Yoiks, more Hunter hysteria. Somebody left a dime bag of cocaine in the White House.

 

Above: DEA website showing a small amount of cocaine and DonkeyHotey caricature, modifed by author. 

Is this worth calling it Crackgate? Wait for Jim Jordan to open a House committee investigation.

By Hal Brown

Here's a story that should really have been a major hoo-hum once it turned out that the powder discovered in the White House wasn't some kind of deadly poison. As you can see by clicking here it is all over the news. Call it hunting Hunter hysteria. 

Of course Fox News had a story:

Those who want to turn hapless Hunter Biden into a demonic presidential progeny, a modern day version of Rosemary's Baby (you know who impregnanted Rosemary) will use this opportunity to suggest that the Oval Office is a dope den where Joe and Hunter snort lines of coke together. 

In fact, Hunter Biden's addction was to crack, not cocaine from which it is derived (read about diffrences here), and to alcohol, which isn't to say he never snorted cocaine. This is irrelevent to those who want to hype this story into yet another way to hound Hunter.

Trump jumped all over this:

Does anybody really believe that the COCAINE found in the West Wing of the White House, very close to the Oval Office, is for the use of anyone other than Hunter & Joe Biden. But watch, the Fake News Media will soon start saying that the amount found was “very small,” & it wasn’t really COCAINE, but rather common ground up Aspirin, & the story will vanish. Has Deranged Jack Smith, the crazy, Trump hating Special Prosecutor, been seen in the area of the COCAINE? He looks like a crackhead to me!

I assume the next all cap paranoid rant will accuse Jack Smith, Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden of snorting lines of coke on the Oval Office desk or, since he doesn't know a coke snorter from a crack smoker, that they're doing lines of blow chased by  smoking rock and maybe downing a few speedballs for good measure. Maybe Trump will claim they party down with their pal Cracky the Crackhead...

I don't know how Trump knows what a crackhead looks like or that the term means someone who is addicted to crack cocaine, not powder cocaine, which is usually smoked and not inhaled through the nose (Reference). Perhaps he thinks they all look like Cracky the Crackhead.

According to FanDom: "Cracky the Crackhead or Cracky, is a supporting character throughout the Howeiazy series which I 'd never heard of until now. Cracky usually goes around to people arbitrarily and tries to negotiate deals with them in exchange for compensation or drugs."

DeSantis attempted to respond with his version of humor: “A lot of us have believed the Biden administration has been blowing it on a lot of fronts … I guess it’s a little more literal than even I had thought.” I have to begrudgingly give credit to DeSantis if he was the one who decided to say Biden was "blowing it" using one of the slang words, blow, for cocaine.

Sensible people will conclude that the most likely explanation for this is that someone realized that they had the "dime bag" (see below) on their person and decided it was prudent to get rid of it. The next most likely explanation is that somebody planted it there to cause trouble.

Addendum:

Peruse the articles and you'll come across this in The Guardian:

Related from a year ago, also in The Guardian:

Cocaine, the yuppie drug? Not now, say experts – its lure is crossing all classes

As the pie chart from this website shows, far more people use cocaine than use crack.

Crack and cocaine are different (see website). Crack, like heroin and meth, are known as street drugs while cocaine is often considered a party drug and has a reputation of being used by celebrities and well known people (see list of 15 of them). 

 

Above: DEA website showing a small amount of cocaine and DonkeyHotey caricature, modifed by author. 

Is this worth calling it Crackgate? Wait for Jim Jordan to open a House committee investigation.

By Hal Brown

Here's a story that should really have been a major hoo-hum once it turned out that the powder discovered in the White House wasn't some kind of deadly poison. As you can see by clicking here it is all over the news. Call it Hunter hysteria. 

Of course Fox News had a story:

Those who want to turn hapless Hunter Biden into a demonic presidential progeny, a modern day version of Rosemary's Baby (you know who impregnanted Rosemary) will use this opportunity to suggest that the Oval Office is a dope den where Joe and Hunter snort lines of coke together. 

In fact, Hunter Biden's addction was to crack, not cocaine from which it is derived (read about diffrences here), and to alcohol, which isn't to say he never snorted cocaine. This is irrelevent to those who want to hype this story into yet another way to hound Hunter.

Trump jumped all over this:

Does anybody really believe that the COCAINE found in the West Wing of the White House, very close to the Oval Office, is for the use of anyone other than Hunter & Joe Biden. But watch, the Fake News Media will soon start saying that the amount found was “very small,” & it wasn’t really COCAINE, but rather common ground up Aspirin, & the story will vanish. Has Deranged Jack Smith, the crazy, Trump hating Special Prosecutor, been seen in the area of the COCAINE? He looks like a crackhead to me!

I assume the next all cap paranoid rant will accuse Jack Smith, Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden of snorting lines of coke on the Oval Office desk or, since he doesn't know a coke snorter from a crack smoker, that they're doing lines of blow chased by  smoking rock and maybe downing a few speedballs for good measure. Maybe Trump will claim they party down with their pal Cracky the Crackhead...

I don't know how Trump knows what a crackhead looks like or that the term means someone who is addicted to crack cocaine, not powder cocaine, which is usually smoked and not inhaled through the nose (Reference). Perhaps he thinks they all look like Cracky the Crackhead.

According to FanDom: "Cracky the Crackhead or Cracky, is a supporting character throughout the Howeiazy series which I 'd never heard of until now. Cracky usually goes around to people arbitrarily and tries to negotiate deals with them in exchange for compensation or drugs."

DeSantis attempted to respond with his version of humor: “A lot of us have believed the Biden administration has been blowing it on a lot of fronts … I guess it’s a little more literal than even I had thought.” I have to begrudgingly give credit to DeSantis if he was the one who decided to say Biden was "blowing it" using one of the slang words, blow, for cocaine.

Sensible people will conclude that the most likely explanation for this is that someone realized that they had the "dime bag" (see below) on their person and decided it was prudent to get rid of it. The next most likely explanation is that somebody planted it there to cause trouble.

Addendum:

Peruse the articles and you'll come across this in The Guardian:

Related from a year ago, also in The Guardian:

Cocaine, the yuppie drug? Not now, say experts – its lure is crossing all classes

As the pie chart from this website shows, far more people use cocaine than use crack.

Crack and cocaine are different (see website). Crack, like heroin and meth, are known as street drugs while cocaine is often considered a party drug and has a reputation of being used by celebrities and well known people (see list of 15 of them). 

 

Above: DEA website showing a small amount of cocaine and DonkeyHotey caricature, modifed by author. 

Is this worth calling it Crackgate? Wait for Jim Jordan to open a House committee investigation.

By Hal Brown

Introduction: Substance abuse is a major problem in the United States and treatment programs are sorely both underfunded and unavailable for those who need them the most. Rather than being exoriated or mocked for his previous addiction Hunter Biden 's story should be a cautionary tale. His addiction to both alcohol and crack made it even more diffoicult to overcome. Anyone who finds they have to rely on non-prescribed drugs or alcohol to get through the day should seek help.

Here's a story that should really have been a major hoo-hum once it turned out that the powder discovered in the White House wasn't some kind of deadly poison. As you can see by clicking here it is all over the news. Call it Hunter hysteria. 

Of course Fox News had a story:

Those who want to turn hapless Hunter Biden into a demonic presidential progeny, a modern day version of Rosemary's Baby (you know who impregnanted Rosemary) will use this opportunity to suggest that the Oval Office is a dope den where Joe and Hunter snort lines of coke together. 

In fact, Hunter Biden's addction was to crack, not cocaine from which it is derived (read about diffrences here), and to alcohol, which isn't to say he never snorted cocaine. This is irrelevent to those who want to hype this story into yet another way to hound Hunter.

Trump jumped all over this:

Does anybody really believe that the COCAINE found in the West Wing of the White House, very close to the Oval Office, is for the use of anyone other than Hunter & Joe Biden. But watch, the Fake News Media will soon start saying that the amount found was “very small,” & it wasn’t really COCAINE, but rather common ground up Aspirin, & the story will vanish. Has Deranged Jack Smith, the crazy, Trump hating Special Prosecutor, been seen in the area of the COCAINE? He looks like a crackhead to me!

I assume the next all cap paranoid rant will accuse Jack Smith, Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden of snorting lines of coke on the Oval Office desk or, since he doesn't know a coke snorter from a crack smoker, that they're doing lines of blow chased by  smoking rock and maybe downing a few speedballs for good measure. Maybe Trump will claim they party down with their pal Cracky the Crackhead...

I don't know how Trump knows what a crackhead looks like or that the term means someone who is addicted to crack cocaine, not powder cocaine, which is usually smoked and not inhaled through the nose (Reference). Perhaps he thinks they all look like Cracky the Crackhead.

According to FanDom: "Cracky the Crackhead or Cracky, is a supporting character throughout the Howeiazy series which I 'd never heard of until now. Cracky usually goes around to people arbitrarily and tries to negotiate deals with them in exchange for compensation or drugs."

DeSantis attempted to respond with his version of humor: “A lot of us have believed the Biden administration has been blowing it on a lot of fronts … I guess it’s a little more literal than even I had thought.” I have to begrudgingly give credit to DeSantis if he was the one who decided to say Biden was "blowing it" using one of the slang words, blow, for cocaine.

Sensible people will conclude that the most likely explanation for this is that someone realized that they had the "dime bag" (see below) on their person and decided it was prudent to get rid of it. The next most likely explanation is that somebody planted it there to cause trouble.

Addendum:

Peruse the articles and you'll come across this in The Guardian:

Related from a year ago, also in The Guardian:

Cocaine, the yuppie drug? Not now, say experts – its lure is crossing all classes

As the pie chart from this website shows, far more people use cocaine than use crack.

Crack and cocaine are different (see website). Crack, like heroin and meth, are known as street drugs while cocaine is often considered a party drug and has a reputation of being used by celebrities and well known people (see list of 15 of them). 

Was it an awakening? Did the RNC mean to honor Liberia's being founded by Black slaves on our Indepndence Day? In your dreams!

 

 Unlikely as it is, could someone at the RNC had an awakening from being comatose after a brain injury caused by being slammed in the head by a MAGA mallet and, like a patient of Oliver Sacks, come to differentiate MAGA unreality from actual reality, and wanted to honor the slaves and descendants of slaves who founded Liberia?

By Hal Brown

This apparent sloppy error by the RNC made the news yesterday. For example as explained in a HUFFPOST article:

RNC Accidentally Celebrates Wrong Flag In Awkward Fourth Of July Message.

The Republican National Committee’s initial attempt to celebrate Independence Day bombed on Twitter when critics noticed that the party used the wrong flag.

Several other places ― including the San Francisco district attorney and the Austin Police Department ― used the same set of incorrect flags in their Independence Day messages.

Oh ye of little faith, maybe this wasn't a mistake at all. Perhaps it was a shout-out on the day we celebrate our independence to the Black former slaves from the United States and Caribbean who founded Liberia.

Dare I say that many American couldn't locate Liberia on a map of Africa and there's a good chunk of MAGA's who don't even know it's an African country.

It's even less likely very many Americans, but especially those in states where students aren't taught about the history of slavery here (part of the anti-woke bogeyman of  letting students learn about critical race theory or CRT), even know the following (from Wikipedia):

Liberia began in the early 19th century as a project of the American Colonization Society (ACS), which believed black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States.^[7] Between 1822 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, more than 15,000 freed and free-born African Americans, along with 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to Liberia.^[8] Gradually developing an Americo-Liberian identity,^[9][10] the settlers carried their culture and tradition with them. Liberia declared independence on July 26, 1847, which the U.S. did not recognize until February 5, 1862.

Liberia was the first African republic to proclaim its independence and is Africa's first and oldest modern republic. Along with Ethiopia, it was one of the two African countries to maintain its sovereignty during the Scramble for Africa. During World War II, Liberia supported the United States war effort against Germany, and in turn received considerable American investment in infrastructure, which aided the country's wealth and development. President William Tubman encouraged economic and political changes that heightened the country's prosperity and international profile; Liberia was a founding member of the League of Nations, United Nations, and the Organisation of African Unity.

How many non-Liberian Americans will be aware of, let alone pause to remember, the Liberian Independence Day on July 26th? There's a version of their national anthem on this website:

Too many Americans refuse to recognize that there are citizens of other countries who observe with reverence the formation of their country.

Here's another version of the inspiring national anthem with visuals:

Could someone at the Republican National Committee have had an awakening from their anti-woke catatonic stupor worthy of a chapter in the often republished non-fiction book "Awakenings" by the late brilliant neurologist Oliver Sacks? (The book was also made into a movie staring Robert DeNiro and playing a character based on Dr. Sacks. Robin Williams.)

Sack's describes his experience as a doctor working with patients who were rendered catatonic form a disease by administering a drug (L-DOPA) which brought them back for a sadly brief period of time to reality.

It turns out that a reminder about Liberia being founded by American and Caribbean slaves and their offspring would be quite appropriate for all Americans to be made aware of on their celebration of their own quest for independence and a new life.

While our country has much to be proud of, part of our history includes both the enslavement of a major group of human beings and the attempt, with Native Americans, to eradicate another, not even to mention the treatment both by government policy and popular practice to treat large segments of our population as second class citizens or worse.

It is not merely possible, but worthy of praise, for citizens of any country to not just be proud of its history where pride is justified, but just as proud that they aren't afraid to admit to their ethical and moral failings.

The anti-woke mob wants to - and this is a fitting way to put it - whitewash our history and paint over aspects of our history that were and still are, to put it bluntly, evil. By promoting and propagandizing this way of distorted thinking, essentially lies, they can numb people into a kind of catatonia when it comes to seeing the evil MAGA leaders and many of their followers are still engaging in.

Related, yesterday's blog: Is common sense on its deathbed in the United States?

Addendum: Comment from Ben Kalom:

Highly intelligent people?

Assuming a couple of things here...

Standardizing testing, like Sanford Binet, Myers-Briggs or any other IQ or EQ assessment tool. The instrument needs to be subtle yet clear, sensitive yet not overly so.

What's intelligence, really?

What is it, I'm curious.

I really am.

Is intelligence a blend of necessity, opportunity, conditions, environment, available resources, survival skills, observation, trial-and-error, learning from mistakes, risk-taking, material success, and perhaps, longevity?

Or, is intelligence as we currently define it...

He or she who has the biggest pot o gold is smart?

Money makes people incredibly stupid. It is another addictive commodity, another compulsion, another thing that takes people who might be otherwise more situationally aware and responsive to changes about them, and makes them incapable of seeing anything else, pursuing only one thing, creating a perfect mouse trap if you will in which chasing the cheese assures you get caught at the end of the maze.

Elon Musk is fully capable of thinking and feeling and responding to the shifting tides. He's no genius any more. Maybe once, but not any more. Intelligence is transient. We only keep it for so long. We must set it aside, adapt, move on, change our own way of thinking, learn what is required of us, become aware of our own physical and psychological limitations.

Perhaps, intelligence is the ability to keep one's big mouth shut, rather than opening it and removing all doubt.
Scott Kirby of United Airlines is regarded as "highly intelligent."
But he got sucked in by a reporter, who quoted him stating that the impending pilot contract "will add 8 billion dollars in costs"

Again, not terribly intelligent, because he opened his mouth, removed all doubt, and got the spotlight shining on him. So much so that when he needed to use private transportation to get to a critical meeting, it was noted that he wasn't traveling on his own airline. He had to write a long-winded apology to his employees. Not intelligent at all.

Intelligence is volatile. Sometimes, it exists in a person or a group for only an instant. Once that instant passes, so does the overall brilliance.
Intelligence is fickle. No one knows why natural law chose a not very good student, a clerk by employment, to bring us the moment of general and specific relativity (E=mc2). Einstein was no "Einstein." He was doggedly persistent, and he was able to see situations around him changing and deteriorating. He was also pretty good at math, and also pretty capable of socialization.

We cannot standardize intelligence.

We can only expose ourselves to it, draw from its well of souls, pore over its relics from the past, research through literature for proof of success, or record of failure.

Intelligence -

How smart was it to keep sending a DSV to a level that repeatedly overstressed materials, welds, fabrication, the very shape of the thing, the onboard electrical systems that powered it, and only now, in retrospect, we conduct an accident investigation that shows the designers suggested alternatives but were met with "intelligence" that killed an audience, so careless with their wealth that they went on a tour of an ocean gravesite?

So again, as an end to my comment, I'll ask in Diogenes of Sinope's mode, as I carry a lantern through the streets of America, "Where is an intelligent man?"

I suggest, in the right time, in the right place, at the right moment, one appears, but vanishes, just as the shadows vanish with the approach of illumination.

We all have moments of brilliance.
Then, we need to recede into the shadows of ordinariness, and stop drawing attention to ourselves.

You won't find brilliance when you keep shining a light into the places where it might be found. At best, all you get is reflection of your own self-powered brightness.

Best to sit in the dark - -and watch for those distant glints that inspire you, and realize, maybe, just maybe, those are nothing but fireflies.
And like all things that move about of their own free will, those moments of brightness cannot be bottled up, sold off, and profited from.

All that does, is make you into either an addict, or a pusher.

Peace, all...

Is common sense on its deathbed in the United States?

 

Top: Poster in Mulder and Scully's
X-Files office, bottom, illustration
from Wikipedia entry for wishful thinking
showing a little boy imagining his cart
is being pulled by a real horse.

By Hal Brown

Forget about lamenting the lack of sophisticated critical thinking ability among a large part of the population. Expecting this for more than half the population is too much because it requires a combination of above average intelligence (half the people have below average IQ's) and both the desire and ability to make the effort to analyze all the elements required to differentiate fact from fiction.

To have common sense only requires that a person follows a few simple rules when reaching conclusions. An important one, perhaps the most important, is to want to know the truth. This involves having an open mind and being will to admit that there's a chance that what you believe may not be the whole truth. 

It also means that you understand that what you want to believe may not be true. Ideally the average person should be able to understand the power of wishful thinking even if they have no grasp of the concept of confirmation bias, i.e., searching for, interpreting, favoring and recalling information in a way that confirms or supports one's beliefs or values.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines wishful thinking in three ways: 

1. Thinking in which what one wishes were the case is believed to be real or likely to become real.
2. The illusion that what one would like is actually true.
3. Decision-making based on self-delusion.

Note that the first is a way of thinking, the second is having an illusion, and the third is making decisions based on delusions. The latter is indicative of or at least suggestive of someone having a psychiatric disorder. 

It is frightening that what we are observing in the country today is that a large number of people, from GOP politicians to ordinary people, are making decisions based on things that they wish were true because they support their beliefs but are outright lies. Some are comparatively benign like that Biden stole the election from Trump. Others are can lead to violence, for example that members of the LGBTQ community are dangerous pedophiles.

We have members of Congress spouting QAnon conspiracy nonsense which can lead to mentally ill people committing violent acts.

It's one thing to vote for someone because you believe an exaggeration like this:

It is entirely different to vote for someone because you believe they will save you from someone who is out to destroy your country. 

There is a sobering irony in all of this. This is that the leading Republican candidates for president are all intent on turning the country in an authoritarian direction which disenfranchises minority groups or worse. You don't need to be a critical thinker to reach this conclusion. This is common sense.

The incontrovertible fact is that the two most likely Republican candidates not only spout lies but base their campaigns on them. We can only speculate whether they believe their lies or not. If they do they are delusional. If not they are counting on the lack of common sense among people they hope will vote for them.

Addendum:

In a subscriber only newsletter Paul Krugman in The NY Times writes (in the context of an article about the economy titled Biden and the bad news bros)

...that technology billionaires are especially susceptible to the belief that they’re uniquely brilliant, able to instantly master any subject, from Covid to the war in Ukraine. They could afford to hire experts to brief them on world affairs, but that would only work if they were willing to listen when the experts told them things they didn’t want to hear. So what happens instead, all too often, is that they go down the rabbit hole: Their belief in their own genius makes them highly gullible, easy marks for grifters claiming that the experts are all wrong.

To me this demonstrates that even highly intelligent people can lack common sense.

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