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SLO County political consultant accused of plagiarism

August 2, 2011

Cory Black

By KAREN VELIE

Controversial San Luis Obispo County political consultant Cory Black, who helped Ian Parkinson win the local top cop position, is being accused of plagiarism.

Andrew Russo of Paramount Communications said Black plagiarized the content of his website, reproducing his words in an attempt to garner clients.

“Cory Black of Public Policy Solutions, Inc. is guilty of plagiarism and downright theft, pure and simple,” Russo said.

“Black ‘cut and pasted’ the ‘Campaign Services’ section of our website which has been up since 2008 and placed it on his own website and used that content to garner clients at Paramount’s expense,” Russo added. “This kind of behavior is totally reprehensible and beneath contempt. It shows everyone – from clients to vendors – the true nature and character of Mr. Black and his firm.”

Shortly after Russo exposed Black’s alleged plagiarism, the duplicated information was removed from the web site, but, not before Russo made a screen shot of the alleged theft.

Black, the vice chair of the Democratic Central Committee and the exalted ruler of the Atascadero Elks Lodge, was last year accused of sending out the slate mailers to registered Democrats that recommended Republican Parkinson as “the best choices for San Luis Obispo Democrats,” a move that outraged several members of the Democrat Central Committee.

Black did not return requests for comment.

When asked if he plans on filing a lawsuit, Russo said he is considering his options.


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Where is the real problem, though? As long as collectively, people choose fake professionalism, B.S., a nice suit, and family-friendly personalities over substance, this what we will get. I see this all the time, especially in the accounting industry side of my work, where so much value is put on CPAs who come across as very professional, speak the “code talk” business like to hear, and (backed by their credentials) have authority… and then I find out that because they don’t know what they’re doing, they have done something like used totally incorrect numbers to show how the inventory and GL balance….. because those numbers happened to add up to what they wanted.


This is what we put value on… not skill, truth, creativity, originality, and the like.. people like the “salesman.” Personally, I would much rather hire an illegal alien with a felony on his record who smokes weed on his lunch breaks and dresses poorly, but knows how to reconcile raw inventory transactions with GL accounts and can explain why costing is off and tie it back to the money sitting in the Purchases Clearing account.


Do you know what I’m talking about? Of course not… that’s why guys like this succeed, and keep on succeeding even after stuff like this comes out.


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mkaney

“that’s why guys like this succeed, and keep on succeeding even after stuff like this comes out”


There was once a time when I was a young man growing up learning (still learning) where many elder and wiser tried to teach me what you are saying now but being too young I wanted to be my own man and went by what impressed my belief, I was a young fool and sucker (beguiled). Now you and others who have lived and now know are trying to teach the younger people (repeating what our elders admonished) here the same. It is like a George Orwell Animal Farm and these politicians and special interest know just how to get over the youth (There is a sucker reborn everyday).


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I understand where you are coming from, but plagiarism is theft of intellectual property.


Regardless of what our society feels about what constitutes a successful person, theft is theft. It is against the law.


You stated, “fake professionalism, B.S., a nice suit, and family-friendly personalities over substance” as traits people use to judge someone’s professionalism.


In that context, stealing the intellectual property belonging to other people and/or organizations to use on your own website is no different than if Cory Black had robbed a 7-11 store so he would have enough money to buy a new snappy new suit.


Both actions are illegal. The only difference is what is being stolen.


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mkaney

Your post 08/02/2011 is a masterpiece.


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McKaney, the concept of going for appearance over substance is not a newly recognized phenomenon, and it has zip to do with whether or not someone steals another person’s content.


If I see an image I like, I ask to use it. If I don’t hear back or if they say no, then I don’t use it.


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Look at him, obviously a hardened criminal from the white as Wonderbread cul-de-sacs somewhere. Very dangerous type. Russo should be awarded tens of dollars for Black’s horrific crime against him.

Yaaawwwn….ZZZZZZ.


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Justme, often we agree, but this is not one of those times.


I am apalled by your cavalier a attitude towards theft of other people’s internet property. Graphics and internet content (even for a small group/organization’s website) can cost thousands of dollars to develop. Internet content development also often includes polling and focus-group input to determine the best approach to take in communicating by internet what a person or group can offer, which also can run into the tens of thousands of dollars.


In addition, dirty-tricks/illegal campaign tactics like Black uses can, and have, changed the outcomes of elections. When this occurs, great harm can occur to the people who will be impacted by the fraudulent outcome, as we experienced in the GWBush theft of the presidential election outcome.


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Well, Yeah, it’s true. But these two hired gun’s profession dwells in false or exagrerrated claims, no?


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AND….?


That sounds like an argument an attorney would try to keep Cory Black out of jail for stealing others’ intellectual property.


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AND…they’re both undeserving of consideration. They put out there what the client requests for compensation only, then we get the politician or whoever based on that compensation only and they use media to do it. One of these guys grabs another’s material then the latter claims damages? He’s damaging all of us by placing the wrong people in positions of power because he pulled a business lic. and filled in the space “political consultant”?

They’re not being consulted, they’re being asked to deliver someone else’s ideas verbatem for money.

They’re both rogues, neither deserves compensation.

How does plagerism enter into this occurance when the discussion is about two political consultants? Money paid to these types are the reason we have mass corruption, because money was used to sway belief systems in the wrong direction.

Mary, I agree someone can be damaged in this way but leave out “political consultants”. If one is damaged that one less BS artist operating.


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Mary, you’re absolutely right about the costs of developing content and the fact that using someone’s content without permission is theft.


My problem with Russo’s reaction is that he didn’t give Black the opportunity to make it right. His decision to smear Black is just one of the things that disgusts me about guys like Russo.


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What do you mean by ‘smear’? Isn’t he just complaining and maybe bringing an action against Cory Black to make things right?


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Thanks for pointing that out in Turqouise’s post, hotdog.


You don’t “smear” someone when you out their theft of your property.


If someone owned a 7-11 store, someone robbed it, and the owner accused the thief of robbing the store, would that be the owner of the store “smearing” the thief?


NO.


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The amount it cost to develop the content alleged criminal Cory Black is far more than the haul a thief would get should he/she rob a 7-11 store.


Would you criticize the police and the owner of the 7-11 store for not giving the thief a chance to give the money back first before they charged him with the crime?


I don’t understand why a double standard is being used for theft of intellectual property compared to theft of cash from a convenience store.


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Mary, I’ve read all of your comments and I appreciate that you “get it”. Very eloquently stated too. Thank you!


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What other categories of theft induce you to sleep?


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The so called slate ballots that were put out by Black, not once but two or three times, were designed to CONFUSE voters into voting for someone they might not prefer. I call that subverting democracy. Though I associate more with Dem politics than Repo ones I was disgusted by this behavior in the election; many mid to high level Dems I complained to were ambivalent about it. Really pissed me off. They are either as crooked as the right wing (a creepy bunch of nattering nabobs of negativism) or so jaded and beaten down by endless years of miserable political posturing that I wonder where I can find refuge in the political spectrum. As Mike Maloy and Thom Hartman used to ask in those ghastly bushie years, “Where is the outrage?”. When someone like Black does something like engineering those criminal slate ballots that undermine clear and informed consent at the polls EVERYONE should have been hot to string him up. But no, he was given a pass by the limp wristed normal Dems. What a bunch of wimps….


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I call that typical party politics…


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Maybe so, and the republicans are the esperts at herding the public this way and that.

But no matter who does it I am outraged that so many citizens accept it as ‘just politics’. We have lost our way, our morals, our ethics. The abuses will always be there, but when we hear of it there should be outrage and something done about it. Shrugging and ignoring it enable these abuses of democracy.


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ITA, Hotdog. Citizens have experienced so much in the way of unethical-to-the-point-of-criminal behavior of politicians and their staff that it has become the accepted norm.


This is wrong because it shifts the burden of a politician acting in an ethical, non-illegal/criminal way is shifted to the voters.


We don’t elect politicians so we can spend months of our lives in investigations and legal action to deal with the politicians’ fraudulent/unethical/illegal activity. We elect them to do the damned job we hired/elected them to do.


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Unfortunately Mary, there are only two things we can do (as far as I can tell) to stop unethical and/or dishonest people from using politics to gain power and/or wealth.


One is, as you pointed out, the time-consuming practice of monitoring them after election to ensure that they do what we hired/elected them to do.


The other is to do a better job of screening the people that run for office. This is just as time consuming as it involves not only background research but enough face-to-face meetings to see through the BS from the better con-artists. And even after all that, you have to convince enough other people (in whatever political organization you have chosen) that you are correct in your evaluation of the prospective candidates. All-in-all, this may be even tougher than catching them in their misdeeds after election.


Both methods would be aided by an aggressive, competent and ethical media but we only have CCN & sometimes New Times filling that function here. TV station news is limited to sound bites with emotional impact and they are reluctant to “rock the boat.” The Tribune used to do some investigative reporting many years ago but that seemed to disappear with the untimely and unfortunate death of their former editor, Jeff Fairbanks.


The biggest benefit would be from changing the system to limit the effects of political contributions and dishonest ads upon the election process so that more good people could and would run for office. That is also highly unlikely — not only because the Dems & GOP don’t want more effective competition, but because it is hard to figure out a way to do so that wouldn’t have equally negative drawbacks.


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Robbing a 7-11 store is a typical method of achieving income for some people. Happens all the time.


So we should give the thieves who rob convenience stores a free pass for their theft?


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Politics is a dirty business …. and it’s interesting to me that all of this ‘scandal’ will only help to land this guy more clients.Trust me, guys who take no prisoners have little to fear when it comes to opportunities… but then, would you let him date your daughter?


Besides, for folks in politics, it boils down to what one wise guy said once,” we pay for results, not effort.”


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Exactly! Throw in that whole Parkinson mailer thing, and this guy will now attract scumbags from both Democrat and Republican parties. Nothing is too low for him.


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I disagree with the scandal landing Black more clients.


If a client knows there is the likelihood that someone they employ or contract will do something illegal, then, if the employee or contractor does act illegally, it can turn out badly for the client because the client will be seen as not acting with due diligence in making the decision to hire or contract with the employee or contractor.


In addition, a client simply using a scumbag like Black is a very poor reflection on the client. The best current example I can think of is Michael Seitz, the attorney architect of the SSLOCSD corruption and looting of public funds by Wallace and perhaps others.


If you found out someone knew about Seitz’ history and still used them attorney, would your opinion of the person go up or down?


Finally, as long as we accept corrupt and criminal behavior from the politicians and their staff/contractors as being normal, we cannot expect change in that behavior.


My mother used to say about politics, “When you settle for the lesser of two evils, you are still accepting evil.”


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Wow! It blows you away to actually see what he did (below)… wow!


http://www.paracomconsulting.com/images/pps_sidebyside.jpg


Vice chair of the SLO County Dems:

http://slocodems.org/about-us/officers-a-members


What say you, SLO Co Dems? Cory is your leadership. I’d like to hear a statement.


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Only took a moment to find this photo which rotates on the SLO Co. Dems web site banner is actually from an RV traveler’s blog in 2008.


http://slocodems.org/images/slides_01/slo-mission-450.jpg


http://blog.seattlepi.com/ramblinman/2008/03/27/a-delightful-day-in-san-luis-obispo-ca/


…and, no, they didn’t ask for permission (2 minutes more to call the photographer who states he normally likes credit for use of his travel photos).


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What do ya know! The SLO Co Dems took down the RV’ers photo (above).


How about this one too? It’s still among the images rotating on the SLO Co Dems main page:


http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/VuYmUtbjc4cSCQzgrvz3HQ?select=sgJvIf5uJonbZp9zQ1gYcw


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Please don’t make me post the list of GOP pervert politicians.


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Please do! Dems & Reps & all others! Don’t forget David Wu (D-Oregon). Don’t forget Weiner. Not sure what that has to do with this article, though.


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Here’s a website that has many, many politicians and their scandals. When you go to the main page, look to the right-hand column, scroll down and you’ll see the names begin. Each name has a link to the information about the scandal.


http://home.conservativebabylon.com/about-2/

CONSERVATIVE BABYLON


———————-

Here are the names of the people Conservative Babylon has information on


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The link is welcome the entire list not, entirely too long , a link and an extract please .


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I have the 411 on some GOP pervs that aren’t on the list. It’s on my database–I’ll put it together so it makes sense to someone besides me, probably tomorrow.


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I don’t understand why corrupt politicians has to be a game where a score is kept. It doesn’t make any rational point, and doesn’t prove a thing. So how many points is doing a lobbyist versus dressing up in a furry costume to chase your friend’s high school age daughter? Keeping score? Really? Knock yourself out if you must. The result only leads to broadbrushing everyone belonging to the losing party, which is false logic and bigoted. I know good people in all parties. Single out the corrupt ones on both sides, argue politics with the rest. Not interested in the score.


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Really? You don’t understand the concept of hypocrisy? Of someone like Matthew Glavin, who was one of the more zealous, self-righteous critics of Clinton, and the architect behind the campaign to disbar Clinton in Arkansas–who has been caught multiple times soliciting tea-room sex in public parks.


————————-


(http://www.gvny.com/columns/nichols/nichols10-13-00.html)


Tiptoe Through The Tearooms:

The Glory Hole Days of Matthew Glavin


…..But if Paulk’s damage to the interests of America’s right-wing Republican moralists was not enough, another slimy, closeted, self-hating conservative has helped make GOP hypocrisy even more evident.


Matthew Glavin was forced to resign last week as president and CEO of the Southeastern Legal Foundation after having been twice charged with public indecency in a Chattahoochee River park, a popular spot for men who regale in outdoor same-sex cruising. Glavin, the legal beagle who’d led major ‘morality’ campaigns against President Bill Clinton, now joins Paulk and other such creeps in the Hall of Hypocrites.


Glavin had most recently been savoring the initial successes his legal organization had initiated to have the U.S. President disbarred from the practice of law in Arkansas. He’d been one of the principals

critiquing Clinton’s testimony about Monica Lewinsky during the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. Paula Jones now apparently admits that she’d been the willing pawn of right-wing Republican zealots.


Glavin was a prime defender of former FBI Agent Gary Aldrich, when he’d faced legal challenges for attacking the Clintons in the pages of a now-discredited book….


…But it was his campaign against Clinton that pleased Hypocrite Glavin most. Like Paulk, he is not only married, but he has children. And, like Paulk, he’s failed miserably—as self-haters usually do—to conduct his life with the kind of discretion we’d expect from one who sharply criticizes others on moral grounds.


Strangely, mainstream media, with the exception of Sunday’s Atlanta Journal Constitution, has, so far, been unconscionably silent about Glavin’s most recent arrest, one in which he’s been accused of masturbating and then fondling an undercover federal agent in a public place….


—————————-


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O. T.


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Responding to another’s post.


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Hypocrisy, sure. Broad brushing everyone with that? It happens on all sides. An argument might be that the left isn’t held to any standard because they have none, but I don’t think that is true. However, you give legs to that argument by only pointing out corruption that is politically expedient. What some do does not apply to all.


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SLO RIDER SAID: “Only took a moment to find this photo which rotates on the SLO Co. Dems web site banner is actually from an RV traveler’s blog in 2008.

http://slocodems.org/images/slides_01/slo-mission-450.jpg


http://blog.seattlepi.com/ramblinman/2008/03/27/a-delightful-day-in-san-luis-obispo-ca/


…and, no, they didn’t ask for permission (2 minutes more to call the photographer who states he normally likes credit for use of his travel photos).”


———————


MY REPLY: “Please don’t make me post the list of GOP pervert politicians.”


——————


SLORIDER’S REPLY: “08/02/2011 at 7:15 pm


Please do! Dems & Reps & all others! Don’t forget David Wu (D-Oregon). Don’t forget Weiner. Not sure what that has to do with this article, though.”


——————


MY REPLY: (I posted a list of names of GOP pervs from a website, with that website’s link).


——————


SLORIDER’s REPLY: “Hypocrisy, sure. Broad brushing everyone with that? It happens on all sides. An argument might be that the left isn’t held to any standard because they have none, but I don’t think that is true. However, you give legs to that argument by only pointing out corruption that is politically expedient. What some do does not apply to all.”


——————————————————-


I offered to post the information on GOP politicians. It is the information I knew was reliable and readily available to all (at the website to which I posted the URL) I had, which is from a website keeping current on these pervs-in-politics issues.


If you want to post the Dem pervs, go for it. That’s not what I offered.


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I can’t believe the list didn’t include the most infamous Rethug of them all, Tricky Dick Nixon.


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Ahem


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Plagiarism occurs constantly on the internet. I’ve had my entire website reproduced on another person’s website.


I just don’t get people who make their livelihood from working with the public doing something like Cory Black did, or Maria Kelly and Paavo Ogren did, or the SLOCity council, attorney and manager did.


I guess in SLO, corruption and lack of ethics is completely acceptable. Indeed, it may be preferred.


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Questionable honesty and ethics should not surprise:


1) He’s a democrat,

2) He has ties to Atascadero, and

3) He’s a political consultant.


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#2 and #3 are definitely true statements.


But as a conservative, I’m the first to sadly admit that the GOP has had MORE than its own share of scandals and ethics violations. I’m a registered Independent and I won’t give a dime to either party anymore.


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Please explain the “he has ties to Atascadero”. Many honest and ethical people live in Atascadero. A few bad apples I won’t argue about.


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None of the three categories listed are unique in the number of people in each category who have “questionable honesty and ethics.”


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To think that you could steal the web content from a local competitor and not get caught is pretty amazing.


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I guess it shows how few people actually access Black’s website.


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Cory Black is not good for SLO County. He came into town and bulldozed his way into the Dem. Central Cmmte. and took over. Maybe I will expand on that later, but I think most people that care already know.


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Black and Parkinson cut from the same crooked cloth.


Parkinson cheated on promotions test by having his attorney brother write his essay and now Black caught plagerizing from someones website.


What upstanding young leaders we have in this county.


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Don’t forget how Parkinson “forgot” to pay those back taxes… After I heard him mumble his way through a radio interview w/various lame excuses, I just couldn’t vote for the guy.


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Okay he had his brother help him, guess what the advisory Cortez in the running never even thought about other minorities, other than Spanish, he thought that’s all there were, while asleep at the wheel Cortez overlooked the Philippino community that has increased steadily in the last twenty years, loose a whole minority group and loose the election, my take, may the smartest, most enterprising man win!

That is the American way right?

Parkinson is a man that exceeds the credentials to run this screwed up SLO Sheriffs dept.

In short I’m sure some one could dig up some dirt on Cortez, maybe he would of been a better Sheriff,

but he forgot about the voting parties, leave out a minority and kiss the election goodbye.

Better luck next time, and with Cortez having all the credentials he should of known not to over look them. I’m not a politician, neither is Parkinson but, I personally think he will clean up the Sheriff’s Dept.

Maybe even promote drug testing for Sherriffs. The Guy won, now give him a chance to prove himself.


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Okay he had his brother help him, guess what the advisory Cortez in the running never even thought about other minorities, other than Spanish, he thought that’s all there were, while asleep at the wheel Cortez overlooked the Philippino community that has increased steadily in the last twenty years, loose a whole minority group and loose the election, my take, may the smartest, most enterprising man win!

That is the American way right?

Parkinson is a man that exceeds the credentials to run this screwed up SLO Sheriffs dept.

In short I’m sure some one could dig up some dirt on Cortez, maybe he would of been a better Sheriff,

but he forgot about the voting parties, leave out a minority and kiss the election goodbye.

Better luck next time, and with Cortez having all the credentials he should of known not to over look them. I’m not a politician, neither is Parkinson but, I personally think he will clean up the Sheriff’s Dept.

Maybe even promote drug testing for Sheriffs. The Guy won, now give him a chance to prove himself.


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