British propaganda agents in Indonesia helped bring about the 1965-1966 massacre in which the army and its supporters murdered 500,000 or more Communists and people thought to support them.

The US government wants to develop telemetry to monitor stress and stress effects, in agents that have high-stress jobs.

I don't see anything wrong about this proposed use of the technology, but I have a hunch that if this system works, the government will also try to use it as a 24/7 lie detector (whether it is reliable or not). Private businesses will impose it on their staff too.

Over a thousand US women have been prosecuted for having miscarriages, or for taking drugs (even prescribed by doctors) while pregnant.

Merck wants to charge Americans $700 for a drug that costs $18 to produce.

That is a ratio of around 39.

The fact that the US government paid for the development of this drug adds a second kind of unfairness to the issue, but we should not hammer too much on that, lest people suppose it is OK to gouge on a life-saving drug in countries that didn't fund its development.

The US should do what more advanced countries have done: set up a national medical system, fund it well, and empower it to negotiate the price per dose.

Novelist Sally Rooney expressed support for Palestine by refusing to allow a Hebrew translation of her latest book, and is being criticized with distortions.

As I recall, the BDS movement calls for a boycott of Israeli institutions, particularly those that support or take advantage of the occupation of Palestine — not individual Israelis. So I don't think it suggests refusing to publish in Hebrew.

However, implicit in publishing a Hebrew translation of her book would be to license that to an Israeli publishing company. The movement would ask people not to do that.

I myself don't support the Palestinian BDS movement. What I do support is the boycott, started by Gush Shalom, of products made in Israel's colonies in Palestinian territory.