So, as I understand it, the US supreme court has recently
1.removed women’s bodily autonomy
2.declared New York’s law restricting gun ownership to be unconstitutional
3.issued decisions that undermine the separation of church and state
4.removed the EPA’s ability to control pollution
as well as at least one justice stating that they should consider changing the laws on same sex relationships, and contraception and bringing back restrictions on the types of sexual acts permitted between consenting adults*.

All this is my preface to asking if you would like to take one of our British politicians off our hands, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who would also like to rewind society back to how it was a couple of hundred years ago, possibly because he likes the idea of us peasants bowing and scraping and tugging the forelock to him. If you want him you can have him. We’ll even deliver free of charge.

If you would like to "try before you buy" here is an article that you don't need to read. The picture of him hard at work during a Government debate probably tells you all you need to know. (I admit the article is extremely biased.)

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(*By odd coincidence I heard this last one right after watching a documentary about Alan Turing a man who was responsible for decrypting the German codes during the war, possibly shortening it be years and saving millions of lives who was subsequently chemically castrated and banned from Government work for the heinous crime of being gay.)

Here we thjought of Covid as being a deadly plague. It pales by comparison to our virulent politicians.

Re my comment in the other thread - the clickable text above is "here is an article that you don't need to read"

I prefer the "good news of a sort" re: Ukraine getting a nod for borshcht from UN. The only good news I've read lately out of US was: MA parents are kicking up a ruckus over too many school districts closing school bathrooms. And the only reason that was good news... I learned of it on a teachers' forum, where respondents immediately began relating stories of the wild and wooly things that happen in their schools' bathrooms, many of which were frankly hilarious.

As for the Extreme Court, I live for the day when 5 of them are tarred and feathered, and their enabler-in-chief run out of town on a rail. Rees-Mogg would fit right in to the political scene here; I doubt anyone would notice him.

The article about Rees-Mogg doesn't even mention one of the worst things - in my opinion - that he said.

You need a bit of background for it. A couple of years ago there was a terrible tower block fire in London where 72 people died. The tower block was council owned and occupied by low income families. The fire service advice for tower block fires is to remain in place because the lifts will not be working and the stairwells act as chimneys and quickly fill with smoke. The blocks are concrete construction and don't usually burn easily so fires spread slowly and are easy to put out. That fails to take into account that the building had had cheap aluminium cladding added to the outside so that it looked better to people who occupied richer nearby areas. The cladding used was flammable and quickly turned the block into an inferno with the whole exterior ablaze and fire then spreading almost immediately to the interior on every floor as the heat broke the windows. The more expensive safer cladding option had been rejected in the interests of profit.

There was a public inquiry,

Enter Rees-Mogg who I heard being interviewed. He stated on air that the people who died did so because of their own stupidity in following official advice and not fleeing down the stairwell. (I'd bet my life's savings that he has never set foot in a tower block.) When pressed he said that if advised to stay in his home he would ignore it and leave by a different exit, perhaps through the french windows into the garden. You can read about his home here and about the fire here. He is apparently entirely unaware that this type of tower block can only be exited by the lifts or stairwell and has precisely ONE possible escape route.

He was forced to apologise for his remarks after storms of protest but faced no other consequences. A very pleasant individual indeed.

(This was in 2017. The Government subsequently said that the many, many buildings with the same flammable cladding should be upgraded to the safer standard. To date this has not been done. It is described as "ongoing" - that is "ongoing" in the sense that no region has finished, only a few regions have started and most regions have done nothing at all yet.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,