A Contrario

ACTIVISTS ARE outraged after administrators at the University California (UC) Irvine announced plans to suspend the Muslim Student Union (MSU) for a whole year starting in September because students protested Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren.

The Law School and Political Science Department cosponsored an event February 8 in which Oren spoke on the recent findings of the UN Human Rights Commission's fact-finding mission to Gaza. Oren maintains that the Israeli Defense Forces' 2008/2009 invasion of Gaza was justified and the IDF acted appropriately in all its operations.

This story first appeared in the 20 May 2010 edition of Socialist Worker and the 21 May 2010 edition of The Palestine Chronicle.

By Brian Napoletano – Paris

The governments of the 31 member states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) all agreed on May 10 that Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, its institutionalized discrimination against non-Jewish citizens, and its multiple alleged war crimes will not disqualify the state from joining the ranks of the world's strongest economic powers.

I was not particularly distraught when I learned that US Senator Evan Bayh, a Democrat from Indiana, will not be seeking a third term in the upcoming elections. What most pundits call his "bipartisanship" is largely a product of the cynical view of government spending that he shares with most Republicans, whereby the investment of public funds in helpful social programs like Medicare and welfare is frowned upon, but wasteful military spending and large subsidies to private corporations is applauded. During his tenure in the Senate, Bayh has backed some of the Republicans' worst initiatives and has repeatedly blocked or undermined efforts to implement genuinely beneficial initiatives that the public supports, such as a single-payer health plan and many of the useful features of Obama's economic stimulus plan. That said, the exception that Bayh has taken with the Supreme Court's idiotic ruling on 21 January 2010 is, however, a sentiment I share with the Senator, and his recent initiative to introduce some minor reforms to the nightmare that political campaigns have become is a step in the right direction.

This story first appeared in the 19 April 2010 edition of Socialist Worker.

A FEDERAL court declared unanimously April 6 that media corporations--and not the public--can dictate who uses the Internet and what they use it for.

Unless the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decides to reclassify the broadband Internet access industry from an "information service" to a "telecommunications service," the court's 3-0 ruling could block the government agency from preventing Internet service providers (ISPs) from barring access to certain Web sites or Internet services.

This story first appeared in the 12 April 2010 issue of Socialist Worker.

GRADUATE STUDENT employees at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) won a new contract following a threat by the 1,400-member union to go on strike if its demands, particularly around tuition waivers and differentials, weren’t met by university officials.

The tentative agreement was hammered out during a 13-hour marathon bargaining session that began as supporters of the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) at UIC rallied on campus on April 5.The union was able to gain stronger language securing tuition waivers for graduate employees, an increase in the minimum stipend for the next two years, and more money from the university for health insurance.

Five months have passed since Justice Richard Goldstone et al. submitted their report on the UN fact-finding mission's investigation into the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip. Shortly after it was submitted, the Obama administration claimed that the report was "deeply flawed" and unduly critical of Israel, and the US ambassador to the UN voted against the Resolution in the United Nations General Assembly. Despite the serious nature of these allegations, the Obama administration has not offered any objective evidence or analysis to substantiate them.

Sadly, everyone's favorite search engine and web application provider, Google, has decided to discontinue development of its Notebook utility. I discovered this when I finally decided to upgrade my Inspiron from Ubuntu's Jaunty Jackalope to Karmic Koala 1, and found that no Notebook extension exists for Firefox 3.5. While the developers at Google don't offer any explanation as to why they decided to discontinue development, the advice they offer seems to suggest that they consider much of its functionality redundant with other services that they offer. Once I learned that Notebook would be retired, I began researching the alternatives discussed below.

1. 1. Despite my faith in the Ubuntu development team, the issues I encountered when going from Hardy to Intrepid have turned me into something of a late adopter when it comes to the latest releases. Much of this hesitation stems from the knowledge that my computer has reached the technological equivalent to middle age.