*"If you know a woman, if you love a woman, if you ever plan on knowing or loving a woman, or if you are a woman — don't go to Malta."*

I think that is a slight exaggeration. It it surely safe for a man to go to Malta alone. It is surely safe for anyone who is not pregnant to visit to Malta for a short period of time. Nonetheless, the basic point is valid.

I am curious to know why Prudente could not take an ordinary commercial flight to Italy — or a ferry. Even if there was some risk in those options, they may have been safer than awaiting fate in Malta.

Abortion rights supporters have protested across the US. I wish I could get a pointer to where and how to find these protests, in a place that doesn't require running nonfree software to see the information. If anyone can find such a site — or create one by scraping — I would appreciate the ability to direct others to protests, and if I know of another in Boston I could go to it myself.

Robert Reich: *Why is the US about to give away $52bn to corporations like Intel?*

I have a different answer. Most US officials are so much under the thumb of business that, when businesses do certain things that hurt the country, the only solution they can propose is to pay businesses not to do those things. This leads to ever more levels of subsidy.

It used to be we had another kind of solution available: punish or tax businesses which did those things. But businesses lobby for the principle that every complaint about business conduct is an occasion for more subsidy.

Signatories have agreed to "update" the Energy Charter Treaty, a business-supremacy treaty that makes countries pay billions for the right to reduce fossil fuel activities. The change would reduce this effect, but not eliminate it until 2033. That is inadequate.

Spain urged the European Union to quit the Energy Charter Treaty.

The Republican Party is a group of dangerous extremists led by dangerous extremists, and they stir up violence and hate.

The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important. That article is one of the exceptions.