.


    25. Miser: A person who lives poor so that he can die rich.


    26. Father: A banker provided by nature.


    27. Criminal: A guy no different from the rest... except that he got
    caught.


    28. Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are
    early.


    29. Politician: One who shakes your hand before elections and your
    confidence after the elections.


    30. Doctor: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you with his bills.




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  • ThinkTwice
    09-26 02:20 PM
    The kind of delay in the GC process, the uncertainity involved and now added to this is the possibility of the Obama administration if elected making it difficult for EB GC applicants.
    We have already anticipated this and had applied for the UK Highly Skilled Migrant Program (HSMP). We will most likely move to UK soon.. as soon as the elections are over.. a matter of few weeks. Unfortunate that after staying in this country for 12 years, having graduated from one of the best schools and having worked and having been a part of this great nation this is where it may all end for us. Whats even worse is that our son who is a US citizen will grow up in some other nation.
    Well.. time to move on.




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  • unitednations
    03-26 08:49 PM
    Thank you UN for wonderful explanation. You hit the nail to the point. Usually USCIS sends these work location queries at the time of 140 processing. I am surprised we are seeing these at I-485 stage. Is there any recent memo related to this by USCIS that you know of?

    If you go really far back; california service center when they were adjudicating 140's would the odd time deny a 140 because they didn't believe the intent of joining the company if a person was working in different location (when baltimore case came out; it helped in overturning these types of denials and they stopped doing it).

    Now; nebraska service center the odd time did question the intent at the 140 level and also at the 485 level. I haven't seen it much in last three years. However; the ones I did see (they were all approved; thanks to baltimore decision) were for companies which had filed labors in iowa. I believe that this was also one of the catalysts in looking at iowa companies of what is happening today.



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  • h1techSlave
    12-26 10:01 PM
    Nobody's gonna come to wipe your ass. You gotta do it yourself.

    Yeah man, you put it correclty. India was always hoping that would happen.




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  • spicy_guy
    09-19 07:53 PM
    hi
    they are taking social security, medicare taxes. while we are not getting any benefit out of it. they must stop taking social. they are taking this taxes based on that they will give us permanent status. now they have delayed process near to impossible for EB-3.
    Intent of social security and medicare is to support social security benefits, but when they are not granting any of this benefit they should stop taking it from us or should make green card processing faster.
    they should clarify this situation since they are taking money from us.
    hetal shah
    hetalvn@yahoo.com

    You will reap the benefits when you retire. Not now



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  • vghc
    01-07 01:49 PM
    All Muslims are NOT terrorists, but 99.9% terrorists ARE muslims.




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  • DallasBlue
    09-29 07:22 PM
    USINPAC and AJC should support us for talented future lobbyists. :-)

    Forget the Israel Lobby. The Hill's Next Big Player Is Made in India (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092801350_2.html) By Mira Kamdar (miraukamdar@gmail.com) | Washington Post, September 30, 2007

    Mira Kamdar, a fellow at the World Policy Institute and the Asia Society, is the author of "Planet India: How the Fastest-Growing Democracy is Transforming America and the World."

    The fall's most controversial book is almost certainly "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," in which political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt warn that Jewish Americans have built a behemoth that has bullied policymakers into putting Israel's interests in the Middle East ahead of America's. To Mearsheimer and Walt, AIPAC, the main pro-Israel lobbying group, is insidious. But to more and more Indian Americans, it's downright inspiring.

    With growing numbers, clout and self-confidence, the Indian American community is turning its admiration for the Israel lobby and its respect for high-achieving Jewish Americans into a powerful new force of its own. Following consciously in AIPAC's footsteps, the India lobby is getting results in Washington -- and having a profound impact on U.S. policy, with important consequences for the future of Asia and the world.

    "This is huge," enthused Ron Somers, the president of the U.S.-India Business Council, from a posh hotel lobby in Philadelphia. "It's the Berlin Wall coming down. It's Nixon in China."

    What has Somers so energized is a landmark nuclear cooperation deal between India and the United States, which would give India access to U.S. nuclear technology and deliver fuel supplies to India's civilian power plants in return for placing them under permanent international safeguards. Under the deal's terms, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- for decades the cornerstone of efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons -- will in effect be waived for India, just nine years after the Clinton administration slapped sanctions on New Delhi for its 1998 nuclear tests. But the Bush administration, eager to check the rise of China by tilting toward its massive neighbor, has sought to forge a new strategic alliance with India, cemented by the civil nuclear deal.

    On the U.S. side, the pact awaits nothing more than one final up-or-down vote in Congress. (In India, the situation is far more complicated; India's left-wing parties, sensitive to any whiff of imperialism, have accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of surrendering the country's sovereignty -- a broadside that may yet scuttle the deal.) On Capitol Hill, despite deep divisions over Iraq, immigration and the outsourcing of American jobs to India, Democrats and Republicans quickly fell into line on the nuclear deal, voting for it last December by overwhelming bipartisan majorities. Even lawmakers who had made nuclear nonproliferation a core issue over their long careers, such as Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), quickly came around to President Bush's point of view. Why?

    The answer is that the India lobby is now officially a powerful presence on the Hill. The nuclear pact brought together an Indian government that is savvier than ever about playing the Washington game, an Indian American community that is just coming into its own and powerful business interests that see India as perhaps the single biggest money-making opportunity of the 21st century.

    The nuclear deal has been pushed aggressively by well-funded groups representing industry in both countries. At the center of the lobbying effort has been Robert D. Blackwill, a former U.S. ambassador to India and deputy national security adviser who's now with a well-connected Republican lobbying firm, Barbour, Griffith & Rogers LLC. The firm's Web site touts Blackwill as a pillar of its "India Practice," along with a more recent hire, Philip D. Zelikow, a former top adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who was also one of the architects of the Bush administration's tilt toward India. The Confederation of Indian Industry paid Blackwill to lobby various U.S. government entities, according to the Boston Globe. And India is also paying a major Beltway law firm, Venable LLP.

    The U.S.-India Business Council has lavished big money on lobbyists, too. With India slated to spend perhaps $60 billion over the next few years to boost its military capabilities, major U.S. corporations are hoping that the nuclear agreement will open the door to some extremely lucrative opportunities, including military contracts and deals to help build nuclear power plants. According to a recent MIT study, Lockheed Martin is pushing to land a $4 billion to $9 billion contract for more than 120 fighter planes that India plans to buy. "The bounty is enormous," gushed Somers, the business council's president.

    So enormous, in fact, that Bonner & Associates created an India lobbying group last year to make sure that U.S. companies reap a major chunk of it. Dubbed the Indian American Security Leadership Council, the group was underwritten by Ramesh Kapur, a former trustee of the Democratic National Committee, and Krishna Srinivasa, who has been backing GOP causes since his 1984 stint as co-chair of Asian Americans for Reagan-Bush. The council has, oddly, "recruited groups representing thousands of American veterans" to urge Congress to pass the nuclear deal.

    The India lobby is also eager to use Indian Americans to put a human face -- not to mention a voter's face and a campaign contributor's face -- on its agenda. "Industry would make its business case," Somers explained, "and Indian Americans would make the emotional case."

    There are now some 2.2 million Americans of Indian origin -- a number that's growing rapidly. First-generation immigrants keenly recall the humiliating days when India was dismissed as an overpopulated, socialist haven of poverty and disease. They are thrilled by the new respect India is getting. Meanwhile, a second, American-born generation of Indian Americans who feel comfortable with activism and publicity is just beginning to hit its political stride. As a group, Indian Americans have higher levels of education and income than the national average, making them a natural for political mobilization.

    One standout member of the first generation is Sanjay Puri, who founded the U.S. India Political Action Committee in 2002. (Its acronym, USINPAC, even sounds a bit like AIPAC.) He came to the United States in 1985 to get an MBA at George Washington University, staying on to found an information-technology company. A man of modest demeanor who wears a lapel pin that joins the Indian and American flags, Puri grew tired of watching successful Indian Americans pony up money just so they could get their picture taken with a politician. "I thought, 'What are we getting out of this?', " he explains.

    In just five years, USINPAC has become the most visible face of Indian American lobbying. Its Web site boasts photos of its leaders with President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and presidential candidates from Fred Thompson to Barack Obama. The group pointedly sports a New Hampshire branch. It can also take some credit for ending the Senate career of Virginia Republican George Allen, whose notorious taunt of "macaca" to a young Indian American outraged the community. Less publicly, USINPAC claims to have brought a lot of lawmakers around. "You haven't heard a lot from Dan Burton lately, right?" Puri asked, referring to a Republican congressman from Indiana who has long been perceived as an India basher.

    USINPAC is capable of pouncing; witness the incident last June when Obama's campaign issued a memo excoriating Hillary Rodham Clinton for her close ties to wealthy Indian Americans and her alleged support for outsourcing, listing the New York senator's affiliation as "D-Punjab." Puri personally protested in a widely circulated open letter, and Obama quickly issued an apology. "Did you see? That letter was addressed directly to Sanjay," Varun Mehta, a senior at Boston University and USINPAC volunteer, told me with evident admiration. "That's the kind of clout Sanjay has."

    Like many politically engaged Indian Americans, Puri has a deep regard for the Israel lobby -- particularly in a country where Jews make up just a small minority of the population. "A lot of Jewish people tell me maybe I was Jewish in my past life," he jokes. The respect runs both ways. The American Jewish Committee, for instance, recently sent letters to members of Congress supporting the U.S.-India nuclear deal.

    "We model ourselves on the Jewish people in the United States," explains Mital Gandhi of USINPAC's new offshoot, the U.S.-India Business Alliance. "We're not quite there yet. But we're getting there."



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  • eb2dec2005
    08-22 11:57 AM
    Little Johny's first day in pre-school, the teacher gave a little test. She asked the kids to close their eyes and stick the tongue out. She then put honey drops and asked them to guess what it is. When no one was able to, the teacher decided to give a hint.

    "children, its how your mom calls your dad.. well, most of the time anyways"

    On hearing this, Little Johny screamed, "SPIT IT OUT GUYS... ITS A** HOLE"


    I really cracked up reading this joke. :)




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  • paskal
    07-08 08:46 PM
    I have been here 11 years. 4 different employers.
    I have all my returns and W2's
    why in the world would i keep every paystub?
    makes no sense. of course little does.

    UN thanks for the comments.
    any predictions on where we are headed? my vested interest is in EB2 india...

    btw why is everyone presuming that the 60,000 approvals went to India and China? EB3 ROW is retrogressed- all the extra numbers could have gone there. that would in any case be all the better for india/china in the longer term- the faster that backlog is finished, the greater the chance india/china lines will show meaningful movement.

    also did you notice the cantwell-kyl compromise amendment in the failed CIR 2007 had a provision for 485 filing w/o visa numbers current?



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  • panky72
    08-07 09:17 PM
    A boy and his father (new immigrants in Canada), were visiting a shopping centre. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and back together again. The boy asked his father: "What is this, Dad?" The father (never having seen an elevator) responded: "Son, I have never seen anything like this in my life, I don't know what it is."

    While the boy and his father were watching wide-eyed, an old lady in a wheel chair rolled up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the lady rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and the boy and his father watched small circles of lights with numbers above the walls light up. They continued to watch the circles light up in the reverse direction. The walls opened up again and a beautiful and attractive 24-year-old woman stepped out.
    The father shouts to his son: "GO GET YOUR MOTHER!!!":D




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  • chanduv23
    05-16 06:09 AM
    What if they give you all a chance for applying 485 and retaining PD before they ban h1b consulting??? I guess, you all will be happy with Durbin adn Grassley ;) ;) ;)

    The h1b system was designed to create brain drain in developing nations and bring them to America, but because of the implementation methodologies the opposite is happening, good people are either moving back or not coming or stuck with an employer which is not good for the economy.

    America gains nothing by banning h1b people - I am sure some provision will be there to protect people and get a fair chance towards imigration even if consulting etc.. practices are modified to work in correct methodologies.



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  • alisa
    01-06 11:58 PM
    For all who think "Fatah" is more moderate than Hamas, heres a part of the constitution of Fatah:

    Goals

    Article (12) Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.


    Article (13) Establishing an independent democratic state with complete sovereignty on all Palestinian lands, and Jerusalem is its capital city, and protecting the citizens' legal and equal rights without any racial or religious discrimination.

    "Eradication" of the Jewish state., their culture and there economy. Heres a movement which has "Genocide" as its constituional goal. How the hell do you negotiate with such people? Israel needs to be supported in its noble actions of self defense againt such fanatics.

    Good point.
    There should just be a greater and proper Israel, with Gaza and West Bank as parts of Israel. And all people living there should be citizens of Israel.
    Problem solved. No need to destroy anything or anyone.




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  • virtual55
    08-05 02:21 PM
    Admins,

    why are you not closing this thread



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  • langagadu
    03-29 03:47 PM
    ...




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  • gapala
    06-12 06:59 AM
    Guys.. stay put for now..
    Did you hear that home sales are up! All these media and those streaky economists and so called "housing experts" claiming in the news channels for past couple of weeks?.. that is media messing around with people's head.. I was looking at the public records for home sales and found that a huge portion of current homes sales are nothing but LOW END old homes between (75K to 150K).. Only a neglegable percentage are the ones between (200K and above). This is exactly what media doesn't speak about.. they conveniently skip this part when they report on home sales lately...

    Its the gotcha guys.. now they started to increase price a bit.. banks are pushing up interest rates to create a scenario where people are made to believe soon, its going to be out of reach again.. so grab one now.. and get that $8000 credit for yourself.. What they are trying to do is, create an artificial demand.. We all know that it isn't going anywhere.. by Q409.. we will see the prices again going south.. only thing they can do is delay the natural correction during this summer.. Its going to happen any way.. and by end of fall into winter, it is highly expected to reach the floor and stabilize during 2010 spring and summer ( average price in the range of 4 times disposible annual income), if not further decline as we saw in certain areas of california and florida..

    When you are in the market for a home, do not go by these general claims by media folks.. brokers and realtors who fake the confidence.. you will have to segment and compare the specs to sales price with in your choice of segment.. (such as..homes below 200K, between 200K to 300K, 300K to 400K and so on.) Public records are available online for almost all the counties in US, you can pull that up to see whats going on in your area before you jump into conclusion. This will give us a better feel of the market and even better, bargain opportunity.



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  • Gravitation
    03-25 04:27 PM
    Nobody said it is easy mate. If you are paranoid and want to be safe and prepare for the worst case (like getting fired or your 485 getting rejected) then don’t buy a house. It is a long haul and no one knows when his/her PD would become current. By the time one gets GC, the kids would have grown up and missed their childhood. Read my previous 3 posts. My suggestion was for the person who started this thread and for his situation only. I know each and every person’s situation is different. Like I said if I was in CA, probably I would be renting too.
    You're absolutely correct. It depends a lot on one's personal risk profile. I believe in taking calculated risks. So I find myself shaking heads when I read the posts that only consider worst-case scenarios and describe a house as golden-trap. Again, they probably have a valid PoV; just a very very different risk profile from me.




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  • looivy
    07-13 07:40 PM
    One of the qualifying criteria for EB2 is 5 years of experience. Right????

    If your I-485 application is stuck since July 2003 or prior, you are automatically EB2 by that rule. Are you not? You have been working for 5 years atleast.

    The revised rule should be

    EB2 eligibile = Anybody with experience on labor > 5 years (this would not impact current EB2 folks) or whose labor is older than 5 years (this will make EB3 folks happier).

    Peace.




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  • axp817
    03-25 01:26 PM
    UN,
    Any stories of AOS applicants porting to self employment under AC21, that you could share with us?

    Given your explanation on risks involved with porting to a small company, I wonder how self employment plays out in an AC21 scenario.

    Thanks very much, as always.




    alterego
    09-27 09:04 PM
    The Nov. bulletin will very much depend on whether the USCIS has completed their inventory evaluation process or not. If not then it will be a reprint of the Oct. Bulletin, if they have then I anticipate good EB2 I movement and fair EB3 I movement. EB3 ROW should see more gradual movement.




    Macaca
    12-27 06:27 PM
    A Who's Who of Indian sleaze
    Leaks of tapped phone conversations reveal how corruption propels India's booming economy (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/26/india-sleaze-corruption-economy)
    By Praful Bidwai | The Guardian

    The leak of hundreds of nearly 6,000 tapped telephone conversations between corporate lobbyist and British citizen Niira Radia and many of India's politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats and journalists has shocked the country. The tapes reveal the lobbying to assign the telecommunications portfolio to the politician A Raja, who sold mobile telephone licences at throwaway prices to favour particular companies, at an estimated loss of $12bn to $38bn to the exchequer � the highest-ever figure for an Indian corruption scandal.

    Even more important, though, are the corporate lobbyists' attempts to influence government policies in a host of areas; to rig cabinet appointments; and to plant stories with high-profile journalists in which support for parochial business interests would be dressed up as "the national interest".

    The tapes' dramatis personae read like a Who's Who of India, but despite the personalities involved attention is now turning to the larger story � the influence of business over politics, and lobbyists' intrusion into policy-making on scarce natural resources, licensing of industries, and "regulatory capture". Suddenly, the inner workings of government, the compromised roles of high officials and the limitless venality of businessmen stand exposed to the harsh light of public scrutiny.

    The Radia tapes are the tip of the iceberg. They shock because they provide the clinching evidence for a few of the many recent scandals, including the astronomical corruption in contracts for the Commonwealth Games; mining and metallurgical projects that blatantly violate environmental regulations; corporate land grabs in the guise of export promotion zones; the razing of virgin tropical rainforest to make way for opulent housing; and the ripping up of mountain ranges to build dams.

    Scandals and corruption are not new to India. Businessmen have long milked the exchequer through tax breaks, rigged licensing procedures and fraud. What is new is the neoliberal policy context, the quality and intimacy of business-politician-bureaucrat collusion bordering on a corporate takeover of government, and the growing plunder of public money. The thinktank Global Financial Integrity estimates that rich Indians have spirited abroad the equivalent of half of India's GDP over six decades. Illicit flows have greatly increased since the economy was liberalised in 1991. The notorious (often exaggerated) excesses of the "licence-permit raj" of the 1960s and 1970s pale beside the new crony-capitalism.

    Sleaze is integral to India's growth, and one of its main drivers. The growth is skewed. Agriculture has stagnated, per capita food consumption has fallen, 200,000 indebted farmers have committed suicide. Industry has grown sluggishly and only forms about one-fourth of GDP. But services have boomed. The highest growth sectors are property, construction, telecoms and road transport � not IT. Capital accumulates through the privatisation of natural resources and dispossession of whole communities. In all these sectors, and in mining and metallurgical production, what counts is privileged access to natural resources and the national commons, most critically land, which is at the core of the government's discretionary powers.

    "Liberalisation" has recast discretionary powers and allowed a new business-politics relationship to develop. Behind each of India's new billionaires is political patronage. Here lies the underbelly of India's growth: using crony-capitalist influence to corner mining leases, property development rights, construction permits and airwaves. It is not the free market, but manipulation and distortion, that propels growth.

    One part of the seamy side of India's growth is well-known: persistent poverty, social bondage and economic servitude. The Radia tapes highlight another: sleaze and collusive business-politics relations that mock transparency, accountability, democratic policy-making and the public interest.



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