Reinstate Gita Sahgal now!
I'm submitting an emergency resolution to the Amnesty International UK Section AGM next month.
Web exclusive
March 12, 2010
February 08, 2010
Amnesty International UK Board - help get me on the ballot
I have decided to run for a seat on the Board of Amnesty International UK. But I need at least 10 paid-up members of Amnesty to support my nomination in order to get on the ballot. And I need those signatures by Thursday evening this week. If you are an Amnesty member, or you know one, I need you send me by post the following:
I nominate ERIC LEE of 4 Alexandra Park Road, London N10 2AA. as a candidate for a seat on the Board.
You must fill in the following fields:
Name of Proposer (your name)
Address of Proposer
Signature of Proposer
Date of Proposal
As it needs your original signature, please send it by post to my address (see above).
Thanks very much!
December 17, 2009
Racism and Anti-Semitism in the UK: Are union leaders and the Jewish community in denial?
In recent weeks I've had the opportunity to listen to leaders of trade unions and the Jewish community in Britain discuss developments that concern them.
The first has been reaction to the decision taken by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to call for a partial boycott of Israel and its more recent decision to praise the government's decision to label West Bank products. The second is the spectacular rise of the far-right British National Party (BNP).
November 08, 2009
Trotsky: Can't the media get anything right?
I just spotted this and cannot believe that journalists cannot write even a couple of paragraphs about Trotsky within making at least one error -- significant political errors -- in each sentence.
Here are two important ones:
"Trotsky was the founder of the Red Army, and along with Vladimir Lenin, one of the prime movers in the Bolshevik revolt that overthrew Tsar Nicholas II."
Wrong. Neither Trotsky nor Lenin was even in Russia when Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown. The Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Revolutionary Government, which at the time was headed by Kerensky.
"Today Leon Trotsky is almost forgotten, even though he was a real Russian Che Guevara -- a revolutionary who dreamed of global revolution," Alexander Smirnov, organiser of the exhibition at the Museum of Political History, told AFP.
Wrong. Che Guevara was a totalitarian Stalinist who would have been happy to plunge the world into nuclear war, had no problem with the persecution of dissidents (including homosexuals) and so on. His own party ruthlessly crushed Trotsky's own followers in Cuba. Trotsky is known today -- and respected -- precisely because he became an outspoken opponent of the totalitarian shift in Soviet Russia.
A generation ago, we had to contend with Stalinist media that lied about Trotsky. Today our enemy is ignorance.
June 26, 2009
World's unions stand in solidarity with Iranian workers
Weeks before the disputed Presidential election, long before the explosion of dissent into the streets of Tehran, there were already signs that not all was well in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Mass arrests at May Day demonstrations, suppression of strikes at factories, jailing of leaders of independent trade unions in transport and industry – this was the prelude to hundreds of thousands openly shouting “death to the dictatorship” in the streets of Iran's capital in June 2009.
The international trade union movement has been increasingly focussed on Iran in the last year and has issued a call for a global day of protest on 26 June to focus attention on the violation of workers' rights in that country.
Continue reading "World's unions stand in solidarity with Iranian workers" »
June 21, 2009
iPod for Ubuntu users
Take a look at this screenshot. Click on the image to enlarge it. Do you see what I see?
In the center of your screen is Apple iTunes software. But look carefully at the top bar, particularly the upper left corner. That's Ubuntu. What you're seeing is an implementation of iTunes inside the Ubuntu Linux desktop.
So what?
Well, if you buy an iPod or iPhone, Apple tells you that the only computers that they will work with are Apple Macs and Microsoft Windows PCs. If you run Linux, you're out of luck.
If you Google around, you discover that there are ways around this. As you'd expect.
Most people suggest that you "jailbreak" your iPod but that is (a) tricky to do for newbies and (b) runs the risk of invalidating your warranty, and screwing up stuff.
You could partition your disk and install Windows in one of the partitions, but when I started reading up on this, I realized that there was a risk of compromising some bits of my system that I didn't want to touch.
Another approach, which I tried, is to install an app on the iPod called Air Sharing. This allows me to drag and drop files, including music files, from my Linux laptop to the iPod. It works really well, but the problem is that you cannot play those files with the music player. If you double click on a particular music file, you can play it -- but you can't play a number of them, or shuffle them, or do anything a decent music player would do.
I tried to run iTunes in the Windows emulator for Linux, Wine (and yes, I know that means "Wine is not an emulator"), but that didn't work.
And then I discovered Sun Microsystem's VirtualBox and everything changed.
VirtualBox is free software which you can download to your Linux desktop.
Once you do so, you tell it to create a new virtual environment and you can set up your operating system (in my case, Windows XP Home) inside that environment (or box).
It takes a while to install Windows XP from CD, but incredibly, it worked. I had Windows working on my Linux desktop, without having to partition my disk.
Once Windows was working inside its little box, I checked to see if it recognized that I had a wireless internet connection. It did. So I downloaded and set up iTunes 8. That worked really well.
The next stage was tricky -- how to get iTunes to read all the MP3 files I had created in Linux.
For that, I needed to use Shared Folders inside VirtualBox, which required me to download some additional tools (you'll be walked through this), and to restart.
I was very happy to see iTunes now recognizing all my music files.
The final stage was getting iTunes to recognize the iPod once it was connected by USB. This was not simple, and required me to play around with user groups on Linux. There's a lot of stuff about this on the web and it took a while to tweak it all so it worked.
And then, it all just worked. I was syncing my iPod Touch with my Linux-based music collection -- without jailbreaks, without partitions.
Life would be a lot easier if Apple would just release a version of iTunes for Linux, but the company is obviously not interested in the millions of Linux users as potential customers of both their hardware (iPods and iPhones) and music. Until they wake up to the fact that we are a market, we need to find ways to get around their stupid limitations -- and what I've described above is one way to do just that.
June 18, 2009
iPhone? Who the hell needs an iPhone?
Look carefully at the image to the left. This is not an iPhone. It is an iPod touch with something that looks just like a thumbtack stuck into the bottom of it.
This thing is actually called a Thumbtack and you can buy one and stick it into your iPod Touch. You can then go to the Apps Store and download a free copy of Skype.
And then you can make Skype calls whenever you're in range of a wi-fi connection, which for someone like me is nearly all the time.
January 29, 2009
UnionBook - the social networking website for trade unionists
This weekend will see the public launch of UnionBook - the social networking website for trade unionists, sponsored by LabourStart.
UnionBook offers many features that you and your union will find useful. Among these are:
* Blogs - build your own blog today. Free, with no ads.
* Groups - create a group to support your union and your campaigns. Groups can have discussion forums and shared documents. They can be public or closed. They're a very powerful tool.
* Post your profile and sign up your friends - just like in any other social network (with certain subtle differences).
We're adding more features all the time, fixing and tweaking things, but with over 500 users already using our beta version, we think it's time to go live and to recruit thousands more trade unionists. UnionBook will never be as big as the giant commercial networks like Facebook, but once we have several thousand trade unionists using it, I'm confident that it will become a powerful tool for our movement worldwide.
We're not telling anyone to stop using other social networks. If you are active in Facebook or any of the others, that's fine. But use UnionBook for your trade union activities and see how easy it is to build and form groups, and to publish content online.
Please spend some time on UnionBook.org and explore the possibilities. And then spread the word -- because together, we can create something amazing here.
November 05, 2008
Roosevelt or Clinton? Obama must choose
After the cheering has died down, the empty champagne bottles recycled and we awaken to a new day in America, many of us are asking the question: what next?
One doesn't need a crystal ball to predict what Obama will do in his first few months in office. The new Democratic president is going to introduce new legislation, re-order budget priorities, and attempt sweeping change. Top priorities will include grappling with the economic crisis, climate change and health care.
It's important therefore to contrast the first few years of the Roosevelt administration with that of Clinton – and to ask which type of president Obama will be.
Continue reading "Roosevelt or Clinton? Obama must choose" »
August 26, 2008
Where is Harry's Place?
Apparently, another cowardly British ISP has shut down a political website for fear that it might be sued for libel. Harry's Place - formerly here -- made the mistake of writing about a Sheffield based academic who in the course of discussing the academic boycott of Israel on a trade union mailing list linked to the website of American KKK leader, neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denier David Duke. Harry's Place ran the person's name and photo, and apparently their ISP was threatened.
The name of the academic is Jenna Delich. The "offensive" photo appears to the left.
There, I've published it too. Sue me.
Harry's Place has temporarily moved here.
More details about the matter are found on the ever-helpful Engage website.
August 08, 2008
Hands off Georgia!
As a democratic socialist, I have to say that I am very concerned by reports that Russian tanks have entered Georgia.
You might think -- what an odd topic to comment on? After all, I don't normally address current affairs issues on this blog.
But a quarter century ago I began a love affair with Georgia -- a country I've never seen whose language I do not understand.
July 14, 2008
Back from Oz: Part 2 (Melbourne)
I spent only two days in Melbourne - far too little time. This was my fifth visit to the city.
Back from Oz: Part I (Sydney)
I was in Australia last week as the guest of the New South Wales Teachers Federation, which was holding its annual conference. I saw a lot and learned a lot and over the next few days I want to write some of this up here.
[Pictured: A wombat. Despite my best efforts, no one offered to do me a wombat burger.]
June 14, 2008
Changing the world one Amazon review at a time
I've posted a handful (literally) of reviews on the Amazon website. I didn't even remember that I had, but I just now had to post one about the new James Bond book so I returned to the site.
In looking over my reviews, I see that I posted a one sentence review of Microsoft Excel a year ago. Here's what I wrote:
"Why would anyone pay over £170 for a piece of software which does nothing more than Open Office.org does -- and OpenOffice.org is completely free of charge?"
Nearly a year later, someone posted a comment on my review (I didn't realize you could do this). It's worth repeating here:
"This is so true - I dowloaded openoffice on reading this and it is very good. converts all your old word or .xls files and is easy to use with the same functionality of office. plus I am quids in as was about to spend £180 on Excel. Major mistake if I had done that! Great post Eric."
One more convert to free software -- won over by a review on Amazon. I wonder what else we can use Amazon reviews for?
April 19, 2008
POW! I'm programming again
I wrote my first computer program back in 1985. I was writing in a long-forgotten programming language known as "RPG II" for an IBM System 34 mini-computer. (Mini-computers were not what you think -- they were room-sized devices to which one connected dozens of dumb terminals.) Over the years, I got pretty good at coding and whenever I needed a computer to do something for me, I'd knock off a quick program to do it. Some of the programs I wrote were even sold to professional magazines so that others could copy my code.
But for the last ten years, I've been working on PCs (until a year ago, Windows-based PCs) and have no experience with programming them. I did learn Perl, which I use to write short programs (scripts) on Linux servers for websites. But I've found no easy way to write a useable program on my PC.
I've long thought it would be wonderful if I could use a language I know (Perl) on a platform I use (the PC) and get back to the stage where I was a decade ago, writing programs to meet my needs.
As of yesterday, that problem is solved. I have just written my first application (a small group of programs) -- a powerful task list (to-do list) manager. I am now using this instead of the various programs I have used in the past, such as the Gnome To Do list, KDE Kalendar, and web-based lists such as Remember the Milk, TaDa List and so on.
March 02, 2008
Living with robots
Meet "Robbie", the newest member of our family.
Robbie is a Roomba household robot, a product of the iRobot corporation, and something I've wanted to own for a long time. It costs about the same as a decent vacuum cleaner, so I thought -- what the hell.
I bought Robbie home on Friday and charged it (him?) overnight. Yesterday, I set Robbie loose in my carpeted bedroom, went out to do errands, came home and found the robot had shut itself off -- and the floor clean. Wow.
December 02, 2007
Ebooks Revisited
Nearly four years ago, after weeks of experimenting reading electronic books on my Palm handheld computer, I wrote a short essay here called "Hooked on Ebooks". I thought that the electronic book as displayed on a small handheld device was an idea whose time had come. I was wrong. Or rather, I was ahead of my time.
July 18, 2007
Want everyone to be able to read your emails?
That's what you get when you send an unencrypted email. It's like sending all your messages by postcard, without an envelope. Of course if you don't mind governments, employers, corporations, and ISPs reading your emails along the way, feel free. But, if you want to send me encrypted email, use the PGP public key below.
Continue reading "Want everyone to be able to read your emails?" »
June 08, 2007
Unions - If you want to help the Palestinians, don't boycott Israel
In the last several weeks, unions in a number of countries have been engaged in a wide-ranging and often acrimonious debate over the subject of boycotting Israel.
In Britain, both the National Union of Journalists and the University and College Union -- together representing some 155,000 journalists and university lecturers -- have called for a boycott of Israel. At its upcoming conference, the country's second largest union, the 1.4 million member Unison, is likely to do the same -- or else pass a somewhat watered-down version of the call. The unions and professional associations of architects and doctors are considering similar steps.
Continue reading "Unions - If you want to help the Palestinians, don't boycott Israel" »
December 11, 2006
Building support for Migrant Workers
I'm attending a conference today organized by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) here in London. There seems to be some kind of wireless Internet connection, so if I can, I will blog throughout the day as the conference goes along.
October 16, 2006
"Spooks" and the Jews: The BBC crosses a red line
The BBC has just aired a special two-part episode of the hit television series "Spooks" in which the villains -- a team of terrorists -- turn out to be agents of the Israeli government.
Continue reading ""Spooks" and the Jews: The BBC crosses a red line" »
May 19, 2006
From BibiWATCH to the Blogosphere
[Editor's note: Several issues of BibiWATCH are now available once again to read on this blog. Click here.]
Palestinian suicide bombers attack Tel-Aviv. The Israeli government blames Hamas. As support within Israel for any kind of peace deal with the Palestinians withers, pundits write that the Oslo process is dead.
It is June 1996 and Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu has just been elected Israel's Prime Minister.
May 03, 2006
Mozilla takes sides in 100 year old split in the Russian Social Democratic Party
More than 100 years after the Russian Social Democratic Party split into its Menshevik and Bolshevik wings, the open source web browser Mozilla has clearly taken sides. This screen shot taken from the Mozilla email client (Thunderbird) needs no further comment:
April 27, 2006
Against Zionism, neo-cons and US oil wars? This party's for you
I just found this on the website of a political party here in Britain. If you agree with it, perhaps you should consider joining:
We will also withdraw all British troops with immediate effect from Iraq. We will never again involve British troops in any more American 'wars for oil' or neo-con adventures on behalf of the Zionist government of Israel.
Care to guess where this came from? Make your guesses in the comments, below.
October 29, 2005
How Internet Radio Can Change the World
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If you haven't yet done so, please check out How Internet Radio Can Change the World -- my latest book, published in April 2005. Full details about the book, including how to purchase your copy securely online, are available here. |
August 28, 2005
Open Letter to George Galloway (2)
Dear Sir:
I was pleased to see that you vigorously condemned last week's terrorist attacks by jihadists in Bangladesh.
As I'm sure you know, today -- less than a week after Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip -- a terrorist attempted to blow up a bus in the Israeli city of Be'er Sheva. According to press reports from Israel, some 48 people have been injured, some seriously.
It is believed that the terrorist who undertook this attack was a member either of Hamas or Islamic Jihad -- both groups which are closely identified with the groups which carried out the attacks in Bangladesh (and London last month).
I was wondering when we could expect to see your condemnation of today's bombing?
Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
July 26, 2005
The war on terror has reached my back-yard
It is late afternoon in North London. Behind my house, maybe 50 meters away, is the North Circular Road. Here, in this part of London, it's a six-lane highway. We tell people that we can hardly hear the sound of the trucks and cars as they pass, 24 hours a day. But right now we hear something we've never heard before: absolute silence.
The North Circular Road in this part of London has been shut down for several kilometres, stretching from Muswell Hill in the east to Golders Green in the west, by police. They have done so following the discovery of a white car, parked at a housing development called Strawberry Vale, a fifteen minute walk from my home. The white car was apparently used by at least one of the men suspected of involvement in last week's attempted suicide bomb attacks in London.
Continue reading "The war on terror has reached my back-yard" »
July 17, 2005
7/7 - Provocation or genuine terror attack? The two views of George Galloway's Respect Coalition
Under British law, political parties are obligated to inform us of the names of their major donors. A visit to the website of the Electoral Commission reveals that nearly half of the money donated to George Galloway's Respect Party comes from one man, Dr Mohammed Naseem. Google searches quickly reveal that Dr Naseem, in addition to having been a Respect candidate for Parliament, is also a leading figure in the Islamic Party of Britain. And that party, whose website is largely dormant, did have some things to say about the recent terrorist bombings in London in a document posted yesterday (16 July).
That document, entitled "In Times of Terror the Truth takes a Tumble" makes the case that Islamic fundamentalists were not responsible for the terrorist bombings. The reasons given include:
* They could not have been Islamic fundamentalists because one of them was "married to a Hindu lady"
* The Israeli politician Netanyahu was warned not to leave his hotel before the general public was informed that there had been a bombing -- tipped off by the Mossad, which somehow knew what was really going on.
* Critical evidence, such as a CCTV camera on the number 30 bus, suspiciously disappeared from the scene.
* Finally, who benefits from the attacks? Why the Blair government, of course!
There is more, but here's a typical sentence:
"London needed a real terror attack in order to numb people sufficiently for the government to push through legislation that they had not been able to push through even before their electoral fiasco."
(By "their electoral fiasco" the author means Labour's unprecedented third straight election victory.)
These are the views of Dr Mohammed Naseem's organisation, the Islamic Party of Britain. They were written by the party's general secretary, Dr Sahib Mustaqim Bleher, a German-born convert to Islam.
Contrast this with what George Galloway told the House of Commons on the very day of the attacks:
"I condemn the act that was committed this morning. I have no need to speculate about its authorship. It is absolutely clear that Islamist extremists, inspired by the al-Qaeda world outlook, are responsible."
Dr Mohammed Naseem is a leading figure in the Respect Coalition. He is its single largest donor, providing nearly 50% of the funds reported to the Electoral Commission. He was a Respect candidate for Parliament in the general election. The organisation he leads, the Islamic Party of Britain, is today saying that the attacks were a provocation, staged by the police, the Blair government, or the Mossad -- or all of them together.
George Galloway -- do you stand by what you said in the House of Commons on 7 July, or do you share the views of your colleague Dr Naseem and his Islamic Party of Britain?
July 16, 2005
Unite against terror
I have added my name to this statement. I encourage all readers of this blog to do so as well.
July 12, 2005
A very short open letter to George Galloway, MP
Dear Sir:
Last week, following the attacks in London, you wrote:
"No one can condone acts of violence aimed at working people going about their daily lives. They have not been a party to, nor are they responsible for, the decisions of their government. They are entirely innocent and we condemn those who have killed or injured them."
Today a suicide bomber killed two women and injured 24 others in an attack on a shopping mall in Netanya, Israel.
Do you condemn the attack in Netanya today?
I look forward to receiving your reply, which I will publish on the web.
Eric Lee
July 08, 2005
Terror attacks on London
Thanks to all of you who wrote in asking if we were alright.
I don't want to add my own voice just yet to the many who have already written about this, but let me just refer you all to two excellent websites which contain many postings that are quite similar to the way I am feeling right now:
and
May 25, 2005
The AUT, the Israel Boycott and the Internet
A decade ago, maybe even five years ago, the story I'm about to tell could never have happened.
Continue reading "The AUT, the Israel Boycott and the Internet" »
February 14, 2005
Report on TUC Iraq Solidarity conference
Approximately 70 trade unionists from Britain and Iraq attended an all-day conference organized by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), held in its headquarters in London.
Continue reading "Report on TUC Iraq Solidarity conference" »
December 29, 2004
Tsunami
I encourage everyone reading this page to donate to one of the disaster relief funds now collecting to support the tsunami victims. Here in Britain, I recommend giving to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), a coalition of many aid groups including ActionAid, British Red Cross, Cafod, Care International, Christian Aid, Concern, Help the Aged, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision.
December 16, 2004
The browser wars redux: What one website's statistics are showing
LabourStart may not be a typical website. It caters to a large international audience working in some 15 languages. Its readers are trade unionists. This may not mean much, but in December 2004 (the first half of the month), Microsoft Internet Explorer is the browser used less than 63% of the time by our readers. The Mozilla/Netscape browsers get a combined 29%. In other words, for every two users of Internet Explorer, we have one Mozilla user.
This is considerably higher than what is being reported from such US-based services as Web Side Story (around 4% market share for Mozilla).
June 14, 2004
Two Funerals, Two Americas
Ronald Reagan and Victor Reuther were born only months apart in the years before the first world war. They both died last weekend in America, aged 92 and 93. One is being mourned by the rich and powerful, with a lavish state funeral planned. The other is being honored more quietly by ordinary working people. Their lives ran along strangely parallel lines, but in the end they came to represent two very different Americas.
February 24, 2004
Are teachers "terrorists"?
I had to read this story twice to be sure it wasn't a joke.
Yesterday, at a private meeting with U.S. governors in the White House, George Bush's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, called the National Education Association -- one of America's two national teachers' unions, with 2.7 million members -- a "terrorist organization".
January 30, 2004
Mydoom as a class issue
I don't know if anyone else is picking up on this, but computer viruses are increasingly becoming a class issue. An article in today's newspaper revealed that the author of the Mydoom virus which is now racing around the net deliberately chose to target home users rather than corporate, government or military users.
January 11, 2004
The labour website of the year: a brief history
In late 1997, I had an idea. Why not sponsor a "Labour Website of the Year" competition? My book on "The Labour Movement and the Internet: The New Internationalism" had come out a year earlier. There were already a number of union websites. I had a site of my own, at that time hosted by Canada's largest union, CUPE. It had been set up to accompany the book. LabourStart did not yet exist.
I put out the word, and to my astonishment, people began voting (by email). Seven sites received votes. The winner was the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). Now to be perfectly honest, not very many people voted. And seven is not a whole lot of sites. But it was a beginning.
Continue reading "The labour website of the year: a brief history" »
December 09, 2003
US occupation forces raid Iraqi union headquarters
This story can now be found here.
November 23, 2003
Searching for 'labour'
What happens when you search for the word 'labour' on the world's leading search engines? The results are as you'd expect from Google and all the rest -- with one amazing exception.
October 29, 2003
Defense in depth: A strategy to stop spam that actually works
Spam is killing off email and threatening the very future of the internet. Surveys are showing that current net users are switching off to get away from unsolicited commercial email. Millions more are reluctant to get online for fear of being deluged with offers of pornography, viagra, money scams and so on. As trade unionists and social change activists, this is a worrying development. Email is an enormously powerful and cheap tool for us, particularly for online campaigning, but spammers are making it increasingly difficult for us to get our message through. We need to educate our members and ourselves in order to win the battle against spam. If we don't win that battle, we lose all the gains of the last decade and return to a world where those with the money can get their messages heard -- and where we are effectively silenced.
The only problem is that there is no solution to spam. Let me re-phrase that: there is no solution, but there are solutions, to the problem of spam. For some time now, I have adopted a strategy of defense-in-depth.
Continue reading "Defense in depth: A strategy to stop spam that actually works" »
October 10, 2003
The problem with Internet Explorer
A few years ago, when some of us noticed that Microsoft had essentially taken over the Internet, we were worried. Among other worries, we feared that a near-complete monopoly by Microsoft would mean that technological innovation -- then proceeding at a brisk pace -- would come to a halt. Today, with Internet Explorer having a more than 90% share of the browser market, our fears have come true.
There have been several recent developments which should worry us.
September 30, 2003
Behind the times: IFWEA's website, once a pioneer, now lags
I'll be speaking on Friday at the congress of the International Federation of Workers Education Associations (IFWEA) -- which was the first international labour institution to have a website, back in 1994. Unfortunately, the website doesn't seem to have kept up with the times. The IFWEA website is still highlighting on its front page a section on its last conference, back in 2000 -- but there's nothing about this week's event.
September 22, 2003
Mozilla Thunderbird - free, open source email client
I've downloaded and begun using Mozilla Thunderbird today. Continue reading to find out what I think of it . . .
Continue reading "Mozilla Thunderbird - free, open source email client" »
September 15, 2003
Four new ways to contact me
Using Trillian Pro 2.0, an instant messaging (IM) client that allows me to connect to all the major networks, I am now once again online and can be reached on any of the following networks:
ICQ : 49624912
AIM: labourstart1
Yahoo: labourstart
MSN: ericlee@labourstart.org
Please feel free to add yourself to my contact list.
June 21, 2003
Email hell
Three unrelated problems in the course of 7 days -- proving that Murphy's Law is very real. (And apologies to everyone waiting to hear from me by email.)