Neanderthalic right-wingers grunt indecorously on both sides of the Atlantic

     We're living through a period in which so-called "conservative" pols have abandoned reason in favor of the prejudices and “common sense” of their benighted and debased “base” (and of a certain peppy, gun-wielding Alaskan).
     Is this sort of thing occurring only in the U.S.A.?
     Nope. The British are experiencing the same dang thing. In this morning’s Guardian, Martin Robbins reports that Britain’s Conservatives have put “Dumb and Dumber”—namely, Nadine Dorries and David Tredinnick—on the House of Commons' Health Select Committee.

     Dorries appears to be about as goofy as, say, our own Michele Bachmann:

Over the years, Dorries has issued a number of ill-founded claims about abortion. They include the ”hand of hope” story [a fantasy about a fetus grabbing a surgeon’s finger] that she helped to propagate across the web; the incorrect assertion that the NHS didn't carry out abortions after 16 weeks; the claim that charity Marie Stopes International supported her policy views; an attempt to dismiss scientific studies that disagreed with her view as "an "insult to the intelligence of the public"; and some rather dubious interpretations of opinion polls that led a frustrated Dawn Primarolo to exclaim that "The Honorable Lady has asserted many things to be facts that are not."

     And Mr. Tredinnick? He’s wackier than our own James Inhofe, Republican senator from where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain:

     [Tredinnick] explained: "There are [phenomena] such as plant cycles, the tides, that are linked to the moon. That's a fact of life, and there is a school of thought that says the moon affects other things as well. It's easy to make fun of me over this but the fact is there is a link."
     Indeed, Tredinnick's views go further. In a Commons debate on Complementary and Alternative Medicine last year he made the extraordinary claim that "... at certain phases of the moon there are more accidents. Surgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective." One wonders if Tredinnick wraps himself in wool and plaster at every full moon, lest a stray paper cut cause his blood to drain completely from his body.
     Tredinnick is also a passionate advocate of homeopathy, and has filed a string of Early Day Motions in an effort to raise support for magical homeopathic remedies in parliament. EDMs are listed with their signatories on the internet, providing a handy guide to the identity of the more credulous and ill-informed MPs.

     Like right-wingers on this side of the pond, Britain’s conservatives aren’t high on fidelity neither. Robbins ends with: “…[Q]uestions should be asked about why a party that rejected alternative medicine before the election, and promised an evidence-based approach to public health has managed to place two such clearly unqualified people on this important Commons committee.”