Psychopolitik 2.0

Some issues seem to suck the brains out of people.  For example, a Jane Galt post on immigration prompted the following from commenter “john w“:

Specifically addressing immigration from Mexico, there is one issue that nobody has mentioned yet; and yet this ought to be of especial concern to those of us with Libertarian leanings >>>

Q: Why do so many Mexicans want to leave Mexico? A: Because Mexico is a poor country.

Q: Why is Mexico a poor country? A: Because they have a corrupt, authoritarian, dysfunctional government.

Q: Why does Mexico have such a bad government? A: Well, maybe there is something in Mexican culture that encourages this, or at least tolerates it.

Q: Why are we so sure that those millions of un-assimilated immigrants are not going to eventually bring that tolerance for dysfunctional government with them, and to eventually drag the US government down to the level of the Mexican government? (emphasis mine)

A) Because this same type of charge has been thrown at virtually every new wave of immigrants and been proven wrong each time (heard any complaints about Italians lately?).
As for the bit about Mexican culture supposedly uniquely encouraging outright kleptocracy: by that logic any american ex-pats that move abroad should be deported.  After all, we might spread cooties xenophobia, corporatism, and tolerance of weak beer.

Went to the grocery store earlier.  One of the things I got was a container of powdered drink mix — raspberry iced tea flavor, to be specific.  Get it home, put it in the cabinet, and what do I spot on the label?

“zero grams trans-fat!”

How nice of them.  Y’know when that would be necessary information to tell me?  If rather than iced tea, I were getting something like, oh, I dunno, a bag of pork rinds.  Since when did tea have a fat content?!?

Remember those “signing statements” Bush made? Well, the Washington Post today has an article about them where they could’ve got away with just posting the headline and nothing more: “Signing Statements” Study Finds Administration Has Ignored Laws”.

Next thing you know, they’ll do a story on how much elephant dung stinks…

Greenwald, a few days ago: “the right-wing has an unhealthy obsession with the concept of manliness”

Some wingnut I haven’t heard of: “…FAGGOT!!  You’re a FAGGOT!!  Did I mention you’re a faggot, faggy fag fag?”

Reynolds: “um…co-sign?  Yeah, that’s what I’ll do, I will co-sign that, because I approve of the concept Greenwald criticized, even though I’m allegedly all tolerant an’ stuff”.

Sullivan: “WTF?”

Yup, that’s how they think, folks.  An analysis and critique of the type of stuff floating around in politics that psychologists would be concerned about in an individual person gets re-read as “Hah!  I, a gay man, will accuse you of being gay to piss you off, even though I obviously don’t see anything wrong with being gay so it’d be a completely nonsensical insult!  Why?  Because it’s funny to me!”

I wonder… ya think since the occupation of Iraq started there’s been an increase in people trying to get out of the military by deliberately claiming to be gay?

In an article on right-wing bloggers just now turning on Bush, spotted a comment I found amusing:

Many bloggers said they are disappointed the president has pushed so hard for the immigration bill while letting the war and other issues conservatives care about fall by the wayside.

“The White House will go out and zealously promote Harriet Miers [the former White House counsel who Bush unsuccessfully nominated for the Supreme Court], defend [Attorney General] Alberto Gonzales, promote this bill, but will not take a firm stand on the war,” said [managing editor of RedState.com Eric] Erickson. “I know people who are boiling with rage that the president has been beating up his own side over this bill but won’t take the bully pulpit to beat up Democrats over the war.” (emphasis mine)

Ah, yes, “the war”, specifically the one that a majority of the population thinks was a dumb idea & wants to end soon.  Eric’s two cents on this utter disaster, which when it’s all said and done may rank up there with Napoleon trying to invade Russia, is “Bush wasn’t on-message enough!”  Sure, even more “disagreement = treason” talk would do the trick, yeah, right…

If I wanted to hear a completely unreasonable opinion on something, I’d ask a 4-year-old about the merits of eating crayons.

Topic line spotted on CNN a few minutes ago: “Higher gas prices prompt inflation”

My first thought: “If only that line meant that their graphics people were dyslexic, and not that the mainstream media knows fuck all about economics…”

Billions of dollars wasted, scores of lives extinguished or damaged, and countless liberties lost, thanks to the “war on drugs”.  What’s the result?   Narcotics are actually getting cheaper and easier to get, especially yayo:

Thirty-six years after President Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” cocaine remains thoroughly in demand and it’s as cheap and trendy as ever.

“Coke’s a social thing, and I always pair it with alcohol,” said a 25-year-old Los Angeles woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, to ABC News.

Gives new meaning to “Rum & Coke”, don’t it?

Seriously though, take a moment and think about how you probably picture this woman in your head.  Disheveled, probably unemployed except for as a hooker or something, looks like she’d be on Jerry Springer?  Well…not quite:

With a master’s degree and a career in media, she may not be many people’s mental image of a regular hard drug user, but the woman interviewed fits that description and admitted that she did cocaine every night she went out.

And she’s not alone. The availability of inexpensive cocaine at nightclubs, bars and house parties is an increasing issue, according to drug rehabilitation experts. (emphasis mine)

Somewhere, a rabid drug warrior is having a brain aneurysm right now.  This doesn’t fit their black & white view of drug use, as if the slightest touch turns people into amoral zombies.  “What?!?  Moderation in drug use?!?  A cocaine user with a Master’s degree?!?  That’s unpossible!!”  Yes, it is possible, people do the same thing every day with other, legal mind-altering substances like liquor, caffeine, and chocolate.

So, how cheap is cocaine now?

According to figures from The Atlantic magazine, cocaine prices per pure gram fell from $600 in the early 1980s to less than $200 by the mid-1990s. Today, a gram of cocaine is sold for between $20 and $25 in New York. In Los Angeles and Seattle, it can be bought for as little as $30, while in Dallas it ranges from between $50 and $80.

To put that in perspective, consider that it costs $66 to fill up a Hummer — and that’s for the H3 model, the bigger ones would be even more.  How long until someone develops a vehicle that can run on nose candy?

Shorter FBI: “Predicting terrorist attacks before they happen is easy, all you have to do is let us track millions of people for no reason. Honest!”:

In theory, predictive analysis involves mapping a known pattern of terrorist behavior — for instance, the sequence and timing of such mundane activities as bank transactions and travel purchases — against a massive collection of such records like the NSAC databases. If an individual’s actions match the pattern, they can be considered a suspect, even if they have no known ties to any suspected terrorists or known terrorist groups.

Such a method would help identify “sleeper cells,” the FBI claims in its request — secret groups of terrorists living innocuously within the United States, waiting for a signal from a terrorist group leader to assemble and strike.

This reminds me of that old bank rule that had transactions over a certain amount reported to the feds, ostensibly to go after the drug trade. Different excuse, same outcome: privacy goes bye-bye thanks to wild goose chases.

Besides, who says that if there are “sleeper cells” they wouldn’t deliberately change their routines? If they’ve gone this long without being detected, I’d think they’d plan for something like this. More than likely, in a half-assed attempt at rectifying that oversight the feds would start profiling — “Person X & Person Y both did blahblahblah, but Person Y donated to some mosque, GET HIM!!”.

But to date the approach has not proven workable. So far, terrorism researchers “cannot readily distinguish the absolute scale of normal behaviors” for terrorists or ordinary Americans, conceded a 2006 document from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and obtained by National Journal magazine. In other words, no one can figure out how terrorists act differently from normal Americans.

“We had no idea how on God’s earth you would characterize and capture normal behavior,” a former researcher for the ill-fated Total Information Awareness (TIA) program told the magazine last October. (emphasis mine)

Ok, if this program is too much even for someone associated with TIA…

Props.

Whoever came up with the workplace psych evaluations companies are using for online job applications would be hung upside down with acid dripped on their feet at regular intervals until it ate through all the way up their leg.

Don’t ask…