ARE WE JUST A BAD LOT??

        Looking at the figures of the prison population in Scotland, and comparing them with the prison population in other European countries you begin to ask yourself some questions. Take Northern Europe and look at the figures for other countries with a similar population. Denmark, population approximately 5.5m, prison population, just over 4,000. Finland, population approximately 5.3m, prison population, 3,100. Norway, population just under 5m, prison population, 3,600. Ireland, population approximately 4.5m, prison population just over 4,400. Not a lot of difference there, but let's look at Scotland, population approximately 5.2m, prison population 8,178, for the year 2011/12. This was an increase of 4% over the last decade. You are looking at approximately double the prison population in Scotland compared to other European countries of similar population size. What makes the situation worse is that this 8,178 prison population is housed in a prison system with a design capacity of 7,840.

      Could it be that we Scots are just a bad lot, just a wee land of terrible people? Or could it be that we have more problems in our society, poverty etc.  get locked up for problems related to mental health and addiction, or is it simply that we have a more authoritarian government in this country. Probably a combination of all of the last three.

        Prisons are never about justice, they are about control, they are about protecting the establishment, the status-quo, about protecting the wealth and power of those who rule over us. The more they feel threatened, the more the prison population will grow.

ann arky's home,

WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY.

       As I keep saying, workers, know your history. We are all aware, or should be, that those that sit in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, are not the state, but merely its public managers. The real power of the state sits else where, hidden in marble halls, long corridors and stately homes. That power is the same the world over, and by quiet meetings behind closed doors, that power can decide to change the managers from the keepers of the ballot box, to the men with guns. We have seen it happen in numerous countries across the globe, while we in Britain, because of the propaganda of the babbling brook of bullshit, the media, believe that it couldn't happen here. That my friends is an illusion, the same powers that sit behind the various governments across the world sit quietly behind our Oxbridge millionaire parasites. If it is deemed that they are not doing a good job for that hidden power, then they will be removed, one way or another.

An interesting from A World to Win:

      A plot by the state against a weak government of the day, unable to govern on its own, amidst a grave economic crisis. Sounds familiar? Well, this is not actually about “plebgate” and the Tories – though it could just as well be – but Harold Wilson and Labour.

     Wilson was prime minister from 1964-70 and again from 1974 to his sudden and dramatic resignation in 1976. Later he would claim that the spy agency MI5 had wanted him out. And that army officers had been plotting a takeover.

     Wilson was right on both counts.

In 1968, a period of mass upheavals in Britain and worldwide, senior army officers, together with press baron Lord Cecil King, Lord Mountbatten and intelligence agency figures, discussed staging a coup to overthrow a Labour government thought to be in the pockets of the trade unions.

     A global economic crisis followed America’s decision in 1971 to end the system of fixed currencies established at Bretton Woods after the Second World War. Inflation spiralled out of control. Oil prices tripled and miners took industrial action. Much of Britain was on a three-day week in 1973-4 as power supplies dwindled.
      The plans for a coup were dusted down when Labour was returned to office in 1974 after miners’ industrial action had brought down the Tory government of Edward Heath. Heath asked voters to say “who rules Britain?”. A minority Labour government took office.

      Out of the blue, a series of joint police/army exercises were held at Heathrow Airport. The first of these was held in January 1974, while Heath was still in power but the remaining three were held in June, July and September. They were labelled “anti-terror” operations.

Read the full article HERE: As I keep saying, workers, know your history.

ann arky's home.

GLASGOW'S STONE CIRCLES.

      Having been born and bred in the North of Glasgow I have seen it disintegrate from a bustling industrial area to an area of high unemployment and deprivation. I believe that the latest figures state that 52% of children in the Springburn area live in poverty, the highest in the country. The Springburn Park which has seen years of neglect, and Sighthill Park are about all the kids have of decent open spaces. So our Kremlin in George Square have decided that to take one of these away would be a great idea for the people of the area!!!

Thanks Bob for this info:

From a Friend.

    "we were informed that it would shortly be demolished, in order to test the ground for chemical contamination, in order to show that Glasgow is serious about bidding for the 2018 Youth Olympics." Eh!

     A friend of mine's father was one of those who designed and erected the Astronomically Aligned Sighthill Stone Circle, which is in danger of the being taken down in the near future with area re-development

     There is information on the circle
www.sighthillstonecircle.net<http://www.sighthillstonecircle.net>
And there is a petition as well
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/glasgow-city-council-scrap-their-plans-to-demolish-sighthill-park-and-its-stone-circle

       In 1978-79 the Glasgow Parks Astronomy Project designed and built the first astronomically aligned stone circle for at least 3,500 years, in Sighthill Park in Glasgow. The circle was intended to be an educational tool and visitor attraction, but has been neglected by the City Council hitherto. Land & Environmental Services (successors to the Parks Dept) have wanted to renovate and complete it since 2001, but for various reasons it hasn’t happened yet. On November 26th (the day before a book about the circle was published worldwide!) we were informed that it would shortly be demolished, in order to test the ground for chemical contamination, in order to show that Glasgow is serious about bidding for the 2018 Youth Olympics. Sighthill Park was a chemical factory at one time, but in order for the Project to get planning approval to build the stone circle, the parks contractors had to test the site thoroughly for chemical contamination in 1978 and there was none. The circle is now attracting worldwide interest and should be a major attraction for the Olympic Village and subsequent development, rather than ‘an unfinished piece of 1970s public art’ as the Council employee concerned insists on describing it. The Herald, Sunday Express and BBC Scotland have all given support to the campaign, and there are several petitions in circulation. The main one has over 500 signatures to date. Any additions to this petiton would be great for the campaign. Thank you

Friends of Sighthill Stone Circle
www.sighthillstonecircle.net<http://www.sighthillstonecircle.net>

 ann arky's home.

EPICENTRE OF LAWLESSNESS.

       More on the raid by riot police on the Villa Amalias Squat in Athens.

This from the Greek Streets:

        Under the pretext of the search, then, they materialise a long-standing wet dream of theirs: their raid into a space that is one of the spatial symbols of all those who stand in hostility against anything that represents sovereignty, imposition, sterilization, indifference, surrender, subjection. In this they are right. That’s who we are. Us and the thousands of demonstrators, the people in struggle, squatters, strikers, people fighting in the streets. We are the homeless, the punks and the rebels, the vegetarians and the feminists, the nocturnal ones and the workers, poor and the aggrieved, the victims of racism and the avengers of injustice. The minister called us an epicentre of lawlessness…

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.

       Like the man said, "Prison is a crime against humanity." In America there are more people locked up in prisons than any other country in the world, while we in the UK also come very high on that list. I believe that in the UK approximately 80% of those in prison are in for non-violent crimes and a high proportion have mental health problems, and addiction problems. More hospital cases than prison cases, but this is capitalism. However under the present system we will not be able to abolish prisons, but there are those who do try to do something about those unfortunate enough to get caught up in this destructive system. Everybody knows Amnesty International, there is SACRO (Scottish Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders) there is also Anarchist Black Cross and Jail Guitar Doors. Until that day when the prison walls come down by the force of justice, those on the inside still need support.

ann arky's home.

STATE REPRESSION.

      As poverty bites ever deeper in Greece so does state repressions. This morning the riot police raid and tried to evict a squat that has been in existence for 22 years. There has been several attempts to evict but it has always been re-occupied.

This from Contra Info:

Hands off Villa Amalias! Solidarity with squats.

      

       Today, December 20th, 2012 at 7am police forces raided Villa Amalias squat. Pretext for this oppressive exhibition of power has been an ‘anonymous complaint’ to the police. Eight comrades (six Greek-born and two from abroad) who were inside the squat have been arrested and taken to the GADA police headquarters on Alexandras avenue, where they are still being held.

        Comrades who came to the area in solidarity with the squatters were also detained by repression motorcycle units, while the same happened to other comrades who were caught inside the Athens City Hall, on Liosion street, where they had gone to make an intervention against the repression mayor Giorgos Kaminis. (The latter were reportedly released after a while.)

       From the beginning of the raid, dozens of comrades gathered outside the squat; we remain on Acharnon street till this moment calling out for solidarity.

Mayors and ministers just get it through your head: not even in your wildest dreams could you take Villa Amalias from us.

Read the full article HERE:

 ann arky's home.

PRISON WITHOUT TRIAL.

       Of course we in the democratic West know that it is only in those foreign countries with nasty dictators that you can be held in prison for months without being arrested or charged. Well that's the picture our babbling brook of bullshit spew out on an daily basis. After all that's what democracy is all about due process done fairly and openly with as little delay as possible. If we are not getting that, then it can be said it is a totalitarian regime. In that case we in the West fall well short of the "democracy" mark.

       This is an extract from just one such case of nasty dictator regime in some foreign land called America.

From The Stranger: 

  The visiting room of the SeaTac Federal Detention Center is bleak. Prison is supposed to be bleak, but it's difficult to appreciate how bleak it is until you've walked inside—past the grim security checkpoint, the sallow-faced chaplain with the giant keys hanging from his pants, the many heavy doors that slam shut behind you like a metal thunderclap, the off-white walls and institutional lighting that seem to suck the color out of everyone's hair and clothes, the frosted-over windows to block any view of the outside world, and into the visiting room with its plastic chairs arranged in sets of four with a guard sitting in a high booth, presiding over the room like a bored judge.

And the waiting. Lots and lots of waiting.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

    

THE FOURTH WORLD WAR.

 

       Not a short film, not all in English, but worth watching, listen for the facts, get the big picture.

ann arky's home.

AMERICA, LAND OF EXTREME POVERTY.

       I often go on about the poverty being inflicted on the people of Greece by the financial Mafia, and believe me it is extreme. However when people think of poverty they never look in the direction of that pinnacle of capitalism, that land of freedom and opportunity, the good ol' US of A. It is to the wonder of propaganda that the myth, that America is a land of plenty was created and still persists. The illusion that is pumped out to the world that we should all follow the American corporate example and we will live well in a prosperous country. The truth of course is that millions in America live in extreme poverty and recent figures are quite startling. In America in 1996, approximately 600,000 children were living in what is classed as extreme poverty, $2 or less a day. That figure has shot up to approximately 1,400,000 in 2011. That is the advance that capitalism has made in that land of opportunity.

      The following is short extract from a rather long, but well worth reading article from Mother Jones:

This story was produced with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
      Two years ago, Harvard professor Kathryn Edin was in Baltimore interviewing public housing residents about how they got by. As a sociologist who had spent a quarter century studying poverty, she was no stranger to the trappings of life on the edge: families doubling or tripling up in apartments, relying on handouts from friends and relatives, selling blood plasma for cash. But as her fieldwork progressed, Edin began to notice a disturbing pattern. "Nobody was working and nobody was getting welfare," she says. Her research subjects were always pretty strapped, but "this was different. These people had nothing coming in."
     Edin shared her observations with H. Luke Shaefer, a colleague from the University of Michigan. While the income numbers weren't literally nothing, they were pretty darn close. Families were subsisting on just a few thousand bucks a year. "We pretty much assumed that incomes this low are really, really rare," Shaefer told me. "It hadn't occurred to us to even look."
      Curious, they began pulling together detailed household Census data for the past 15 years. There was reason for pessimism. Welfare reform had placed strict time limits on general assistance and America's ongoing economic woes were demonstrating just how far the jobless could fall in the absence of a strong safety net. The researchers were already aware of a rise in "deep poverty," a term used to describe households living at less than half of the federal poverty threshold, or $11,000 a year for a family of four. Since 2000, the number of people in that category has grown to more than 20 million—a whopping 60 percent increase. And the rate has grown from 4.5 percent of the population to 6.6 percent in 2011, the highest in recent memory save 2010, which was just a tad worse (6.7 percent).
But Edin and Shaefer wanted to see just how deep that poverty went. In doing so, they relied on a World Bank marker used to study the poor in developing nations: This designation, which they dubbed "extreme" poverty, makes deep poverty look like a cakewalk. It means scraping by on less than $2 per person per day, or $2,920 per year for a family of four.
     In a report (PDF) published earlier this year by the University of Michigan's National Poverty Center, Edin and Shaefer estimated that nearly 1 in 5 low-income American households were living in extreme povery; since 1996, the number of households in that category had increased by about 130 percent (118 percent if you use the latest numbers available). Among the truly destitute were 2.8 million children. Even if you counted food stamps as cash, half of those kids were still being raised in homes whose weekly take wasn't enough to cover a trip to Applebee's.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

A SOCIETY THAT SPAWNS KILLINGS.

    I seldom comment on such horrors as the most recent mass shooting in America. It is always difficult to find the right words, and in this particular event, as a parent, I am numbed and can't even imagine what those parents are going through. The matter is extremely complex and requires an analysis of the type of society that exists, and a look at alternatives. Of course that babbling brook of bullshit, the media, will have a field day of pouring over the heart rendering misery of the people involved, displaying it like a tapestry of emotion for public consumption, but never a deeper analysis as to the why. Below are two paragraphs from an article that I think puts it better than I ever could.

This from SoleOne:

 

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     Before the tears that fell from the presidents face hit the podium and the Us troops deployed to Turkish borders could learn to pronounce "Ahmadinejad " everyone had an opinion on the Connecticut shooting.   Celebrities and politicians all lined up, either to propose stricter gun laws or to say, "now is not the time to politicize."  Even as the details from the Aurora shooting continue to fill news pages and blogs after almost 3 months,  Once again we are trapped in a 9600+ hour news cycle where we will be bludgeoned with every  detail to emerge from the shooting as  hack journalists pontificating back and forth on "how" but never look deeper then family/personal issues as to the "why."--------

       There are a million factors that contributed to this, but I'd be remised if i didn't point out the hypocrisy and jingoistic nature of most of these responses.  This is the shit we fund in Gaza, this is what our drones do daily throughout Islamic World.  Tens of thousands of thousands of people have been killed by the American Empire in the past 10 years, and you'd be hard pressed to find as many American  tears for our victims overseas.  That is not to take anything away from this tragedy or equivocate, this was an utterly horrific act.  If we really want to put an end to end to the mass shootings, we must begin to heal the society and culture that spawns them.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

LIVING OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM.

      The only news we get about Greece from that babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, is about the bailout, will they get it, won't they get it, have they done enough to get it. Have they sorted out their lazy workers and cut their wages and pensions enough to merit the European financial Mafia giving the Greek banks more cash, with which to pay back the European financial Mafia?? Very little or nothing appears about how this game of shuffling imaginary money around affects the ordinary people of Greece. Poverty, deprivation, massive unemployment, especially among the young, increase alcoholism, drug addiction, suicides, mental health problems, homelessness and broken families.      

     However, as always the ingenuity and imagination of the ordinary people in the face of adversity, comes up with solutions. Let's hope that they will continue this imaginative alternative and organise it to its rightful conclusion and bring about the collapse of the stinking system responsible for all their ills.

This from Red Pepper:

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    Greeks queue to buy cheap sacks of potatoes sold directly by farmers at cost price in the northern town of Thessaloniki. Farmers in northern Greece have joined forces with local residents to provide cheap produce for the people. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis

    The first problem is that in Greece now we have 25 per cent unemployment, with youth unemployment reaching 58 per cent and unemployment in areas that used to be highly industrialised sometimes reaching 70-80 per cent. Many industries either close because we have very low consumption or, as in the case of the big multinationals like Coca-Cola, they are leaving.
     Around 170,000 small companies have closed in the past three years. It is almost impossible to set up a new company today in Greece because you can’t get the finance. The banks are taking 80 per cent of the money that Greece is getting from the EU and IMF. But they are not lending a euro to the people.
     Unemployment benefit only lasts for one year, and then you get nothing to survive on – only help from friends and family, from social networks and working for very little in the black economy. The problem up to now hasn’t been as severe as it could have been because of very strong family and friendship networks – if someone had difficulty in paying bills, for example, others would support them. But it isn’t possible to sustain this kind of support indefinitely.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

       I am a keen cyclist, yes even at my age, and as such I admire Bradley Wiggins, the man and what he has achieved. However I was disappointed and saddened at the thought of him becoming one of those kneeling and touching forelock individuals that think that Sir, in front of your name makes you a better person. So it is with that in mind and the hope that this message may reach him, that I post this article. So if you know him, pass it on. From A World to Win:

Me, not Wiggo.

Don't do it, Wiggo!

       Bradley Wiggins, heroic winner of the Tour de France, Olympic gold medallist and BBC sports personality of the year, with sideburns that help mark him out from the crowd, is reported to have accepted a knighthood. My message to him is simple: don’t do it Wiggo!

     Don’t let us see a picture of you kneeling before the Queen to become Sir Bradley. Do what Olympic opening ceremony creator Danny Boyle has done and say “No”.

       You were brought up by your mum in a small flat in Kilburn, north London. Your absent father’s passion for cycling rubbed off on you and the legendary Herne Hill velodrome in south London, was where you started out.

      You became popular through your common touch, your rapport with ordinary people. So much so that the French took you to their hearts, especially when you made jokes in their language.

       So why join the establishment? Why join the elite? Why help out the ConDem government, which is recommending you to Buckingham Palace? As US baseball fans might respond, “say it ain’t so, Wiggo”.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

DEFYING A CURFEW.

     A massive act of defiance of a curfew as people take back their community.

      On Wednesday, December 5th, 2012 the residents of the Borel favela (Morro do Borel, occupied since 1921 in Rio de Janeiro) went out in the streets in a collective effort to break the curfew that the cops of the local UPP (‘Police Pacification Unit’) have imposed in the area since November 28th.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

THE FIRST TO STARVE, THE FIRST TO DIE.

     This one might not be new, but I like it, and it is always nice to relax with a pleasant piece of music that has honest lyrics.

ann arky's home.

JUSTIFIED KILLING.

      This is probably the worst case of police killing I have heard of, by what appears to be a trigger happy cop. 13 bullets as the guy is getting out of the car. The behaviour after the killing looked like nobody seemed to know what they were doing and apart from the cop high on adrenalin or something, it all seemed so casual. And the killing was ruled as justified??

The story is from Reason.com:

ann arky's home.

RAISE TAXES -- RAISE AIR POLLUTION!!

       The best laid plans of mice and men---- The Greek governments super plan to raise revenue by a 40% hike in fuel oil tax, seems to have back-fired somewhat. Once again it is the economics of the insane, thinking that in a country where there is extreme poverty and massive unemployment, you can still raise revenue by taxing the poor who don't have any surplus cash to hand over. The only thing they seem to have raised is the level of air pollution.

This from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ:
         Nowadays it's now known as fuel poverty, but to older generations it is huddling in cold, damp rooms round an inadequate fire hoping that either the weather will get better or that you'll have enough money to see out the cold spell. With temperatures in Greece dropping below zero in the mountainous northern regions, one of the government's most hated tax measures is starting to take effect. The decision by Athens to raise heating oil taxation by 40% seems to have backfired as millions decided not to turn on their oil fired central heating and turned to other sources, most notably, wood burning stoves, leaving the government with 790 million euro shortfall.
       In the northern region of Kozani heating oil whole sellers reported an 85% drop in demand in comparison with last year, whilst businesses supplying wood, sometimes logged illegally are seeing a roaring trade as Greeks seek to heat their homes using traditional wood burning stoves known as soumbes.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

YOU KNOW IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!

        Although crime is falling in this country, the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, always fill your mind with horrible crimes, giving the authorities an excuse to put in place more surveillance and more control over the ordinary people. Cameras everywhere, stop and search, ID cards, everything to keep tabs on you, to make sure they know who you are, where you are, why your there and have you got permission to be there. However we haven't yet gone as far as the good sheriff of Paragould in Arkansas, who has declared marshal law on the good citizens of his patch.

This from Paragould Daily Press:

       In response to a recent increase in crime, Paragould Mayor Mike Gaskill and Police Chief Todd Stovall offered residents at a town hall meeting Thursday night at West View Baptist Church what could be considered an extreme solution — armed officers patrolling the streets on foot. Stovall told the group of almost 40 residents that beginning in 2013, the department would deploy a new street crimes unit to high crime areas on foot to take back the streets.
      "[Police are] going to be in SWAT gear and have AR-15s around their neck," Stovall said. "If you're out walking, we're going to stop you, ask why you're out walking, check for your ID."
     Stovall said while some people may be offended by the actions of his department, they should not be. "We're going to do it to everybody," he said. "Criminals don't like being talked to."

Read the full article HERE:

And a Happy New Year to you lot!!

ann arky's home.

A MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE PEOPLE OF GREECE.

      It is obvious that the Greek government is determined to see that the Greek people have a merry Christmas. This is a no expense spared exercise to keep the Christmas spirit of goodwill alive. I think it is Syntagma Square, Athens but not sure.

       And how the people of Athens showed their feelings regarding austerity and goodwill at Christmas a couple of years ago.

ann arky's home.

THE STATE, EXPERT PURVEYORS OF VIOLENCE.

       These words could apply to the events of today but were written about Ravachol and his times, by Octave Mirbeau  16 February 1848 – 16 February 1917

And this begs the question...

        Who is it --throughout this endless procession of tortures which has been the history of the human race --who is it that sheds the blood, always the same, relentlessly, without any pause for the sake of mercy? Governments, religions, industries, forced labor camps, all of these are drenched in blood. The murder is weary of their laws, their prayers, and their progress. Again just recently, there were the frenzied butchers who turned Paris into a slaughterhouse as the Commune perished. There were pointless massacres, such as at Fourmies where the bodies of innocent women and little kids tried out the ballistic virtues of the Lebels machine gun for the first time. And there are always the mines in which fifty, a hundred, or five hundred poor devils are suffocated, swallowed in a single moment of horrible destruction, their charred bodies never to see daylight again. And there are also the horrid conquests of distant countries where happy races, unknown and peaceful, groan under the boot of that robber of continents, that filthy rapist of forest communities and virgin lands, the western slave trader.

Each footstep taken in this society bristles with privileges, and is marked with a bloodstain; each turn of the government machinery grinds the tumbling, gasping flesh of the poor; and tears are running from everywhere in the impenetrable night of suffering. Facing these endless murders and continuous tortures, what's the meaning of society, this crumbling wall, this collapsing staircase?

We live in ugly times. The misery has never been worse, because it's never been more obvious, and it's never stood closer to the spectacle of wasted riches and the promised land of well-being from which it is relentlessly turned away. Never has the law, which protects only the banks, pressed so hard upon the tortured shoulders of the poor. Capitalism is insatiable, and the wage system compounds the evils of ancient slavery. The shops are packed full of clothing, and there are those who go about completely naked; the indifferent rich are puking up food, while others perish from hunger in their doorways. No cry is heeded: whenever a single, louder complaint penetrates the din of sad murmurs, the Lebels is loaded and the troops are mobilized.

And that's not all.

       A population does not live solely on its stomach. It also has a life of the mind. Its intellectual joys are just as necessary as its physical joys. It has a right to beauty just as it has a right to bread. Indeed, those who could give it its higher pleasures, those who could introduce to the people this vital beauty are treated like public enemies, hunted down as criminals, hounded for being anarchists and beaten like beggars. They are reduced to a solitary life. An enormous barrier separates them from the crowd, by whom they are regarded as repulsive spectacles, and over whom there is spread the enormous, sordid, impenetrable veil of triumphant stupidity. We are witnessing an incredible social moment: at this time, while abundant with great thinkers, the public taste has never been so degraded, nor has ignorance ever enjoyed such base pleasures. Surely, if the hour in which we live is hideous, it is formidable as well: it's the hour of popular awakening. And this hour is full of uncertainty. The patience of the downtrodden and the dispossessed has lasted long enough. They want to live, they want to enjoy, they want their share of all the happiness and sunshine. Whatever the rulers do, reacting to their worst fears, they will not forestall the inevitable course of events. We're touching upon a decisive moment in human history. The old world is collapsing under the weight of its own crimes, and is itself lighting the fuse of the bomb that will blast it all away. This bomb will be all the more terrible because it will contain neither gunpowder nor dynamite. It'll contain compassion and an idea; two forces against which nothing can be done. 

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

ENDLESS, POINTLESS WAR.

Think about it?

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