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 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 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 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 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.

Open tears of a clown

Rule of Lords

Cyclone relief no laughing matter

June 6, 2008 · No Comments

On the night of June 4, a group of police officers came to a house in suburban Rangoon, searched it and took away one of the occupants. But the person they took is not a wanted robber, murderer or escapee. He is a comedian.

Although Zarganar (pictured above at left, with fellow actor and social activist Kyaw Thu) is famous in Burma for his antics on stage and screen, he has not been joking much lately. Instead, he has been at the front of local efforts to get relief to where it has been needed most since Cyclone Nargis swept through his country a month ago.

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

Open shirt, brown in color

McCain's Campaign Manager Announces Contest In Disturbing Video

In what Wonkette calls "the most tragically awkward video in the history of YouTube," a dazed McCain campaign manager Rick Davis stares goggle-eyed at off-screen cue cards, robotically making a call for Americans to stalk their neighbors with video cameras, and reveal what secret Islamofascists might be walking among us. The lucky winner will be flown to the Republican National Convention to enjoy a session of "Seven Minutes In Heaven" with Larry Craig at the Minneapolis airport, and then it's off to Guantanamo Bay!

This contest, by the way, is the "true story" upon which the Liv Tyler thriller The Strangers is based.

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

Open echo, let me repeat this clear message

this election is not about Iraq. This election is about America.

Thanks Winston for telling the truth

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

Open Disclosure

McCain: I'd Spy on Americans Secretly, Too

By Ryan Singel June 03, 2008 | 5:06:25 PMCategories: Election '08, NSA

If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that the president's wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight, according to a statement released by his campaign Monday.

(Thanks Wired)

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

Open Oh pen Op en Ope n

shot out of a rifle barrel lined with baroque paintings landing in a sea of electricity

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

Open journey, don't follow me

Thanks to the HumorlessBitch for the right way...

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

Open Foolishness

Dunkin' Donuts is WRONG! To kowtow to the conservative right is to again relinquish human rights in favor of fear ... this is wrong! Boycott Dunkin Donuts!

Per the Huffington Post

The Boston Globe reports that Dunkin Donuts caved to pressure from the conservative blogosphere — and the fear of a mass boycott — and removed the ad:

The company at first pooh-poohed the complaints, claiming the black-and-white wrap was not a keffiyeh. But the right-wing drumbeat on the blogosphere continued and by yesterday, Dunkin' Donuts decided it'd be easier just to yank the ad.

Said the suits in a statement: ''In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design. It was selected by her stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended. However, given the possibility of misperception, we are no longer using the commercial.''

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

Open Surprise Me!

What a pleasant surprise to hear from the likes of Donald Sutherland on the Democratic primary race...

Donald Sutherland

It is incomprehensible to me that Mrs. Clinton can seriously be touting the notion, with the support of the punditocracy of CNN and Fox, that she is leading in the popular vote and should therefore be seriously considered as the most electable candidate in the November election. She's including those who voted for her in Florida and Michigan's name recognition ballot saying that to exclude them would be to disenfranchise them. What about the Democrats in Alaska, American Samoa, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Hawaii and Wyoming who did not cast ballots because they were playing by the pledged delegates playbook and voted by caucus. What about them? Certainly if the rules are going to be changed and judgment is based on the 'popular' vote those voters in the eleven caucus states and Samoa will be disenfranchised. What about them?

And what about us? What about the American people? Haven't we had enough of Mrs. Clinton's mad antics in her pursuit of the realization of venal personal ambition; her 'say anything, do anything, no matter what' effort to manipulate our all too willing media to gull this country's populace into believing that her wretched illegitimacy is indeed legitimate. How much mendacity do we have to suffer, how much brazenness do we have to swallow before someone, anyone, has the decency, the common sense, to relieve us of this terrible trifle, this pathetic madness?

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

Open Wonder

When I encounter stories like the following I just have to wonder why there are so many difficulties in the region.

American born Louise Firouz (Laylin) passed away at the age of 78 in Iran

Louise Firouz is known as the reviver of the Caspian horse and the best breeder of Turkmen horses in Iran. She also operated adventure horse-treks in northern Iran. The journeys have been listed by The Times as among the top 10 rides in the world.

(Thanks to Always Under Construction for the great blogging.)

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

Open Haiku

Haiku is an open-source operating system currently in development designed from the ground up for desktop computing. Inspired by the BeOS, Haiku aims to provide users of all levels with a personal computing experience that is simple yet powerful, and free of any unnecessary complexities.

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

Open Contest: Haiku

we undress for love
and for ten seconds the dusk
makes us young again

John Samuel Tieman

St. Louis, MO, USA

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