An uncharacteristic run of successes

A run of easy Guardian cryptics this week. I know because I've been able to complete them.

However I struggled with the apparently trivial "Rise in metal cost is radical (7)" in today's Chifonie on the basis that the term radical, as any fule (or at least, any fule with a chemistry degree) kno, generally refers to something with non-zero spin rather than a simple molecular anion...

Humpy-Dumptying of the lowest sort

A funny and also rather worrying Guardian CiF piece by Megan Carpentier on Arizona's bizarre plans to reclassify the date of conception in order to further limit the availability of abortions:

[w]e're told, we'll soon be legally considered pregnant in the state of Arizona as of the date of our last period, which, as that silly godless "science" tells us, is usually about two weeks before we ovulate... But a legal mandate forcing them to even when other diagnostic tools are more available or appropriate is simply a way to reduce their scientific and professional discretion for the purpose of limiting abortions in ways unimagined by the standards of Roe v Wade and in a manner that is not based on the way women's supposedly unknowable reproductive tracts work.

It makes you glad we don't go in for these sort of stupid, political shenanigans about abortion in the UK. Oh, wait, yes we do...