Open carefully, please avoid spilling ... :)

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I am going to vote for Barack Obama.
I am William "Papa" Meloney and I endorse this message.

Open Plea: Know and Remember

Yesterday I posted about supporting Iranian Women's Rights activists. Today I have received a comment and an e-mail containing this message.

These are the photos of women who were arrested in Iran yesterday.

Please go to this site به جرم زن بودن

Please think of these daughters, sisters, fiances, wives, mothers and visualize them in prison, held as social subversives.

Now know and remember that these eight women, Nafiseh Azad, Jila Baniyaghoub, Farideh Ghaeb, Jelveh Javaheri, Sarah Loghmani, Nahid Mirhaj, Aida Saadat, and Nasreen Sotoodeh, along with many, many more represent the hope of our future.

True peace in a healthy society can only be achieved when all people are respected. When fear is vanquished. When repression and subjugation are replaced with compassion and cooperation.

One Million Signatures Campaign

Click Here to Take Action>>

Click Here to Learn More About These Cases>>

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I am going to vote for Barack Obama.
I am William "Papa" Meloney and I endorse this message.

Open Support: Iranian Women's Rights

Support Iranian Women's Rights Activists on their National Day of Solidarity

Today marks the second anniversary of a protest held by women's rights activists in Iran. That demonstration was broken up violently by security forces and led to the arrest of 70 men and women. The activists then launched the One Million Signatures Campaign, an unprecedented grass-roots campaign to change gender discrimination in Iranian laws.

They chose June 12 as a national day of solidarity with their campaign, and planned to hold an event today commemorating the protests. However, their gathering was canceled due to threats and when a number of women arrived anyway, security forces blocked the doors. Eight women have reportedly been detained: Nafiseh Azad, Jila Baniyaghoub, Farideh Ghaeb, Jelveh Javaheri, Sarah Loghmani, Nahid Mirhaj, Aida Saadat, and Nasreen Sotoodeh.

Human Rights First has joined over forty international human rights organizations to express support for the defenders. On this anniversary, call on the Iranian government to cease its persecution of the activists, drop any charges against them, and to allow women's rights activists to engage in their rights of assembly and peaceful political expression.

Click Here to Take Action>>

Click Here to Learn More About These Cases>>

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I am going to vote for Barack Obama.
I am William "Papa" Meloney and I endorse this message.

Open Market ... I gotcher classics right here.

From TimesOnline

June 10, 2008

'Any book in Hemingway's library for $200'

Irish thriller writer Adrian McKinty takes us on an atmospheric journey to one of literature's greatest shrines, and receives an extraordinary offer

Ernest Hemingway’s house

Adrian McKinty

The secret policeman wasn’t smiling. It just looked like that because his false teeth didn’t fit correctly. I was relieved. If Russian writer Isaac Babel is to be believed it’s when secret policeman start grinning at you that you should begin to worry.

“Think about it,” he said as he ran his fingernails along the right lapel of a navy double breasted blazer that was miles too big for him. His eyes were dark and squinty and his skin yellowy white. He was small, grey haired and not terribly menacing.

“I’m sorry?” I said, unsure that I had heard him correctly.

He repeated his offer. “Any book in Hemingway’s library for two hundred dollars,” he said in carefully enunciated English.

[Thanks to The Cuban Triangle for the insight.]

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I am going to vote for Barack Obama.
I am William "Papa" Meloney and I endorse this message.

Open floodgates (abren las compuertas)

Cuba wages will be tied to productivity

Salary caps will be eliminated in August

Ray Sanchez | Direct from Havana

5:08 PM EDT, June 11, 2008

HAVANA

Recognizing the egalitarian goal of the island's socialist revolution as outdated, Cuba is moving ahead with a productivity-based wage system, a top labor official said Wednesday.

Carlos Mateu, a vice minister of labor and social security, said in an interview with the Community Party daily Granma that all state enterprises must eliminate salary caps by next month. Many have already done so.

The move contradicts the idea of an egalitarian society long promoted by ailing former president Fidel Castro, 81, who was officially replaced by younger brother Raul in February.

But Cuba's first new leadership in nearly 50 years has acknowledged that the socialist system was in danger without better economic results in areas from food production to worker productivity.

Ray Sanchez E-mail | Recent columns

"Either we solve the problems or we ourselves destroy the revolution that cost us so much blood and sweat," Maria del Carmen Concepcion, a top Communist Party official, was quoted as saying in the state press this week.

Mateu told Granma that "there has been a tendency for everyone to get the same, and that egalitarianism is not convenient. That is something we have to resolve." The vice minister could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

When everyone was equally poor then all desire was unfulfilled. As economic classes re-emerge in Cuba the true tyranny of poverty and oppression will once again raise its ugly head.

¡La revolución es muerta!

[Thanks to Luis M Garcia who blogs at Child of the Revolution for the insight.]

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I am going to vote for Barack Obama.
I am William "Papa" Meloney and I endorse this message.

Open Tutorial: How to speak Republican

[Bonus Link #1]

[Bonus Link #2]

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I am going to vote for Barack Obama.
I am William "Papa" Meloney and I endorse this message.

Open Endorsement: I'm Voting Republican

I'm voting Republican because I don't think we really need a change...



www.ImVotingRepublican.com

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I am going to vote for Barack Obama.
I am William "Papa" Meloney and I endorse this message.

Open Diversity

Just click the ticket [NSFW] ... well, maybe just a little risque ... still be difficult to explain to the boss. (WEG) Also, check out the film.

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I am going to vote for Barack Obama.
I am William "Papa" Meloney and I endorse this message.

Open Adolescence

[Click picture for full story]

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I am going to vote for Barack Obama.
I am William "Papa" Meloney and I endorse this message.