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But not to be confused with Jeff Vader: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw&t=140s&ab_channel=Thorn2200

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The Reptile Zoo in LA has a huge alligator named Darth Gator. Buddha knows what they plan to do with him.

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My main takeaway from watching this trailer was thinking about how poorly Obi-Wan aged from the desert suns in those ~10 years between this show and Episode IV

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Mar 10, 2022·edited Mar 10, 2022

They could make the whole dreary business a bit less incestuous if they brought in Robert Carlyle to play the villain. Think of it: Trainspotting meets Star Wars. Anything to save the franchise from its interminable monotony.

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We're steering dangerously close to "Norm and Cliff from Cheers were HOW OLD?" territory. Guiness was from a different time, a more civilized age, some might say.

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Knights of the Old Republic shows it’s possible to tell amazing Star Wars stories without having the Skywalker family involved. Would love to see a TV series based on that timeframe, even if it’s not that specific story.

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Agreed. I read way too many of the old EU books, and the best parts were absolutely the more grounded, less mystical stuff.

X-Wing series with Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, when?

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Man, I loved the EU books back in the 90's. Heir to the Empire is so much better than the Disney sequel trilogy. I have stared picking up the old EU books at the used book store, I think there's still a market for them as well. There will be racks and racks of Star Trek books that don't seem to move, but the Star Wars books have a much more limited supply and seem to sell.

Also, as far as the new books go, the Alphabet Squadron trilogy is fantastic. No Jedi.

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I read probably 200 Star Wars novels between the ages of 9 and 13 but haven't even bothered to fire up Boba Fett. Sometimes there's too much slop in the trough.

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Read the wikipedia summaries of the first 4 BoBF episodes so you know what's going on. And then watch the last 3.

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My long-standing idea for a Star Wars tv show — possibly animated — is for one about Wookie culture and history, entirely with no dialogue and no subtitles until a couple seasons in when the main characters encounter a few folks who do speak English.

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I want a show set in the classrooms where they teach, like, random desert scum from Tatooine how to speak Wookie.

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I have been pitching, mostly to my friends who are sick of hearing about it, a Vader show set between ROTS and ANH. I can't understand why they don't have a show about the most iconic character at the height of his powers.

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Yesterday, within one hour of each other, trailers were released for a new Star Wars series and a new Star Trek series. 12-year-old me is astounded.

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Mar 10, 2022·edited Mar 10, 2022

Star Wars is played. Rehashed.

Recycled. Rewarmed. Entropic. Redonethat. As boring as Neanderthalhittetball. I no longer give a flying fark at a rolling donut about either.

However, word got out yesterday that Cormac McCarthy's new tandem novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris, will at long last be released this coming fall. Having ackcherley read some parts of it, I can tell y'all that it's the most whacked out thing he's ever written. Imagine Suttree meets Gravity's Rainbow. I'm salivating.

Star Wars and Neanderthalhittetball can go enjoy the moon together.

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28 year old me didn’t understand Gravity’s Rainbow and didn’t finish it. I’d give 52 year-old me a fighting chance.

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I was about 20% through The Crying of Lot 49 when I left to go on a first date.

Five years later, that date led to a relationship, a breakup, a rekindling, and very likely a move to the Midwest, and neither The Crying nor Gravity's Rainbow, which I had planned to read right after, are any closer to being read.

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Where in the Midwest?

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Cincinnati.

Just do me a favor and don't tell anyone at my work, I'm not looking to move for a little more than a year

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I generally don’t consider Ohio to be in the Midwest, but I’ll allow it for Cincinnati. The few times I was there, it felt like St Louis to me.

Also, no one need pay an iota of attention to a thing I say.

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Star Trek, on the other hand, still has plenty of room to explore.

Provided they can get away from the Enterprise and its crew.

You will note that the better series, on the whole, are the ones that take place in the other parts of the Federation: DS9, Lower Decks....

I was musing the other day that we've not seen anything of the Gorn (the reptilian race) since their appearance in the TOS episode "The Arena". They clearly didn't become part of the Federation, but aren't at war with them (we'd have heard about it). What happened? And for that matter, what ever happened with the Organians after they stopped the Klingon-Federation War in "Errand of Mercy"?

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Lower Decks surprised me, after a few missteps early on it kind of found its groove.

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Mar 10, 2022·edited Mar 10, 2022

I really liked DS9. I think it was interesting to see something other than just Starfleet. The crew of the Enterprise was interesting and all, but it was like watching a series that took place on an aircraft carrier instead of at a port city with someone other than just the military crew to follow.

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Between Friendo my late lamented pet pigmy rattlesnake, The Judge, my albino snapping turtle, and Chae, my red tegu, I have not lacked for gorn.

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I want to believe that you play the original series fight music every time you feed them.

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I play "Second Element" by Blackmore's Night. When Friendo was still with me, I played "Serpent of Dreams" by Hot Tuna.

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I am not a sucker for Star Wars these days - age and The Rise of Skywalker handled that - but I AM a sucker for Ewan MacGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi, so yeah, I'm on board.

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Mar 10, 2022·edited Mar 10, 2022

"Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was due to be included in the orchestra’s upcoming all-Tchaikovsky concert at St David’s Hall on 18 March, but it was considered by the orchestra ‘to be inappropriate at this time’."

Because one of the members of the orchestra is from Ukraine, and has family fighting and stuck there.

The removal is a temporary one and the music will be reinstated once things in Ukraine have returned to as normal as they can be.

But yeah, it's dumb to support a co-worker who might have family members killed in a war started by a crazy Russian.

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You probably have co-workers who had family killed in Iraq, but that never stopped you from openly hating America, bro

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Also, aren’t you against cancel culture? Now you support it? Why do you hate free speech? Why do you hate America?

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Mar 10, 2022·edited Mar 10, 2022

I don't think he hated America, just wants it to live up to its so called ideals for a change. "Cancel culture," like "woke," is a juvenile, simplistic, just plain dumb right wing shibboleth and your comments are transparently sententious.

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I have learned from Black Sable that if you are ever critical of America in any way, that means you hate America. And then he criticized FDR a few weeks ago, and as a result my friend Blake Tahoe asked him why he hates America, and he has never answered that question. He also frequently criticizes the "woke" and "cancel culture" movements, so it's fair game to ask him why he now supports canceling Tchaikovsky.

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I think he made that pretty clear, but you were apparently too busy falling all over yourself to empty your armory of political cliches in our laps to have read the simple reason he gave.

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I guess I didn’t lay the sarcasm on thick enough in my original comment. I apologize.

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Fair enough. Accepted and reciprocated.

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While we're all busy dancing on Putin's face, Ukraine needs those Polish Migs. It'd be nice if Biden would find his balls, stop pussyfooting around, and get them to the Ukrainians already.

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You willing to start WW3? I think it would be smarter to simply get a shit ton of anti-aircraft gear over there which is smaller, easier to move, logistically easier to cross a border with and which has the same effect since it lets Ukraine enforce it's own no-fly zone.

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Is it really supporting a co-worker though? I think the main beef is that, like liberty cabbage and freedom fries, its a superficial gesture that doesnt accomplish anything on any level. Keep the overture, provide literature, or a disclaimer prior to the presentation, detailing the challenges the composer faced as a gay man who was seen as not enough pro-russian. About how the Overture is about a sovereign nation repelling an invading force. Or hell, donate the proceeds to a charity supporting Ukraine. Any and all of these are more supportive than cancelling the concert, which isnt supportive at all.

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It's not my decision. I'm just passing on why they deceided not to do it at this time. I don't think they are going to break music by doing this.

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I’m guessing a fair number of 89 year olds in that audience is secretly glad they won’t have to sit through •another• simulated cannon volley.

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Haha. It is a very long piece, too, so they might appreciate shorter works.

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I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even check with the person they were interested in supporting but just decided on what they were going to do instead of asking them what might help. Organizations of all kinds have a bad habit of "supporting" some group without actually asking what they would like. (Like all the lovely International Women's Day tweets from corporations with a huge gender gap in pay and no tangible support for their female employees whatsoever. )

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Not even that. They were probably thinking "This is bullshit but the media will be on our asses about it so let's just avoid the whole thing."

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"Whilst there are no plans to repeat the Tchaikovsky concert at the moment, we have no plans to change our summer and autumn programmes which contain pieces by Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Rimsky-Korsakof. So, in summary, this is a one-off decision made with the best of intentions."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60684374

Like I said. They aren't breaking music. They are trying to do something nice for a co-worker. And not expecting anything in return. I know that's anti-socialist to do something benevolent, but they are Welsh. They're always up for a good scrap.

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They aren't canceling the entire all-Tchaikovsky concert. Just the 1812 Overture segment. And given that the 1812 Overture is filled with cannon fire and overt Russian military nationalism, I can see why the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra might have considered that piece to be of questionable taste given the current circumstances.

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Hmmm excellent point

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Craig - Be very careful about the use of the phrase "take away my Gen-X card." Far too often, it's invoked by people who keep theirs in a velcro wallet or in their glove compartment, right next to their HS graduation tassel.

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Isn't Gen-X that company from the Minneapolis suburbs that makes those great little designer bacteria?

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My instinct is to yes-and this but it stands alone so well

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Well... if Craig's Gen-X card is taken away, he's still got a few baseball connections - I bet he could hit up Frank Thomas for a new Gen-X card.

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With the passage of the Curt Flood Act several years ago, what is left of baseball’s anti-trust exemption and how would it’s elimination change things? I don’t really see a difference in the operating system for the NBA or NFL which never had the anachronistic exemption. But my knowledge is superficial at best.

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The reporting I saw at first didn't really mention that the international draft was tossed in at the last minute. It would have been reasonable to think it was there and just not being talked about. It was only later in the day and now that it became clear this was just dropped in.

The thing about an international draft is that something has to be done to fix the system. But the abuses of the systems are entirely the fault of the owners who want the draft. They don't want it to protect the interests of thousands of Latin American and Asian teenagers who are being exploited. They just want it so they can have everything be nice and tidy and cheap. It might turn out that a draft also helps clean up some of the abuses. But I doubt it.

And philosophically, i oppose all sports drafts. Everyone should have the right to choose their own employer, to be free agents and look for the best deal possible. That includes teenagers. Indeed, the system as it is penalizes the best of the best by forcing them to work for the worst teams. Granted, in baseball, the whole thing is a crapshoot and you might never set foot on the field in Miami or Baltimore. But it's still unfair. And moreso when the best QB or point guard has to go to Jacksonville or Sacramento. So yeah, let's not rush to add one more draft. (Yes, i get why drafts exist in terms of competitive balance. That still doesn't make them the least bit fair to the players. And they also don't really address competitive balance, or the Jets and the Pistons wouldn't keep having high draft picks.)

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TL;DR - MLB wants what the NCAA has: Cheap labor with the illusion of helping (rather than exploiting) its employees.

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See, and here I thought the international draft was that cold air mass Canada sends us twice a year.

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See, and here I thought the international draft was the Labatt Blue my college bar had on tap, or better yet my choice, Molson Canadian.

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All of these points are correct and I will also add that an international draft may have the unintended effect of diluting the talent level of the league.

Do you think a guy like Framber Valdez would be who he is now if he had been drafted by like the Pirates?

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I still don’t think we need a Kenobi show. Book of Boba Fett mostly left a bad taste in my mouth. I guess Fresh Princess of Alderann didn’t pass with the focus groups.

March 2012 puts me near the end of my freshman year of HS. I don’t think I’d go back. After everything from the last two years, I don’t know if I’d have the patience for HS drama or a teacher saying I can’t listen to music in the hallway or not being able to sit at a dive bar and enjoy happy hour prices because I’d be underage. No driving, there’s also the ethics question about what 14 year old me can do at that age considering my soul would be 24.

Don’t look at me like that. That is an important time travel question.

Whatever things I miss from that age, I don’t regret much of anything. I like my life now even if I don’t always like myself. I’ll stay in 2022.

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The other side to that "no regrets" thing is, what could I have done to make other people's lives better, or what could I have done less to annoy them less? And although the answer is kind of "it's too late now", it might just change my future behaviour.

Last night, I went to the movies. It was The Godfather II, because I like to keep my finger on the pulse. You probably know the ending, Michael sitting there in the ruins of his life, remembering when he was joining the Marines and deciding whether to walk away from his family. That would have been 20 years not 10, but the same principle?

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Check the math. An increase from 1.84 billion to 1.96 billion is not, as the quoted piece states, a 26% increase.

It's a 6% increase, approximately

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The 26% is the increase from the previous deal, not the increase due to Apple & NBC. In other words, the national deal had ALREADY gone up to 1.84B, and now went up even more to 1.96B. (Back-of-napkin math puts the previous deal at 1.55B)

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Thanks, the paragraph isn't clear on that. It looks like it is saying 1.84 to 1.96 is the 26 percent increase. At least to me.

Its amazing that a small group of owners and players can't find a way to split all that matters money

I bet a thousand of us could get together and split that money. Lol

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If you want some lore on the Inquisitors the first few seasons of Rebels on D+ will get you caught up. I was also meh on BoBF, but my 10yo nephew loved it and we watch an hour or so of Star Wars content via groupwatch every Friday night, and isn't that really the point?

I am stoked as hell for Kenobi though. Really like the _look_ of the trailer and Ewan was the best thing about the prequels.

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I read somewhere that BoBF came about when Pedro Pascal was shooting a movie and couldn't do a full season of The Mandalorian. Which makes complete sense.

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Glad your dad is home and recovering Craig!

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"Which means they covered player payroll — by far their largest expense — even before a single ticket, hat, or hot dog was sold." Sub 'jersey' for 'hat' and this is the exact same point I've been making to every pro-owner shill I see on the series of tubes we know as the internet.

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Stephen Miller is on his parents' plan? I didn't know we were giving snakes cell phones now.

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Even eggs found under rocks have a mommy and daddy somewhere.

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Even ssssssssnakessssssss need their ssssssssellular sssssssservisssssssse.

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There’s a kid from High school that worked as an advance guy for the spray tan klan man (the ‘kid’ is 50) and he posted a picture of Miller on Air Force One and all I could think was great, now those f*clerks are remaking Snakes on a Plane.

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They should have scrapped that Solo movie and made a series based upon him. Would have been better as a series and had much better stories to tell.

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Dunno if anyone read the old, mostly pre-EU Han Solo and Lando Calrissian books, but that format would have been solid. Just a bunch of adventures that have nothing to do with the Galactic Civil War.

Also, I could definitely watch more of Alden Ehrenreich's Han Solo. He hit the portrayal right in the sweet spot, even if I disagree with some of the choices the script made.

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Agreed. A much more organic telling of how Solo came to be would have been far better than "let's tell everything possible about Han Solo's backstory in two hours", which felt deeply unsatisfying.

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It's just too much. It's like, a month max in movie time (imperial infantry ---> end credits), and that month has Han pick up 60% of what we know about him. That's not how real people work.

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I just want to see more Darth Maul.

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I feel like I'm the only Star Wars fan who thinks the guy who got cut in half and fell down a functionally-infinite pit should be dead.

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Oh, he should totally be dead, but he's so damn cool that I don't care.

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I don’t think your law school classmates working for Skadden, et al wake up saying “Shit, I’m helping international gangsters and oligarchs launder their billions” as much as they wake up thinking “I’m an expert doing the Lord’s work in international finance”.

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Or waking up and saying, “I cannot believe how much money they pay me to do this”.

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This is the correct answer. Always amazing what people will do for even small change.

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My favorite Skadden story told by a former associate, hearing another young associate puffing his chest about being a true shark. "Dude, you are merely a shark's tooth. You will break and another will quickly replace you."

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That's good.

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I worked for Skadden (WAY) back in the day - my job was to make sure their white-shoe clients [presumably including international gangsters and oligarchs] didn't run afoul of campaign finance and lobbying laws - and advising the litigation practice when they did.

I eventually left to spend more time with my family - more than the none they wanted me to spend #BecauseBillableHours - but we did put a new roof on the house, convert to gas and start college funds for the kids before I moved on. I wouldn't go back but it was good I did it - for me, at least!

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My brother worked in Skadden’s DC office as an office administrator, up from his copyboy position. When the Iron Curtain fell, Skadden gave him US cash to go to Moscow to find space, machines & secretarial staff, so they could serve McDonald’s & PepsiCo clients. There was much late-night vodka consumed with Moscow gangsters. He did the same for a Parisian law firm in St. Petersburg.

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Ok. I have zero knowledge of negotiations, but would it now be prudent for the MLBPA to request a mediator? If they really were as close as it seemed, they could argue that a mediator might be needed to finish things off. Would this backfire on them?

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Good question.

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Strategically, the PA would probably balk at a mediator because it gives owners the ammo they need to declare impasse and impose terms.

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