Why Hasn’t Isopropyl Alcohol Gone Back Down In Price?

October 15th, 2022

This is a question I don’t know the answer to, so I thought I’d throw it out to my general readership.

Why hasn’t isopropyl alcohol dropped back down to its 2019 prices?

Back then, I remember isopropyl alcohol being priced about on par with hydrogen peroxide, somewhere under $1 for 16 oz bottles of 50% isopropyl alcohol.

But during The Great Flu Manchu Panic of 2020, the price of isopropyl alcohol spiked and it became scarce as untold millions of households tried to disinfect every possible surface in hopes of eradicating the then-novel virus.

But now that the pandemic is over, and store shelves are back to being stocked, why is the price of isopropyl alcohol stuck as twice as high as what is used to be? While hydrogen peroxide seems to be back around 86¢, HEB no longer seems to have 50% isopropyl alcohol at all, only the 70% at $1.94 a bottle. But 50% seems just as pricey online at Amazon.

Earlier this year, HEB was blowing out those off-brand hand sanitizers (which are mostly alcohol anyway) companies started producing during the pandemic for 10¢ each. So why has the price on the real one remained stuck so stubbornly high?

I have no idea why, so I’m throwing the question out to my readers. If you know, share it in the comments below.

Are You Prepping For Food Insecurity?

October 13th, 2022

Between inflation, the Russo-Ukrainian War, drought, etc., there’s a lot of worry about food insecurity around the world. While I think America will do the best of just about anyone, I’ve long been a cheap prepper, spending around $20 a year on various prep items, but recently I’ve stepped up my food buying, trying to pick up just one extra shelf-stable item a week, just in case. And I’ve been thinking about growing more food beyond the pepper plant I already have.

Here’s a couple of videos on what to grow for food crops given limited areas.

Both mention beans, but dried pinto beans are still pretty darn cheap, and if you like those (I don’t), you’ll want to lay in a lot of dried beans. If the emergency lasts long enough, you can grow them when you start to run low.

I’m not wild about cabbage or kale, but I like potatoes well enough, and I think I could grow those pretty well in a tub or two, as well as sweet potatoes. And I might as well get a pumpkin for Halloween and try spreading the seeds out next spring.

What are you doing to lay in an extra supply of food?

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If you have any other food tips for the apocalypse (or even just temporary economic disruption, like a possible rail strike), feel free to share them down below.

Huge Ukrainian Offensive in Luhansk?

October 12th, 2022

Weeb Union (not my favorite Ukraine war mapper channel) is reporting a huge Ukrainian offensive just got underway in Luhansk:

Takeaways:

  • “The reported numbers in this offensive is between 35,000 and 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers over a length of about 50 kilometers.”
  • Goal seems to be full control of the P-66 highway running from Troitske to Kreminna.
  • “They are trying to attack and capture Svatova.”
  • “Svatova is the supply hub of the Russian army here in the Luhansk border.”
  • He postulates this is the last Ukrainian offensive before Russian mobilization reinforcements reach the area. I think he greatly overestimates the effect Russia’s hastily mobilized, ill-equipped and ill-trained new recruits might have on the battlefield.
  • Not seeing any confirmation elsewhere yet. Developing…

    Update: Reporting From Ukraine (which I generally trust more than Weeb Union) also reports a lot of activity in Luhansk, but with a different overall thrust and timeline.

    Takeaways:

  • Russia launched a spoiling attack to prevent Ukraine from advancing on their defensive lines before they were fully repaired, and has some success.
  • Ukraine launched a counterattack south and north of the main Russian spoiling attack, also with some success.
  • They also launched a counter-attack in the center of the line, but with more limited success.
  • He also reports that new Russian conscripts are being put to work building the defensive position, which I can well imagine; any able-bodied adult human should be able to dig a trench. (Unless it’s Texas clay, then all bets are off…)
  • How to reconcile these reports? Both could be right, just looking at different slices of time.

    Why Does Fort Worth ISD Want To Teach “Gender Identity” To Pre-K Children?

    October 11th, 2022

    Evidently no child is too young to push the transexual agenda on, at least to some administrator at Fort Worth ISD, where they give “gender identity” training for Pre-K teachers.

    At Fort Worth ISD (FWISD), a school district of almost 75,000 students, teachers take training sessions that may endorse concepts related to critical race theory (CRT).

    A screenshot obtained from an anonymous FWISD teacher shows that pre-K teachers are required to participate in almost nine hours of “anti-bias” training in order to satisfy continuing education requirements.

    All classroom teachers in Texas must complete 150 hours of continuing education training every five years.

    The description for the anti-bias training reads, “This course offers information on culture and language, racial identity, family structures, gender identity, economic class, different abilities, holidays, and more.”

    And if teachers don’t finish the training, their pay is docked.

    Why does someone at Fort Worth ISD think that pre-K children, who don’t even know what sex is, need to be exposed to “gender identity?” Simply because the victimhood identity politics hard left simply can’t wait to corrupt your children to their worldview. Everything must be subordinated to their warped will-to-power. No child or institution is safe from their clutches.

    Vote accordingly.

    Russia Hits Ukraine With Terror Missiles

    October 10th, 2022

    Following the successful strike on the strategically important Kerch Straight Bridge, Russia responded by launching a volley of missiles into random neighborhoods in Kiev and elsewhere.

    A series of deadly blasts rocked central Kyiv Monday morning, shattering months of relative calm in the Ukrainian capital a day after Russia’s leader blamed Ukraine for an explosion on a key Crimea bridge.

    At least eight people were killed and 24 were injured in just one of the Kyiv strikes, according to preliminary information, said Rostyslav Smirnov, an adviser to the Ukrainian ministry of internal affairs.

    The Kyiv explosions marked the start of an intensive wave of attacks on targets across Ukraine, with conflicting reports suggesting the blasts were caused by missiles or suicide drones.

    Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said in a statement on Telegram that there were “several explosions in the Shevchenkiv district — in the center of the capital.”

    He later said there were “several hits on objects of the city’s critical infrastructure,” adding that there were casualties.

    Lesia Vasylenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, posted a photo on Twitter showing that at least one explosion occurred near the main building of the Kyiv National University in central Kyiv.

    Ukraine managed to hit a strategically important bridge. Russia managed to hit a pedestrian bridge.

    Take that, power walkers!

    Indiscriminate attacks on civilians are not only wrong and a potential war crime, but worse for Russia, they’re also counterproductive and ineffective. We’ve know since The Blitz in World War II that wanton destruction of civilian buildings and infrastructure only hardens the resolve of the targeted populace. Using up missile in pointless displays of impotent fury only makes Putin’s Russia look like even bigger losers.

    Kerch Strait Bridge Update: Russia’s Still Using It

    October 9th, 2022

    As bad as the damage looked from the Kerch Strait Bridge explosion, Russia is still using the bridge:

  • The rail bridge has two tracks going each way, and they ran a test 15-car train on the other span. I have a civil engineer/bridge inspector friend who thinks it’s probably unwise to use the rail bridge at all, as the fire has almost certainly weakened the structure through spalling. But Russia doesn’t have a lot of options.
  • The destroyed train hasn’t been cleared yet.
  • They’ve opened up the surviving lane for traffic. “It’s been said that the road span can handle 20 cars an hour and has a weight capacity of 3.5 tons.” That’s rural mail route capacity, not “support a major front in a war” capacity.
  • Russia is trying to repair the bridge.
  • They’re using passenger-only ferries to cross, but the run rate is so low they may only have one ferry in service.
  • Peter Zeihan says it’s potentially a turning point in the war:

  • “By far the most significant development of the war to date.” I would say that the failure to take Hostomel Airport in the opening phases of the war was bigger, as that meant Russia’s high risk/high reward decapitation strike had failed.
  • “The Kerch bridge is the only large-scale rail connection between mainland Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which is home to about two and a half million people.”
  • All other rail lines are under threat of Ukrainian artillery.
  • He reiterates that everything in Russia runs on rail, as they never built a modern road network in most of the country.
  • “With Kerch being the only real connection, it is the primary primary way that the Russians Supply Crimea in the southwestern front with not just troops and equipment, but with food and fuel.”
  • He estimates the bridge spans couldn’t be repaired without several months of work.
  • “Now that the Ukrainians know it can be done, you can bet they’re going to try to hit other parts of it to make sure the thing stays offline.”
  • “For the first time we have a path forward for the Ukrainians here to win that is not long and windy.”
  • Russia finally has a problem it can’t just shove bodies at. “You don’t throw a half a million people at logistics. This is something where either you have the connections or you don’t.”
  • Russian troops in Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea are “suddenly on their own.”
  • They can now only supply those regions in two ways. “One is by truck, and we know that because of all the Javelins that have been put into Ukraine, and all the RPGs, that the Russians are almost out of their entire military tactical truck fleet, and they’ve started using city buses and Scooby-Doo vans, and those just can’t take the volume of stuff that an active frontline needs.”

  • The second way is by ship, and if they can’t supply anti-ship missiles, then Ukrainians can Muscova “every single cargo ship that the Russians try to bring in.”
  • “Losing cargo ships in that volume, losing trucks and buses in that volume, is hollowing out the entirety of the Russian internal transport system. This is the sort of thing that if you bleed this fast, it takes a decade to recover from, and in a war zone that is not going to happen.”
  • And sanctions make everything harder.
  • There still seems to be some confusion over just what blew up the bridge. While truck bomb is still the most widely accepted theory, supposedly Russia scans all trucks before the enter the bridge. And Suchomimus has a video up showing something in the water just before the blast (what isn’t clear).

    Finally, there are persistent reports of arrests of military personnel in Moscow. But the primary source for these reports seems to be Ukrainian, so several grains of salt are probably in order.

    Ukraine Hits Train On Crimean Bridge

    October 8th, 2022

    Ukraine manages to nail a Russian train laden with war materials as it was transiting the Kerch Strait Bridge.

    A massive fire is burning on the Kirch Strait Bridge that connects Russia to Crimea Saturday morning, with images showing multiple train cars fully engulfed and two spans of the road bridge in the water.

    Traffic on the bridge, a critical strategic artery for Russian forces in Crimea amid its war in Ukraine, has reportedly been halted as heavy flames and black smoke spew from a train carrying unknown cargo. Photos also show spans of both east and westbound lanes have collapsed into the water near the burning train.

    Yeah, it looks bad:

    Those collapsed spans are potentially a huge blow to Russia’s entire war effort, as they were already having difficulties keeping all of their field units adequately supplied. With the Kerch Strait Bridge out of commission, the job of resupplying the southern front goes from being difficult to being an absolute nightmare, and makes Melitopol even more vital to keeping troops on the southern flank supplied.

    The bridge cost billions to build after Russia seized Crimea in 2014 and has been one of Ukraine’s top targets, although it lacked traditional weaponry capable of striking it from far away. Even the Pentagon has openly stated that it sees the bridge as a viable target for Ukrainian forces. Russia has deployed air defenses and decoy barges in an attempt to protect it from some kind of attack in recent months.

    It’s hard for even a competent military to have effective air defense all along possible logistics routes, and Russia has been far from a competent military in this war.

    Suchomimus is on it:

    He maps it as too far for HIMARS, and thinks it was likely a drone attack.

    Russia has a 30,000 man strong rail organization. If it hasn’t suffered the same rot as the rest of the Russian armed forces (a big if), and if they can scrounge up the proper equipment (such as a crane barge; another big if), it could conceivably have the bridge repaired and usable again, possibly in as little as two to four weeks. It’s not easy, but it’s doable, and I imagine this is going to automatically jump to the top priority on the Russian logistics list. And, unlike the Antonovsky Bridge, it’s not currently in HIMARS range.

    But given the gross incompetence Russia’s military has shown in so many areas, it’s no sure bet that it can be repaired that quickly (or even at all) with assets in or near the theater.

    The clock is ticking…

    Update: Now reading that it was a truck bomb that took it out, timed to hit a passing fuel train, and that certainly seems plausible from fiercely the train was burning.

    LinkSwarm for October 7, 2022

    October 7th, 2022

    I hope all BattleSwarm readers are safe from the Joe Biden Armageddon thus far. Today’s LinkSwarm features Democrats disdaining the rules followed by the little people, the UN is delusional enough to think they can run the world and defy the laws of economics, and petting dogs is good for you.

  • The UN is demanding that central banks forget everything everyone learned about inflation in the 1970s and institute price controls instead of raising interest rates.

    UNCTAD, the UN agency dealing with global trade, demanding *all* central banks stop rate hikes and instead switch to price controls. They argue, “policymakers appear to be hoping that a short sharp monetary shock – along the lines, if not of the same magnitude, as that pursued… under Paul Volker – will be sufficient to anchor inflationary expectations without triggering recession. Sifting through the economic entrails of a bygone era is unlikely, however, to provide the forward guidance needed for a softer landing given the deep structural and behavioural changes that have taken place in many economies, particularly those related to financialization, market concentration and labour’s bargaining power.”

    I am not playing tennis with them either, but note the radicalism. Indeed, their latest report also argues, “supply-chain disruptions and labour shortages require appropriate industrial policies to increase the supply of key items in the medium term; this must be accompanied by sustained global policy coordination and (liquidity) support to help countries fund and manage these changes.” So, industrial policy. And Fed swap-lines. Expect both ahead.

    They also ask why we haven’t regulated shadow-banking, and why we allow speculators in global commodity markets who have nothing to do with underlying trade. On the latter they note, “Market surveillance authorities could be mandated to intervene directly in exchange trading on an occasional basis by buying or selling derivatives contracts with a view to averting price collapses or deflating price bubbles.” I expect nothing but that ahead – and geopolitically driven to boot.

    This boils down to: “Hey, we need to institute economic policies proven to fail, because otherwise lots of rich people will lose money!” Wage and price controls were tried in the 1970s and they failed miserably. The longer governments try to defy the market, the more terrible the snapback when those efforts fail.
    

  • Speaking of the UN, they think they own science.
  • Ukraine troops are using spoofed tracking systems and deception to infiltrate Russian lines. (Hat tip: .357 Magnum.)
  • “NYT ‘Right Wing Conspiracy Theory’ Comes True In Less Than 24 Hours.”

    On Tuesday, the New York Times framed a story circulating on the right over a software company’s connection with the Chinese Communist Party as a “right-wing conspiracy theory.”

    “At an invitation-only conference in August at a secret location southeast of Phoenix, a group of election deniers unspooled a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential outcome,” was the Times’ original lede (via the Daily Caller).

    In it, the Times wrote that “right-wing” election deniers in Arizona had fabricated a conspiracy theory that election software company Konnech had secret ties to the CCP, and was passing them information on around two million US poll workers.

    “In the two years since former President Donald J. Trump lost his re-election bid, conspiracy theorists have subjected election officials and private companies that play a major role in elections to a barrage of outlandish voter fraud claims,” reads the article. “But the attacks on Konnech demonstrate how far-right election deniers are also giving more attention to new and more secondary companies and groups. Their claims often find a receptive online audience, which then uses the assertions to raise doubts about the integrity of American elections.”

    The next morning, Konnech executive Eugene Yu was arrested for the alleged theft of poll workers’ personal information.

  • New Orleans’ Democrat mayor wants you to know that laws are for the little people.

    New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is facing the threat of a recall election and it’s not just the city’s rising crime that has petition signers enraged.

    The two people behind the petition are both Democrats demanding the Democrat mayor leave office for her “failure to put New Orleans first and execute the responsibilities of the position,” according to Fox News.

    In 2021, more than 150 officers left the New Orleans Police Department, despite a surge in murders and carjackings. Carjackings so far this year stand at 217, an increase of over 200 percent since 2019, according to the Metropolitan Crime Commission weekly bulletin.

    But it’s the mayor’s exorbitant travel spending that has people up in arms.

    She traveled to sister cities Ascona, Switzerland, and Juan Antibes-les-Pins on the French Riviera this summer, costing the City of New Orleans close to $45,000, including first-class international airfare with lie-flat seating.

    The city’s travel policy requires employees to pay the difference in cost for work-related airfare upgrades, stating “employees are required to purchase the lowest airfare available … employees who choose an upgrade from coach, economy, or business class flights are solely responsible for the difference in cost,” Fox News reported.

    But Cantrell hasn’t paid the near $30,000 bill from her first-class international flight upgrades over the summer.

    She has claimed the visits are an investment in the city and necessary for her safety.

    “My travel accommodations are a matter of safety, not of luxury,” The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported. “As all women know, our health and safety are often disregarded and we are left to navigate alone. As the mother of a young child whom I live for, I am going to protect myself by any reasonable means in order to ensure I am there to see her grow into the strong woman I am raising her to be. Anyone who wants to question how I protect myself just doesn’t understand the world Black women walk in.”

    Yes, I’m sure the men and women who walk the streets of New Orleans at night have never know unthinkable fear of having to fly coach to Switzerland.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • “Federal Law Does Not Exempt LGBT Employees From Bathroom, Dress Code, Policies, Judge Rules…A U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) policy document from June 2021 overreached in its interpretation of the Supreme Court’s ruling forbidding employment discrimination based on sexual preference and gender identity, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas found. Texas sued over the guidance.”
  • Instapundit Glenn Reynolds: “Biden hates Republicans so much, he would rather give oil money to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia than Texas.”
  • Related: “Politico reports that Democrats are ‘seething’ about the decision by OPEC+ to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day.”

    Well, fellas, if you don’t want OPEC+ to be in a position where it can influence U.S. gasoline prices a month before the election, you need policies that minimize the U.S. market’s dependence upon the global oil market. This means maximizing U.S. oil production and expanding U.S. refinery capacity.

    It would be a mild exaggeration to declare that the Biden administration hascompletely stopped issuing leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands and in federal waters, but only a mild one. As the Wall Street Journal reported last month, “President Biden’s Interior Department leased 126,228 acres for drilling through Aug. 20, his first 19 months in office, the analysis found. No other president since Richard Nixon in 1969-70 leased out fewer than 4.4 million acres at this stage in his first term.” It’s not a complete halt, but it’s very close to one. This means that the U.S. is almost entirely dependent upon oil production from private lands.

    The good news is that there’s still a lot of oil beneath private lands. As of July, the U.S. was producing 11.8 million barrels per day, an increase from the 11.1 million barrels per day produced in January 2021, the month President Biden took office. But before the pandemic hit in early 2020, the U.S. was producing 12.8 million barrels per day, and it even hit 13 million barrels per day in November 2019. We have the proven ability to produce about 1.2 million more barrels per day than we are, if we want to do so and our public policies encourage it. But right now, they do not.

    The Biden administration keeps insisting that it’s doing everything it can to bring gas prices down, including releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — which is now at its lowest level in 40 years. But what’s in the SPR is oil, not gasoline, and oil must still be refined. You can’t just pump the stuff out of the ground and put it in your car.

    U.S. refineries are running at full capacity, or just short of full capacity. This is why oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases got sent to Europe and Asia, because they had the room and equipment to turn it into actual usable fuel. The U.S. currently has no more spare ability to turn the oil from the reserve into stuff that will actually make your car move; yelling at the oil companies isn’t going to change what is fundamentally an engineering problem.

    And Democrats absolutely refuse to let anyone build new oil refineries.

  • Possibility: Nortstream2 explosion could have just happened because Russians suck at maintenance.

    Multiple sources have confirmed that Nord 2 was full of natural gas; that it was full for at least months; and that said natural gas had never moved.

    It. Just. Sat. There. For — allegedly — months.

    During normal operations of a pipeline, you run a pig through fairly regularly. A “pig” is a bit of equipment pushed by the gas flow, and as it moves along it shoves water and hydrate slurry down to where it can be removed; and it scrapes compounds off the inside walls (hydrogen sulphide, I’m looking at you) that might be are probably eating your pipe.

    Note the part above where the pigs are pushed by the gas. The gas in Nordstream 2 never moved. That means no pig ever went down the line to shove water out, move hydrate slurry, or stop H2S from corroding the steel of the pipeline.

    As I said in the previous post — and I will continue to say — none of this rules out intentional Acts of War. There are idiots enough in that region that sabotage can’t be discounted.

    How-some-ever … hydrate plugs.

    (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

  • “A lot of folks are running the White House. Joe Biden just isn’t one of them.” “Biden is surrounded with longtime D.C. power players, such as Ron Klain, Susan Rice, Anita Dunn, John Podesta, Gene Sperling – a veritable “who’s who” of Beltway knife fights and insider skullduggery. Throughout their long careers, they’ve never sought credit or voter approval. Just power.”
  • “NYC Mayor Declares State of Emergency over Influx of Illegal Immigrants. [New York City mayor Eric Adams] said at least 17,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the city by bus from other parts of the country since April.” Oh, a million illegal aliens come over the border into Texas and it’s no big deal, but 17,000 show up in your “sanctuary city” and suddenly it’s a problem!
  • “Vermont High School Girls Volleyball Team Banned From Locker Room For Objecting To Changing With Biological Male.”
  • “NYU Fires Chemistry Professor After Students Launch Petition Claiming His Course is Too Hard.” The lesson here seems to be that businesses shouldn’t hire NYU grads…
  • “Meta ordered to pay $175M for copying Green Beret veteran’s app.”
  • Chris Cuomo loses to Paw Patrol. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • British blogger eats on £1 for a single day and has a very tough time of of it, even with foraging and scavenged condiments. Despite the dollar-pound exchange rate being so favorable, I don’t think I could do that on $1 a day shopping at HEB, and even if you made it $1.25, it would have to be three meals of ramen. Also, I don’t think I can even buy a single carrot at HEB (if I had wanted to), spaghetti is considerably more than 23¢ for 500 grams. $5 for $5, that I could do, and $30 for 30 days would be grim but very doable (price, pasta, and beans).
  • Dispatches from Sad Trombonia: “$1.5 Million Floating Home Prototype Sinks Into The Water Just As It’s Unveiled.”
  • Epic basketball player name.
  • Petting a dog can be good for your brain.” Agrees:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Los Fabricantes De Armas Que Es Más Macho Estados Unidos Mexicanos

    October 6th, 2022

    Dwight sent over the text of a firearms case decision in “ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS, Plaintiff, v. SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC.” etc., or Mexico v Smith & Wesson et. al. (“Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Inc.; Beretta USA Corp.; Century International Arms, Inc.; Colt’s Manufacturing Company, LLC; Glock, Inc.; Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc.; and Witmer Public Safety Group, Inc. d/b/a Interstate Arms.”)

    The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for Massachusetts (because venue shopping) and the decision was handed down by Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV.

    TLDR summary: Judge Saylor threw out the case.

    A U.S. federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Mexican government against U.S. gun manufacturers arguing their commercial practices has led to bloodshed in Mexico.

    Judge F. Dennis Saylor in Boston ruled Mexico’s claims did not overcome the broad protection provided to gun manufacturers by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act passed in 2005.

    The law shields gun manufacturers from damages “resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse” of a firearm.

    Quoting the text of the decision itself (which does not yet appear to be online anywhere):

    Unfortunately for the government of Mexico, all of its claims are either barred by federal law or fail for other reasons. The PLCAA unequivocally bars lawsuits seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the acts of individuals using guns for their intended purpose. And while the statute contains several narrow exceptions, none are applicable here.

    This Court does not have the authority to ignore an act of Congress. Nor is its proper role to devise stratagems to avoid statutory commands, even where the allegations of the complaint may evoke a sympathetic response. And while the Court has considerable sympathy for the people of Mexico, and none whatsoever for those who traffic guns to Mexican criminal organizations, it is duty-bound to follow the law.

    Accordingly, and for the reasons set forth below, the motions
    to dismiss will be granted.

    Not a picture of Judge Saylor.

    This, of course, is the proper outcome. Lawful American gun manufacturers can’t be held accountable for the misuse of their products, nor should they be made scapegoats for Mexico’s inability to control their own criminal cartels.

    (Title reference.)