In solidarity with Yakutsk

It's cold. The coldest it's been here in North Carolina(the shallow south) since the 70s, there's freeze warnings in Florida, and the mid-atlantic has seen some negative temperatures. That's not interesting really, but what it does to people and institutions is.

Extreme weather of any sort is distracting and mind erasing. Lewis black put it better, at about 1 minute in:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zpgai0n0cI

"FUCK IT'S COLD!" indeed. Now you're probably raising your hand to say "Well, this would feel warm to someone in Russia!". Of course. In a place where



this fucking monster racoon thing, and



this baby apex predator(yes, that's just a cub), and



some kind of a roided-out horse call home, the standards of "extreme" cold, or "extreme" anything, for that matter, are a little different.

For example. Take a good long look at this:



As an American, this probably helped you ring in the new year, gave you a few cute anecdotes the day after, and helped you Fingerbang Suzy Creamcheese for the first time several years ago. For a russian, this is the only way to get piece of mind when the day will get as warm as NEGATIVE THIRTY-THREE DEGREES FAHREN FUCKING HEIT.

Drinking increases the feeling of warmth. Now I know you think you're a genius for responding with "it doesn't actually make you warmer!"... while this is completely true, it really doesn't matter to a person who can't even focus on anything except how cold it is. So long as they're not actually at much risk of freezing to death- it's 30-50ml, again and again, to freedom.

Who could maintain objective reality when the objective reality is threatening to freeze your flesh off and turn you into brown bear food? Who would dare tell a Russian citizen that he ought to lay off the vodka or moderate his consumption when it will mean all he can think is "FUCK IT'S COLD!" for months on end? The Russian government, that's who.

Last year, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev called Russia's alcohol problem a "national disgrace" and said he was determined to cut consumption by a quarter by 2012. This started this year by setting a minimum price of a half liter of vodka. Nothing like this has been tried since the soviet days, and for good reason. Gorbachev limited the production of Vodka and did not allow it to be sold before 2PM. The result was citizens drinking perfume and mouthwash instead, and buying bootleg liquor(which is common there), some of which was processed from plywood(making it methanol, a.k.a. poison).

To a Russian, this is the equivalent of asking you to feel cold as fuck all the time, or drink poison. Just so your countries statistics look better. Even if your lifespan is increased, Extra years aren't worth a damn if they're spent shivering and depressed. This is the problem with any Nanny-state, it cares not about a citizens quality of life, but only about keeping you alive longer so it can extract more taxes from you and in turn institute policies that further reduce your quality of life.

I'm certain Dmitry Medvedev's consumption won't be reduced because of this policy, and that's why he sees no problem with it.