Links To End The Month

Here are some things going on as July 2012 comes to a close:

From the Los Angeles Times, a body believed to be of a missing FBI agent has been found in Burbank.

From Newsmax, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee's Chik-fil-A support page on Facebook has been visited over 20 million times.

The Weekly Standard points out that what Mitt Romney said about culture impacting economic conditions during his recent visit to Jerusalem wasn't all that different from some things President Obama said during his 2009 speech in Cairo.

From LifeSiteNews, business has boomed for a bakery in Colorado, after it refused to provide a wedding cake for a gay couple.

From the Washington Times, the House Judiciary Committee reports on crimes committed by illegal aliens that the Obama administration won't deport.  (H/T Big Government)

From the Foundry, Republicans in the Senate say no votes on judges until after the election.

From Gateway Pundit, former Olympic organizer Mitt Romney gets the endorsement of former Olympic athletes including Christi Yamaguchi, and also from Lech Wałęsa.

From Smart Girl Politics, thanks to NY mayor Bloomberg, Obama's fictional Julia will learn to breastfeed.

From the Associated Press, the Syrian city of Aleppo has been under siege.

From the Wall Street Journal, a deal has been reached that will allow a female Saudi Arabian to compete in judo while wearing her head scarf.

Speaking of the Olympics, if the United States can't get all of the medals for the hammer throw, here's someone I'd like to see get one.  He used to compete for my alma mater, but now competes for one of my ancestral countries.

From Fox News, a Congressional report blames five ATF agents for "Fast and Furious".

From Yahoo News, Iraq will get some help from Great Britain in destroying the remains of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons.  You know, the stuff that Saddam didn't really have, but Dubya lied by saying he did.  (Admission by W's former leftwing critics that they were wrong in 4...3...2...oh wait, Hell will freeze over first.)

And finally, in one more from Yahoo News, a couple in New York state will remarry after 48 years of divorce.

An Interesting Question

Here's a short video from WordsMatter2012, showing some things that Teh One^TM has said during the last few years.  Could it be that his attitude toward his own accomplishments and toward the accomplishments of others might just be inconsistent?


(Brought to my attention by a Tweet from a Ponytail Patriot.)

I Love The 2nd Amendment

But two would-be home invaders in Atlanta are surely not very fond of it right now.  After getting out of a van, they knocked and kicked the door, but when the homeowner opened it, he also opened fire.  The two men were found a short distance away suffering from gunshot wounds, and taken to a nearby hospital.  Police are still investigating the incident and looking for a third suspect, which I would surmise to be the driver of the van, who drove away when the two men were shot.

Read more at the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Gore Didn't Create The Internet, Bush Did

During the 2000 presidential campaign, the Democrat nominee Vice President Al Gore claimed to have created the Internet.  In the aftermath of the election, in which the Republican candidate George W. Bush (then the governor of Texas) carried Florida by a narrow margin and thus achieved a narrow victory in the Electoral College, there was an effort to recount the votes that was stopped by a Supreme Court decision.  Gore supporters would soon claim that their candidate was the true winner, and that Bush stole the election.

Although Al Gore's claim to be the Internet's creator has never been taken all that seriously, since it has been commonly thought that the Internet was a civilian by-product of a military project called ARPAnet, some recently revealed (according to the perspective of yours truly, anyway) information indicates that the idea of the Internet comes from a man named Bush.  This Bush, however, was not named George, but Vannevar.  He was a presidential science advisor during World War II.  According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, it was Vannevar Bush's ideas published in the Atlantic that motivated technologists to try to connect small networks into larger ones and form a global network.  The entity that succeeded was not part of the government, but part of Xerox, known for making copiers.  Specifically, it was Xerox Parc, located in Silicon Valley.  This means that like certain high-quality copiers, the Internet is just as good as a Xerox, because in a sense, it is a Xerox.

Cal Ripken's Mother Found Safe After Abduction

Victoria Ripken, the mother of baseball Hall of Fame member Cal Ripken Jr. was kidnapped from her home in Aberdeen, Maryland yesterday between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m., by a gunman who forced her into her own car and drove off, but found safe this morning at around 6:15 a.m. in her car not far from her house.  Her hands were bound, but she was otherwise not physically harmed.  There was no known ransom demand or any relationship between the kidnapper and the Ripken family.

Mrs. Ripken's late husband Cal Ripken Sr. was a manager, coach and scout for the Orioles organization.  Another son Billy Ripken also played major league baseball, including some time with the Orioles.

Read the story at CNN and the Washington Post.

Sherman Hemsley, Movin' On Up

Sherman Hemsley, who played George Jefferson on All In The Family and The Jeffersons, and later Deacon Ernest Frye on Amen, died today at the age of 74, in his home in El Paso, Texas.  The cause of death has not yet been disclosed.  Besides his well-known acting career, he was also a singer who released two albums during the 1990's.

Read more at CNN, People, the Hollywood Reporter and Entertainment Weekly.  Here's the gospel-flavored Jeffersons theme song.

Sally Ride 1951-2012

Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, has died at her home in La Jolla, California after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer.  Besides her two space shuttle flights, both aboard the Challenger, she served on the commission that investigated the explosion of that same shuttle in 1986.  She later served on the board investigating the loss of the Columbia in 2003, the only person to serve on both the Challenger and Columbia commissions.

Sally Ride received bachelor's degrees in both English and physics, and then went on to earn a masters and a PhD in physics, all from Stanford University.  Besides her work for NASA, she also served as a physics professor at the University of California, San Diego and as the director of the school's California Space Institute.  She also started her own company Sally Ride Science, which created educational programs and products intended to help girls and young women pursue interests in science and math.  Dr. Ride received many honors for her work, including NCAA's Theodore Roosevelt Award and the NASA Space Flight Medal.

Read more at Biography, MSNBC, Fox News, USA Today, Yahoo News and CNET.  The MSNBC report recalls that on the day of her first space flight, thousands of people wore T-shirts and buttons bearing the slogan "Ride, Sally, Ride", but does not say where that slogan comes from.  That particular phrase is found in the backing vocals of a Wilson Pickett song.  Little did Pickett (or whoever actually wrote the song) know that he was predicting by name the first American woman to go into space.

Penn State Given Harsh Sanctions

As announced yesterday, the NCAA has come out with some severe (and deserved) sanctions against the Penn State football program.  Penn State will be fined $60 million, banned from post-season play for four years, put on probation for five years, limited to offering 15 new scholarships per year instead of the normal 25, and forced to vacate all of their wins from 1998 to 2011.  Any PSU football player who wishes to transfer to another Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division 1-A) school will be allowed to play for his new team without being required (as is normal) to sit out for a year.  CBS Sports has the details:



The removal of all victories over the past 14 seasons from Penn State's and Joe Paterno's totals will mean that retired Florida State and West Virginia coach Bobby Bowden will regain his status as the winningest coach in FBS history.  The winningest and longest lasting active FBS coach is my obvious favorite, Frank Beamer, who gained those distinctions with Paterno's ouster, which resulted from the charges (now convictions) against Penn State assistant Jerry Sandusky.

(For some reason, the post is showing a lot of space between the video and the paragraph below it, at least on my computer.  Sorry for the technical difficulties.)

Penn State Removes Joe Paterno Statue

Due to the fallout from the report by former FBI director Louis Freh, which found that Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and others had covered up allegations of child sexual abuse by former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, the university has removed the statue of Paterno from its pedestal outside Beaver Stadium.  The university's president Rodney Erickson has stated that the statue will be stored in a "secure location", and that the school's library will continue to bear Paterno's name.

Read more at ESPN, TMZ, ABC News, Fox News and USA Today.

In other developments related to Penn State and the Sandusky case:

According to Newsday, Paterno's family says that tearing down the statue will not help either the university or Sandusky's victims.

CBS Sports reports that Penn State will face "unprecedented" sanctions, to be announced tomorrow.

Muslim Teenager Tries To Grab Olympic Torch

According to the Guardian, a "teenager" tried to grab the Olympic torch from Anna Skora, the runner who was carrying it.  The kid was quickly subdued and arrested by police.  What the Guardian left out of their report (and its accompanying video) is what he yelled, just before leaping at Skora.  However, a nearby spectator making an amateur video had no problem hearing and understanding him.  (H/T TROP)

Gunman Kills 12, Wounds More Than 50 At Colorado Movie Theater

Not long after the 12:05 a.m. start of a showing of the new Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises at a theater in Aurora, Colorado, a man armed with a rifle, a shotgun, two handguns and two gas cannisters, and wearing a gas mask, body armor and a riot helmet, entered the theater, set off the gas cannisters, and then opened fire.  Twelve people were killed, the number having been originally reported as 14.  The man later surrendered to police in the theater's parking lot, without resisting arrest.  The suspect has been identified as 24-year-old James Holmes, who lived 4 miles from the theater, and was a PhD candidate at the University of Colorado's graduate program in Denver.  When police searched his apartment, they found it to be booby-trapped.

Read more at the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post and ABC News.

In a related development, ABC's Brian Ross suggested a possible Tea Party connection to the shootings, because a man with the same first and last names had a page on a Tea Party website.  Ross later apologized for making that incorrect report.  James Holmes (the Tea Partier) has since been interviewed by the Daily Caller.

In a strange twist, one of the victims killed in Aurora had escaped from a shooting in a mall in Toronto, Canada on June 2nd.

FBI Faulted For Political Correctness

A report on the Fort Hood shooting has faulted the FBI for ignoring evidence against Major Nidal Hasan, who later allegedly killed 13 people and wounded 23 others at Fort Hood in November 2009, because of "political correctness".  Hasan had been in contact with known terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, but was still determined not to be involved in terrorist activities.  Apparently, the FBI was more concerned about being accused of "islamophobia" than about stopping potential islamic terrorists before they take American lives.  For one thing, you'd think that Hasan's "Soldier of Allah" business card might have raised an eyebrow or two.  Since the Obama administration has called Hasan's actions "workplace violence" instead of "terrorism", I'd say that PC is still holding sway.

Read more at Fox News and the Huffington Post.  You know it's a serious matter when those two outlets agree.

The Useless Box

You know that someone has too much time on his hands when he designs a device that does nothing more than turn itself off. 



If you want one, for just under $40, you can get your own.

The "Real Story" Of Obama

Duh Progressive is mostly a satirical website, but they include a section called True Op-Ed, in which writers get into some serious subject matter.  In today's true opinion column, Nick Taxia gives us what he believes is the "real story" that President Obama would like to tell.  In doing so, Taxia delves into the history of the United States and of the European colonization of Africa, as seen from the Marxist perspective, and how all of that has left its mark on Obama's political philosophy.  An except:

Obama's story actually begins in 1885, when the Germans began a "protectorate" colony over the Sultan of Zanzibar's possessions along the Kenyan coast.  Soon the British followed, establising their presence in the country three years later.  From then until the conclusion of World War I, the British and Germans bickered over how much they would possess of Kenya and which resources they would gather and exploit.  Following the Germans' defeat in World War I, the British gained full dominance over Kenya, which as anyone can imagine, did not please native Kenyans much.

Read the full article.

Jon Lord 1941-2012

Jon Lord, who played keyboards for Deep Purple and Whitesnake until he retired in 2002, died yesterday of a pulmonary embolism, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.  Lord was born in 1941 in Leicester, England and took classical musical lessons as a child, but later was influenced by blues-style organ playing.  He combined both influences playing the Hammond organ, often with distortion effects, but also played piano during his time with Deep Purple.

Jon Lord was one of the founders of Deep Purple, along with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and drummer Ian Paice.  From 1968 to 1976, the band had three different lead singers (Rod Evans, Ian Gillan and David Coverdale) and three different bass players (Nick Simper, Roger Glover and Glenn Hughes, who also contributed some lead vocals).  The founding trio stayed together until 1975, when Blackmore left and was replaced on guitar by Tommy Bolin.  Deep Purple disbanded in 1976, after which Coverdale founded Whitesnake, which for a time included both Lord and Paice.  In 1984, the Gillan-Blackmore-Lord-Glover-Paice lineup reunited, and stayed together until 1988.  Subsequent lineups have included Joe Lynn Turner (who had sung with Blackmore's group Rainbow) or Gillan on lead vocals, and Joe Satriani or Steve Morse on guitar instead of Blackmore.  After Lord retired, Don Airey replaced him on keyboards.  Today, the lineup consists of Gillan, Morse, Airey, Glover and Paice.

Read more at CNN Entertainment, MassLive, Billboard, the Daily Mail and MTV News.  I've also found a Deep Purple fan site that has lots of information about the band.

Drink Up, Warthogs!

My all-time favorite military aircraft is the A-10, known as the "Warthog" because of its ungainly appearance.  Powered by two turbofan engines, its top speed is about 450 miles per hour.  It can carry an assortment of bombs and missiles, but its most formidable weapon is its built-in 30mm machine gun, designed for destroying enemy tanks.  All these weapons are intended to be used mainly against targets on the ground, although I once read about one using its cannon to destroy an airborne Iraqi helicopter.  Because of its firepower and relatively slow speed, I call it the "offensive lineman" of military airplanes.  I'm pretty sure that the A-10 is the last thing that some jihadis see before meeting Allah.

The fuel supplies for the A-10's two engines are mutually segregated, which enables it to test new types of fuel with one engine, while the other uses a traditional fuel in case the new fuel doesn't perform.  With this in mind, the variant designated A-10C is now being used to test new fuels at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida, including some based on alcohol made by fermenting sugar extracted from biomass.  We can now offer a toast to the A-10, and mean it literally.

Read more at the Daily Mail.

Go here for more on the A-10.

Hillary Taunted By "Monica" In Egypt

Protestors in Alexandria, Egypt had some choice words for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to a newly-reopened American consulate, in the process displaying a pretty good grasp of recent American history, at least where her husband is concerned.  While throwing tomatoes and shoes at her motorcade, they shouted "Monica, Monica!" and "Irhal, Clinton!"  ("Irhal" is Arabic for "get out".)

Read the story at CNN and Yahoo.

Clarisse Grime, RIP

Do you know about Clarisse Grime?  Chances are, if you live outside of the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, you've never heard of her.  Unlike some other people whose deaths I have recently noted, she was not famous.  But I also believe that if the national media were less biased, Clarisse Grime would be as famous in death as Travon Martin.  However, unlike Martin, she was not murdered or killed in self-defense (depending on your opinion in that case).

Clarisse Grime was killed in a horrible accident.  A driver of an SUV lost control of his vehicle, causing it to hit a fire hydrant and a "no parking" sign, and then to careen down an embankment to where Grime and her boyfriend were sitting.  The location was about 50 feet from the street, near a sign for their high school, but they were still struck by the out-of-control vehicle.  Her boyfriend suffered only minor injuries, but Grime died at the scene.

Links For Friday The 13th

I'm not much into superstition, but on a previous Friday the 13th, I posted on Twitter, "Today, avoid black cats and liberals of all colors."  Here are some stories from the current Friday the 13th:

From Western Journalism, former Speaker Pelosi tells the Catholic Church to "drop dead".

From the Washington Free Beacon, the U.S. Olympic uniforms are made in (yeah, you guessed it) China.  The company that designed the uniforms is a donor to both Obama and the Democratic party.

From Patriots For America, a video report on the U.N. Small Arms Treaty.  The report claims that what the U.N. is really after is the ammunition.

From Michigan Capitol Confidential, the SEIU omits from their disclosure form a $12,000 payment to a company that was defunded by the Michigan State Legislature.

From Commentary, a report on Hamas summer camps for children.

From Fox News, a man's dying wish, to leave a huge restaurant tip, is granted.

Also from Fox News, an autistic man is found alive after being lost for 3 weeks in the Utah desert.

From NewsBusters, Howard Kurtz warns CNN that the "liberal media double standard" is apparent "to many people".

From ABC News, this one's from yesterday, but still important enough to mention.  Did the late Joe Paterno cover up for his former assistant Jerry Sandusky?

From Gateway Pundit, it's your tax dollars at work.  The federal government is giving away, not just cell phones, but air conditioners.

From EPA Abuse, how the EPA is taking over state's regional haze programs.

From Weird Asia News, are Japan's "concept cars" getting weirder?

From Yahoo News, a dishonest doctor in California found out the hard way that his patient was a real bitch.

Time For Some Hank

Hank Williams Jr., that is, with cameo appearances by Hank Sr.  From his new album Old School, New Rules, this song is called Takin' Back Our Country, in which Hank is as outspoken as ever.  The video runs for 7:12, but the song ends at about 3:40.  I guess the creator of this video had some technical difficulties, but it's no problem since the blank part is at the end.

Anacreon In Heaven

The origin of the American national anthem goes back to, of all things, a British drinking song called Anacreon In Heaven or the Anacreontic Song.  The American lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key, inspired by the siege of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, wrote a new set of lyrics, which became known as the Star Spangled Banner.  Here's what I think is a pretty good version of the earlier song:

 Go here for the Anacreontic lyrics.

Riddle Me This

Why is it racist to require voters to present an ID at the polls, but it's OK when the NAACP (who oppose voter ID laws) requires media to present not one, but two forms of ID when attending their own convention?  At least one of the IDs must have a photo.  Read the story by Katie Pavlich at Townhall.

Life's A Beach

Thanks to Tropical Storm Debby, the inhabitants of southern Alabama have a new beach on which to frolic and sunbathe.  The beach is the result of a series of events, both natural and man-made, that has occured in the Gulf of Mexico.  Back in 2005, Hurricane Katrina ripped away a mile-long section of Dauphin Island.  The resulting channel became known as the Katrina Cut.  As part of the settlement from their oil spill, BP built a rock wall along the cut.  The wall stands on the submerged remains of that section of the island.  Now, thanks to Debby, sand has built up on most of the southern side of the wall, forming the new beach.

Read the story at Al.com.

Ernest Borgnine 1917-2012

Oscar-winning actor Ernest Borgnine died earlier today of kidney failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, in the company of his wife Tova, and his children.  I remember Borgnine playing the title character of the TV show McHale's Navy, and for his portrayal of NFL football coach Vince Lombardi in the TV movie Legend in Granite, but those roles were but a small part of his body of work.

Borgnine, originally named Ermes Effron Borgnino, was born in Connecticut to parents who had immigrated from Italy.  He spent ten years in the United States Navy, including a re-enlistment after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  He won an Oscar for portraying the title role in the 1955 movie Marty.  During the 1980's, he was a regular on the show Airwolf.  He was married five times, including a marriage to actress Ethel Merman that lasted a month.

Read more at CNN Entertainment, the Los Angeles Times, CBS News, Fox News and People.

Does Obamacare Really Equal Romneycare?

No it doesn't, according to Mona Charen, writing in National Review.  According to Charen, there are quite a few important differences between the two, which Romney's campaign should start pointing out.

The Massachusetts law contained an individual mandate (which states, unlike the federal government, are allowed to impose). But it did not consist of 2,700 pages of new regulations; 159 new boards and commissions; more than $500 billion in new taxes (and counting); the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a rationing board whose decisions are unreviewable by the courts and practically untouchable by Congress itself; restrictions on religious liberty; Medicare cuts; affirmative-action mandates for medical and dental schools; huge new authority over one-seventh of the U.S. economy for the secretary of health and human services, and open-ended regulations of the way doctors and others perform their jobs.

The way in which Romneycare was brought about (and modified under Romney's successor Deval Patrick) also needs to be told.  To further quote Charen:

Romney agreed to the mandate believing that Massachusetts citizens would get the opportunity to purchase inexpensive, catastrophic plans. But the legislature, together with Romney’s successor as governor, Deval Patrick, changed the law to require insurers to offer three tiers of coverage — all of them far beyond catastrophic care. Perhaps Romney ought to have foreseen what future legislatures and governors would do — but that’s a far cry from the accusation that Romneycare was indistinguishable from Obamacare.

and

The bill that passed the legislature contained a number of features Romney couldn’t countenance. He opposed the mandate, preferring to permit individuals to post a $10,000 bond in lieu of insurance. The legislature overrode him. He vetoed the employer mandate, coverage for illegal aliens, the creation of a new bureaucracy to be called the Public Health Council, a provision limiting improvements to Medicaid, and another provision expanding Medicaid coverage to include dental care. His vetoes were overridden.

See that?  Romney didn't even want a mandate.  He vetoed it (and some other provisions), but his veto was overridden.  Read the entire article.

Does This Really Exist?

While browsing around TechSideline (a site for Virginia Tech sports fans), I ran across a video for an iPhone app called Word Lens.  Put the lens in front of text in one language, and it translates the text into another.  I know about software that enables a computer to recognize printed characters, and about translation software, such as Google's "Translate" function, so I can see where it might be possible to combine the the two.  Speaking of Google, a search therewith led to the makers of Word Lens, Quest Visual.  Here's the video, which demonstrates Spanish into English, and a little bit of vice versa:

"When in the Course of Human events....

....it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Continue reading.

As we enjoy our gatherings and watch the fireworks, it's always good to remember what we're celebrating.  Everyone have a happy and safe 4th of July.

Andy Griffith 1926-2012

Andy Griffith, whose acting career included starring roles in The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock, passed away this morning at his home in Manteo, North Carolina, which is on Roanoke Island.  He was 86, and is survived by his second wife Cindi Knight and two children from his first marriage.

Griffith was born in Mount Airy, NC and graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with a degree in music.  Although famous as an actor, he was also a talented singer and played trombone.  In 2007, he was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame and Museum.  Other awards he received include the Medal of Freedom in 2005 and a Grammy for his 1996 album I Love to Tell the Story - 25 Timeless Hymns.

For more on the life and death of Andy Griffith, read the stories at CNN (including a slide show), Fox News, CBS News and USA Today.  See also his entry in Biography.com.

Among the things Andy Griffith did late in life was advise Brad Paisley on being patient.

Monday Links

Now that I've got electricity again, it's time to report on what's going on out there.

From Fox News, the Romney campaign accuses Obama of "vicious lies" about Bain Capital.

From the Telegraph, a Danish study claims that women are more likely to commit suicide if they own a cat.

From Political Pistachio, the Air Force Patched has been changed to remove the word "God".

From FrontPageMag, a Christian who was stoned (and I don't mean on what Obama used to call "choom", or in the Bob Dylan sense) speaks about his experience.

From CNS News, Steve King (the congressman, not the horror writer) says that Obama is governing like a king. (Was the pun intended, congressman King?)

From ABC News, islamists in Mali continue vandalizing graves and mausoleums in Timbuktu.

From CNN, Enrique Peña Nieto has been projected as the winner of Mexico's presidential elections.  He is a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which at one time ruled Mexico for 70 consecutive years.

From SFGate, will there be a live-action Zombie zone in Detroit?

From CBS Local in Denver, some evacuees from the Waldo Canyon fire have returned to their homes, only to find them vandalized or burglarized.

Pro-life group Personhood USA reports about violence against their leaders from pro-abortion thugs.

From the Foundry (part of the Heritage Network), the broken promises of Obamacare.  Whether or not you agree with the SCOTUS decision calling the Obamacare mandate a "tax", there sure are a lot of real taxes built into the law.

From Canada Free Press, Obama has a Consitutional crisis.

Finally, from the Washington Examiner, we've got a stink bug crisis.

Power's Back

Last Friday evening, an exceptionally nasty thunderstorm came though my area, resulting in electric power being cut off.  It was restored only about an hour ago.  With temperatures being in the 90's, it's been pretty uncomfortable around here, but now everything has a chance to get back to normal.  While hiking yesterday, there were quite a few trees that had fallen down on the trails.  I also had to steer around some trees while driving on some of the local roads.

This report from MSNBC states that the thunderstorms were a phenomenom called a derecho, which can produce hurricane-force winds, but in a straight line instead of a circular motion as in a tropical storm.  According to Canada.com, about 800,000 customers lost power in Maryland.  Weather.com has pictures of damage from the derecho.  Accuweather calls Friday's storms a "super derecho".