Department Index
Chatterbox 2002:
Gossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics.
If you'd like to sort this department listing by headline, author or date, please use the Slate search.
- 2002's Unmemorialized Notables Die between Christmas and New Year's, and you fall between the cracks.
Dec. 31, 2002 - Conservative Self-Parody Watch Bob Bartley retires, again; Ann Coulter gets shrill!
Dec. 30, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Holman Jenkins Jr. The Wall Street Journal disproves its own op-ed columnist's claim that the suit and tie are back.
Dec. 27, 2002 - Xmas Sales Did Not Tank So why is everyone reporting that they did?
Dec. 26, 2002 - Is Bush Subsidizing Bigotry? How the new faith-based executive order will work.
Dec. 23, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Cherie Blair Britain's first lady fibs about who helped buy her Bristol flat.
Dec. 20, 2002 - What About Byrd? Unlike Thurmond, he renounced his racist past.
Dec. 18, 2002 - Meme Watch: Bushies Take the Bait The tax-the-poor movement picks up steam.
Dec. 16, 2002 - The Legend of Strom's Remorse A Washington lie is laid to rest.
Dec. 16, 2002 - Weatherson Chesa Boudin, radical chic Rhodes scholar.
Dec. 10, 2002 - Blurted Out Conviction of the Week: Trent Lott What's a little segregationism among friends?
Dec. 6, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Hiro Ueki What's your definition of "unannounced"?
Dec. 6, 2002 - Frat Coup d' État Plot Exposed! A Chatterbox investigation.
Dec. 5, 2002 - Meet Bush's Domestic Policy Chief Where's she been hiding?
Dec. 5, 2002 - Pleasure, Pain, and Saddam Hussein A meditation on recreational violence.
Dec. 3, 2002 - Will Kissinger Screw Rumsfeld? The 9/11 commission creates an opportunity for revenge.
Dec. 2, 2002 - Al Gore, Andrew Sullivan, and "Fifth Column" The etiquette of using a provocative epithet.
Dec. 2, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Egan Acres Tree Farm Miami discovers the pitfalls of mine-is-bigger braggadoccio.
Nov. 29, 2002 - Introducing the Meme Watch A periodic series tracking thought-viruses of interest.
Nov. 27, 2002 - Conservatives for Higher Taxes, Part 2 Three more reasons why higher taxes on the poor are an idiotic idea.
Nov. 26, 2002 - Conservatives for Higher Taxes Why the Wall Street Journal wants cleaning ladies to fork more over to Uncle Sam.
Nov. 25, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Dr. Janet Travell JFK's doctor fibbed about his health during the 1960 campaign.
Nov. 22, 2002 - Did Bullies Torment Richard Perle? Calvin Trillin's joke springs to life.
Nov. 21, 2002 - Birth of a Washington Word When warfare gets "kinetic."
Nov. 20, 2002 - Roger Ailes Strikes Back He says he didn't give Rove advice.
Nov. 18, 2002 - Bonus Whopper: Fox News Roger Ailes has been moonlighting.
Nov. 16, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: 92nd Street Y A $1 million donation is pronounced chump change.
Nov. 15, 2002 - The Pokey Little Prosecutor Day 28 of the D.C. Indictment Watch.
Nov. 15, 2002 - Democrats 36,000, Part 3 The Riddle of the Ideopolis.
Nov. 13, 2002 - Democrats 36,000, Part 2 Whatever happened to working-class whites?
Nov. 12, 2002 - Democrats 36,000 Where's that emerging Democratic majority?
Nov. 11, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: William Webster Hell hath no fury like an accountant scorned.
Nov. 8, 2002 - D.C. Indictment Watch: Day 21 Pretty please, can we have our own district attorney?
Nov. 7, 2002 - Did Parris Blow It for Kathleen? Revenge of the soccer moms.
Nov. 6, 2002 - Voulez Vous le Smallpox? Who tattled on France?
Nov. 5, 2002 - Dirty Tricks Watch Shooing away black voters in Baltimore.
Nov. 4, 2002 - Mondale Takes the Web Two questions about the Senate candidate's Web site.
Nov. 4, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Harvey Pitt The hole in Judge Webster's résumé.
Nov. 1, 2002 - Pelosi Responds Filmmaker says neither she nor NBC burned a source.
Oct. 31, 2002 - Why Can't D.C. Prosecute the Snipers? Because it's a penal colony!
Oct. 30, 2002 - Did NBC News Burn a Source? The ethical problem with HBO's Journeys With George.
Oct. 29, 2002 - Paul Wellstone, Pet Liberal Why conservatives will miss the late Minnesota senator.
Oct. 29, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: George W. Bush Hey, one year is a long time, isn't it?
Oct. 25, 2002 - What's A "Duck in a Noose"? Part Two Readers offer their explanations.
Oct. 24, 2002 - Arts & Letters Daily Returns! Welcome back to an old friend.
Oct. 24, 2002 - What's "A Duck in a Noose"? The sniper's enigmatic message.
Oct. 24, 2002 - Should We Pay Off the Sniper?
Oct. 23, 2002 - The Sniper's Dual Citizenship Washington's Virginia and Maryland suburbs harbor two mutually hostile tribes. Does the sniper belong to both?
Oct. 22, 2002 - Counting Black Freshmen A crude but telling measure of racial progress.
Oct. 21, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: North Korea It violated an arms agreement "more than 100."
Oct. 18, 2002 - Lay Off Langewiesche Chatterbox defends the best thing yet written about 9/11.
Oct. 17, 2002 - Dick Cheney, Dove More on why Bush père's defense secretary didn't want to go to Baghdad.
Oct. 16, 2002 - Al Gore Semi-Exonerated! Chatterbox retracts his claim that Gore misrepresented his 1991 views on Iraq.
Oct. 15, 2002 - Why Congressional Web Sites Are (Usually) Worthless It isn't just Senate ethics rules.
Oct. 14, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Michael Bloomberg Who knew that Dominic Chianese and Lorraine Bracco were costars on The Sopranos?
Oct. 11, 2002 - Iraq Flunks Game Theory 101 Won't Jude Wanniski help?
Oct. 10, 2002 - New York Is Not the Nation's Capital Frank Rich has it wrong.
Oct. 7, 2002 - Arts & Letters Daily, RIP Goodbye to an old friend.
Oct. 7, 2002 - Would War in Iraq Hurt the War Against Al-Qaida? A country-by-country review.
Oct. 1, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Rep. Tom Tancredo The views of a term limits champion grow more, er, complex in Congress.
Sept. 27, 2002 - Daschle Was More Right Than He Knew About Bush Demagogy about government reorganization is worse than demagogy about war.
Sept. 26, 2002 - Gore Is Consistent on Iraq A close look at the evidence.
Sept. 24, 2002 - Ariel Sharon, Peacenik Israel's hawkish prime minister achieves what the United Nations couldn't.
Sept. 23, 2002 - The Anthony Williams Pretender Watch, Day 3 Closing the book on pretenders.
Sept. 13, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Al-Muhajiroun No blood lust at London's Finsbury Park Mosque?
Sept. 13, 2002 - The Anthony Williams Pretender Watch, Day 2 Two refuse the prize, and one refuses to refuse.
Sept. 12, 2002 - The Stephen L. Carter Stonewall, Day 55 Emperor of Ocean Park author formally resigns from bioethics panel.
Sept. 12, 2002 - The Anthony Williams Pretender Watch, Day 1 The next mayor of D.C. will very likely be Anthony Williams. But which one?
Sept. 11, 2002 - The Dueling Orthodoxies of American Doves Chatterbox proposes a new synthesis.
Sept. 10, 2002 - Did NYC Get its Promised 9/11 Disaster Aid? Not yet. But go ahead and be complacent.
Sept. 9, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: National Republican Congressional Committee Who said anything about privatizing Social Security?
Sept. 6, 2002 - Can Your Boss Fire You for Your Political Beliefs? Part 3 The saga of the union research assistant, continued.
Sept. 5, 2002 - Can Your Boss Fire You for Your Political Beliefs? Part 2 A cautionary Labor Day tale.
Sept. 3, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Eddie Joe Lloyd A patient in a mental hospital confesses falsely to murder.
Aug. 29, 2002 - McCain Won't Run for President He all but says so in his new memoir.
Aug. 28, 2002 - Saddam Does Not Have "Weapons of Mass Destruction" Unless he already has nukes that we don't know about.
Aug. 27, 2002 - Economic Platitude Watch: Nicholas F. Brady An occasional series spotlighting content-free commentary about America's financial woes.
Aug. 26, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Larry Klayman Judicial Watch says it never endorsed Rep. Bob Barr.
Aug. 22, 2002 - A Sluggish War on Indolence Why the Bush administration's anti-obesity campaign is doomed.
Aug. 22, 2002 - The Stephen L. Carter Stonewall, Day 34 Wherein Chatterbox concedes that Emperor is a good novel.
Aug. 21, 2002 - The Dan Bartlett Office Watch Not as compelling as the Karen Hughes Office Watch, but August's a slow news month.
Aug. 20, 2002 - Abolish the New York Times Wedding Pages! Including same-sex unions is a halfway measure toward equality.
Aug. 19, 2002 - Hack Me Yale's culpability in the Princeton hacking scandal.
Aug. 14, 2002 - The Stephen L. Carter Stonewall, Day 20 Wherein Carter replies, sort of, to Chatterbox's questions about why he went AWOL on the bioethics panel.
Aug. 7, 2002 - Income Redistribution, GOP-Style The House takes money from the poor and spends it on the rich.
Aug. 6, 2002 - The Times Book Review Puts Daphne Merkin Across Its Knee A correction to remember.
Aug. 5, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Al Gore Man's gotta eat, doesn't he?
Aug. 2, 2002 - Least Surprising Headline of 2002 Coming soon: "Those Aren't Tammy Faye Bakker's Real Eyelashes."
Aug. 1, 2002 - Will You Be Laid Off? A Web calculator says Paul O'Neill has greater job security than the typical American.
Aug. 1, 2002 - Remembering Laszlo What do you call the federal government's prize slumlord? A philanthropist.
July 31, 2002 - The Financial Times Engages in Class Warfare! Who milked the most from America's biggest bankruptcies?
July 30, 2002 - The Stephen L. Carter Stonewall, Day 11 The Emperor of Ocean Park author remains silent about why he was a no-show at the President's Council on Bioethics.
July 29, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Princeton Admissions Dean Stephen LeMenager "I was merely testing whether a burglar might squeeze his hand into this cookie jar."
July 26, 2002 - Economic Platitude Watch: David Gergen Introducing an occasional series spotlighting content-free commentary about America's financial woes.
July 25, 2002 - The Invisible Robert Rubin He's in Citigroup's upper management. Why don't the scandal stories say so?
July 24, 2002 - Moussaoui-Traficant Mix and Match Keep that cursor away from the quotes until you've guessed!
July 19, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: James Traficant Just how innocent is he?
July 19, 2002 - Stephen L. Carter, Bioethics Panel Dropout Must we clone him?
July 18, 2002 - The Good News Menace Oh no! Alan Greenspan thinks the economy's rebounding!
July 17, 2002 - Karen Hughes Office Watch, Day 8 Dan Bartlett makes his move.
July 15, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Michael S. Steele Driving Mister Kennedy.
July 12, 2002 - Karen Hughes Office Watch, Day 4 Dan Bartlett stakes his claim.
July 12, 2002 - Karen Hughes Is Still Gone And her office is still empty.
July 10, 2002 - Pointless Postal Pedal Pushing Why is the post office spending $8 million a year on cycling?
July 10, 2002 - TO LET: LRG WH CR OFC, PA. AVE. VU Who will inherit Karen Hughes' digs?
July 9, 2002 - How the ADL Counts Anti-Semites An "anti-Semitism index" that's less than scientific.
July 9, 2002 - Does Amtrak's Northeast Corridor Really Lose Money? Part 2 Yes, when you count the infrastructure.
July 8, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Hesham Mohamed Hadayet Lying about his birth date was the least of his offenses, but he did that, too.
July 5, 2002 - The Weekly Standard's House Muslim What William Safire probably didn't know.
July 3, 2002 - Peter Kann Gives Up Publisher's Job, But Not Publisher's Salary! What the Dow Jones news wire forgot to tell you.
July 2, 2002 - Can Your Boss Fire You for Your Political Beliefs? A cautionary Independence Day tale.
July 1, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: WorldCom Did we say "profit"? We meant to say "loss."
June 28, 2002 - Do Kids Understand the Pledge of Allegiance? Only the God part.
June 27, 2002 - Does Amtrak's Northeast Corridor Really Lose Money? Depends who you ask.
June 26, 2002 - The Bravery of Thomas Mallon He says what needs to be said about the New York Times' "Portraits of Grief."
June 24, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Terry Lynn Barton What's that smell? An alibi, up in smoke.
June 21, 2002 - Alan Keyes Is Taking Meds If he's making sense, then these TV shows are real.
June 20, 2002 - Management Secrets of Bernard Law: The Winners Leadership tips from the Boston Archdiocese.
June 19, 2002 - John Dean Says Deep Throat Was Not a G-Man But mostly fails to persuade Chatterbox.
June 17, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Tom Ridge Ridge urges Congress to pass a bill he helped write after claiming he'd tell Bush to veto it.
June 14, 2002 - Why A Plane Isn't A Vehicle The shoe-bomber judge explains it all to you.
June 13, 2002 - Not in Everybody's Backyard A new way to think about the transportation of nuclear waste.
June 11, 2002 - Ari Fleischer Tells Truth! Sun sets in east, rivers flow upstream.
June 11, 2002 - Tom Ridge's Navy The nomadic Coast Guard packs its bags, again.
June 10, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Weldon Kennedy See no evidence, hear no evidence, speak no evidence.
June 7, 2002 - Is Andy Card an Idiot? Esquire sure makes him look like one.
June 6, 2002 - Psst! Dubya! Clinton Didn't Do Anything About Global Warming, Either! Predicting catastrophe and leaving it at that is long-standing U.S. policy.
June 5, 2002 - How the NYT Is Like the FBI Howell Raines=Robert Mueller; Jill Abramson=Coleen Rowley.
June 3, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Ari Fleischer Gaslighting the press about nation-building.
May 31, 2002 - Accountability, FBI-Style Mueller's answers to reporters' questions about his counterterrorism reorganization are none of your business!
May 30, 2002 - How To Tell the New York Times from the Weekly World News Which one peddles flying-saucer pics it doesn't own at $375 a pop?
May 28, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Condoleezza Rice Abroad at home.
May 23, 2002 - Crisis Over! Now that anti-Bush 9/11 recriminations have died down, so, too, can the imminent risk of terrorist attack.
May 22, 2002 - Is Bush Hyping the New al-Qaida Threat? God, Chatterbox hopes so.
May 20, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Robert Mueller He knew more than he said about 9/11.
May 17, 2002 - Is the GOP Capable of Self-Criticism? Its silence about NRA honcho Wayne LaPierre suggests not.
May 16, 2002 - Brock Crock Watch An occasional feature scrutinizing the veracity of liberal-turned-conservative-turned-liberal David Brock.
May 15, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Karl Rove When Dubya said "Jump," Sharon said, "Eh? Come again?"
May 9, 2002 - Reader Contest: Management Secrets of Bernard Law A "Rumsfeld's Rules" for the Boston cardinal.
May 9, 2002 - Yes, Virginia, There Is a Deep Throat Let's not overdo cynicism about the media.
May 8, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Gen. Richard Myers The Joint Chiefs chairman claims not to know that Hamid Karzai wants a bigger international peacekeeping force.
May 3, 2002 - Why Did Bob Woodward Lunch With Mark Felt in 1999? Was it to ask if he could unmask Deep Throat?
May 3, 2002 - The NRA's Moral Equivalence Wayne LaPierre sees no difference between gun-control advocates and Osama Bin Laden.
May 2, 2002 - Salon and John Dean's Deep Throat Candidate Revealed! They'll probably say it was someone in Ehrlichman's office. They'll probably be wrong.
May 1, 2002 - Did David Brock Lie About Appearing on Fox? A Chatterbox investigation.
April 26, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Donald Rumsfeld How were things in Tora Bora?
April 25, 2002 - John McCain, Democrat: An Update Another push for a sluggish juggernaut.
April 24, 2002 - Did Exxon Mobil Get Bush To Oust the Global Warming Chief? Al Gore spoils Dubya's Earth Day.
April 22, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: George W. Bush Dubya bad-mouths Clinton to the Brits.
April 18, 2002 - Come Home, McCain The Washington Monthly and New Republic are right: McCain should run for president as a Democrat.
April 17, 2002 - Cornel West Whine Watch Wherein the celebrity professor maps the frontiers of self-pity.
April 16, 2002 - William Bennett Chases His Tail Self-criticism is bad for us, good for them.
April 15, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: The Rev. Robert J. Banks The archdiocese of Boston takes care of its own.
April 11, 2002 - Goodwin, McTaggart, and That Book Review Who's more irritating, the plagiarist or the plagiaree?
April 9, 2002 - Yasser Arafat and
George Washington:
How To Tell Them Apart To Prince Bandar, all revolutionaries look alike.
April 5, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: George W. Bush Don't tell anyone Dubya takes polls (poll-taking polls badly).
April 5, 2002 - Larry Klayman Decries Evils of Litigation! And don't miss our next story, "Casanova: 'I'm a One-Woman Man.' "
April 3, 2002 - Jude Wanniski's Genocide Denial Wherein the supply-side guru disputes, against all evidence, Saddam's gassing of the Kurds.
April 1, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Major League Baseball What's the matter with being America's pastime?
March 30, 2002 - David Brock, Liar A lifelong habit proves hard to break.
March 27, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Billy Graham The reverend elaborates on his admiration of the Jewish people.
March 21, 2002 - Flytrap Forever Would the last guy in the independent counsel's office please kill the lights?
March 20, 2002 - Robert Zoellick, Protectionist Destroying free trade in order to save it.
March 19, 2002 - Goodwin's Tribe A Harvard law professor chides the Crimson for criticizing a plagiarist.
March 18, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: James W. Ziglar The INS approves student visas for 9/11 terrorists six months after they toppled the World Trade Center.
March 14, 2002 - Slavery Reparations: Con or Meme? Forget whether they should exist. Lots of people think, mistakenly, they do exist.
March 13, 2002 - Whoppers of the Week: Robert Zoellick and the U.S. Steel Industry Learning to love tariffs.
March 8, 2002 - The Many Boards of Doris Kearns Goodwin A corporate chieftain who moonlights as an historian.
March 4, 2002 - Bunkers for All Occasions Preserving the American way of life.
March 1, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Al Sharpton Hey, Rev. Al, where'd you get that suit?
Feb. 28, 2002 - David Frum: On Second Thought, I Didn't Coin "Axis of Evil" But now he can take credit for whatever he wants.
Feb. 26, 2002 - John Poindexter, "Outstanding American" Ari Fleischer salutes a mendacious former national security adviser.
Feb. 25, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Marie-Reine Le Gougne "Emotionally fragile" Olympic skating judge retracts confession!
Feb. 22, 2002 - Remembering Danny
Feb. 22, 2002 - Attack of the Yankee Superpredators! The Atlantic pretends teen killings are a Vermont epidemic.
Feb. 20, 2002 - Kissinger's Revenge While Nixon was bugging Kissinger, guess who was bugging Nixon.
Feb. 18, 2002 - Kenneth Lay Was Not Too Busy For Davos! The Smoking Gun uncovers a torrid Bush-Lay correspondence.
Feb. 16, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Kenneth Lay Caught in a fib the same day he takes the Fifth!
Feb. 14, 2002 - How To Build a Memorial to 9/11 An ingenious and moving design—one you haven't seen—to remember the World Trade Center.
Feb. 13, 2002 - Million-Mullah March A huge demonstration in Iran, yes, but please don't say "millions."
Feb. 12, 2002 - Six Degrees of Adnan Khashoggi, Part 5
Feb. 11, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Enron Spokeswoman Peggy Mahoney Potemkin energy trading.
Feb. 8, 2002 - OPEC and the U.N.: How To Tell Them Apart The distinction's lost on the oil cartel.
Feb. 7, 2002 - David Frum's "Axis of Evil" Authorial vanity strikes the Bush White House.
Feb. 5, 2002 - Bush to NYC: Drop Dead How the Electoral College intercepted $9 billion for Sept. 11 relief.
Feb. 5, 2002 - Sammy Roche Is Too Busy for Davos! An ongoing photographic inquiry.
Feb. 4, 2002 - Leon Wieseltier Is Too Busy for Davos! An ongoing photographic inquiry.
Feb. 4, 2002 - Douglas Besharov Is Too Busy for Davos! An ongoing photographic inquiry.
Feb. 4, 2002 - Alice Rivlin Is Too Busy for Davos! An ongoing photographic inquiry.
Feb. 4, 2002 - James Fallows Is Too Busy for Davos! An ongoing photographic inquiry.
Feb. 1, 2002 - R. Emmett Tyrrell Is Too Busy for Davos! An ongoing photographic inquiry.
Feb. 1, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Monsanto First they're liable, then they aren't, then they are, and then they don't remember discussing it.
Feb. 1, 2002 - Robert J. Samuelson Is Too Busy for Davos! An ongoing photographic inquiry.
Jan. 31, 2002 - Bruce Reed Is Too Busy for Davos! An ongoing photographic inquiry.
Jan. 31, 2002 - Are You Too Busy for Davos? Fight meritocratic preening at the World Economic Forum!
Jan. 29, 2002 - How To Curb the Plagiarism Epidemic (Or, how Alice Mayhew gets her groove back.)
Jan. 28, 2002 - Who Wants To Be a Nobel Peace Laureate? A killer and a spy.
Jan. 25, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Linda Chavez The onetime labor secretary nominee elaborates on her affection for unions.
Jan. 24, 2002 - Doris Kearns Goodwin, Liar First she plagiarized. Then she claimed it wasn't plagiarism.
Jan. 22, 2002 - Blaming Liberalism for Enron Conservative pundits rise to the challenge.
Jan. 21, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: George W. Bush "Ken who?"
Jan. 18, 2002 - Does Celebrity Make Intellectuals Stupid? Part 3 Chatterbox parses Richard Posner's data one last time.
Jan. 15, 2002 - Michael Young, RIP The sociologist who coined the term "meritocracy"is dead at 86.
Jan. 15, 2002 - Rubin, Rubin The sainted former treasury secretary makes a sleazy phone call, and nobody cares.
Jan. 14, 2002 - The O'Neill Death Watch, Part 7 An ongoing series on the occupational travails of the treasury secretary.
Jan. 11, 2002 - The 2001 Whopper Archive
Jan. 11, 2002 - Whine of the Week
Jan. 10, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: Simon & Schuster Ambrose comes clean, but his publisher fibs!
Jan. 10, 2002 - Meritocracy's Lab Rat Toby Young pens an unconscious sequel to The Rise of the Meritocracy.
Jan. 10, 2002 - Nobel Lobby Watch 2002 Those peace prizes don't just materialize out of thin air.
Jan. 8, 2002 - Does Celebrity Make Intellectuals Stupid? Part 2 More findings from Richard Posner.
Jan. 7, 2002 - Whopper of the Week: The Associated Press
Jan. 4, 2002 - Does Celebrity Make Intellectuals Stupid? A look through Richard Posner's data.
Jan. 4, 2002 - Charles Laughton, Father of Talk magazine, Part 2 Wherein Tina Brown ambushes Maureen O'Hara.
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