The Washington Post has an excellent article called The Power of Political Misinformation:

[John] Bullock [of Yale University] and others have also shown that some refutations can strengthen misinformation, especially among conservatives.

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration’s prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation — the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration’s claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

A similar “backfire effect” also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

This is a devastating result. Security and education in America are under severe threat if you believe this theory. Play the victim and facts do not matter.

The people calling themselves conservatives seem to have an amazing “hubris”. They not only stick to their guns in the face of science or even just details (like Lehman’s CEO who refused to believe his company was in trouble) but they actually become more convinced they are in the right when evidence starts to challenge them.

Prove to them the world is round and they might just try to burn you at the stake for discrediting their flatland leader.

Here is how Frantz Fannon described it in his book Black Skin, White Masks:

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, in his 1867 tome “Crime and Punishment”, also wrote that people fear most taking a new step. They require passive, reassuring, non-challenging words in order to move in a direction unfamiliar.

I remember when Americans used to argue this is an old-world perspective, anathema to the “can do” and “will do” frontiers-(wo)man.

Well, welcome to the anti-American old-world again.

This is not conservatism, incidentally. This seems to be the very opposite of what conservatism used to stand for and how it was thought. There was a time when conservatives in America demanded a strong foundation in learning from well-known scholars and history precisely to fearlessly navigate new ideas. Strangely, Rove and pals have been able to hijack the group and turn it into drones waiting for instruction (e.g. fascism).

In other words a vast group of Americans apparently are so unable to process information that they have become highly vulnerable to manipulation (social engineering, foreign influence) in a very, very bad way.

And that is probably exactly what Rove wants.

Sometimes I think the BBC tries to stir controversy with its Africa desk. This one certainly caught my eye:

Nsaba Buturo told journalists in Kampala that wearing a miniskirt was like walking naked in the streets.

“What’s wrong with a miniskirt? You can cause an accident because some of our people are weak mentally,” he said.

That is the Ugandan ethics and integrity minister explaining how to regulate safety.

I have a better idea. Anyone who causes an accident and blames it on simple distractions like the normal appearance of another person — the dress on a woman — should lose his/her license for a year.

A more radical idea would be to mandate everyone wear miniskirts so that drivers become more accustomed to them (e.g. “learn” so they aren’t “weak mentally”) and drive without distraction. Safety first… and bonus is you’ll find out why a miniskirt is not the problem.

One of Palin’s personal email accounts on Yahoo! was compromised.

It seems the attack was from someone motivated to demonstrate that she disregards the law and principles of good governance by blurring use of personal and official email accounts.

Was the administration trying to get around the public-records law through broad exemptions or private e-mail accounts?

Activists, still fighting to obtain hundreds of e-mails that were withheld from public-records requests earlier this year, say that’s what it looks like.

The governor’s Yahoo account is “the most nonsensical, inane thing I’ve ever heard of,” said Andree McLeod, who is appealing the administration’s decision to withhold e-mails.

Regardless of the attack motive, I am convinced this woman is a complete self-serving hypocrite who has no clue about security.

The Associated Press reports:

Hackers broke into the Yahoo! e-mail account that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used for official business as Alaska’s governor, revealing as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate.

I think we should all take a minute to examine Palin’s heartless policy that charged rape victims for investigation kits. In that context I hope the Secret Service and Yahoo! bill her personally for materials and time that they spend on investigations.

“This is a shocking invasion of the governor’s privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them,” the McCain campaign said in a statement.

I bet they hope all evidence is destroyed, especially state business records. It is more shocking that Palin has advocated use of personal email accounts for official business communication, making them a matter of public record, but now expects some kind of privacy for her accounts.

On the one hand she shows a flagrant disregard for the law and regulations, and then she has the nerve to accuse others of violating the law?

When it comes to rape it is the victim’s fault, right Sarah? Why did you let someone hack your account? Why did you make your account so attractive to them, and so easy to breach?

Palin’s hacker was challenged to guess where Alaska’s governor met her husband, Todd. Palin herself recounted in her speech at the Republican National Convention that the pair began dating two decades ago in high school in Wasilla, a town near Anchorage.

“I found out later though (sic) more research that they met at high school, so I did variations of that, high, high school, eventually hit on ‘Wasilla high’,” the person wrote.

Wow. She really does not understand security.

To use her own logic, taxpayers should not have to pay for her promiscuous use of email.

If she follows her own advice, she will spend her own dime on any investigation and cleaning up the accounts.

Disclaimer: I worked for Yahoo! security and these views are my own.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has posted a note called Governor Palin’s Reading List:

Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that “some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies.”

It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list.

I agree. Who else does she follow? From where does she gather her teachings and philosophy?

In a similar vein, Seth Colter Walls reports “Palestinian Attack In Israel Part of God’s Judgment, Said Recent Guest At Palin’s Church”. Would she also say that 9/11 was God’s Judgment on America, like Fred Phelps, the homophobic and arguably insane fundamentalist from Kansas? Even Phelps has some redeeming qualities, but he has become an embarrassment to his home state and America. His personal vendetta style of preaching sounds very familiar. Tell me again the basis of Troopergate — vendetta? Is this what her followers identify with?

She referenced Pegler as a source of inspiration, even though he was a racist and anti-semitic American who is best known for his advocacy of violence and his attacks on “Commies”. Wikipedia points out Pelger had “nostalgia for the Third Reich” and believed there were “advantages in such fascism”.

While Pegler claimed to be a populist whose mission was to warn the nation that dangerous leaders were in power, he was a man whose views were so radical that even the notorious John Birch Society kicked him out in 1964 for being too antisemitic.

Is this the type of man Palin looks up to and wants America to emulate and learn from? It seems the answer is yes, as explained in the NYT:

Palin’s use of a quote from “once powerful right-wing Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler” was intended to send a subtle but unmistakable signal to far right wing supporters.