Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

I'm not sure how to write this without sounding condescending and Phil Hellmuth-ish. I don't think there is another way. Maybe that's why Phil comes off the way he does.

Idiots. There I said it. There are complete, utter fools sitting at the poker table. Ignorant bastards who have no clue what they're doing, who have no justifiable right to sit at a poker table. Hell, who have no justifiable right to be let out of restraints.

Ordinarily, and as I've done in several of the last few posts, I would rejoice at their presence, but, and I'm sure you know where this is going, last night I got stung by one of these fools. I'm not really trying to rail against their presence at the tables because I know without them I'd have gone broke a long time ago. And I'm not looking for sympathy over a bad beat. No, I'm looking for advice. How do you deal with players who, against all common sense and, indeed, against their own true best interests, will play cards that make absolutely no sense in the situation?

I'm UTG with QQ in full table 2/4 limit. Naturally, I raise. UTG+1, a fairly tight, sold player, reraises. It folds to the SB who calls. I only have about 35 hands on the SB. He seems a bit loose, but not ridiculously so. BB folds. I cap it, the other two call. The flop comes AQ8, all diamonds. Dangerous, but not necessarily a disaster yet. I want to see where I stand so I bet. UTG+1 folds, SB calls.

Turn is a non-diamond T. SB bets. What could he have? TT? Possible. A fairly poor call pre-flop, but still possible. AA? I can't see him slowplaying it like that with all the action pre-flop. AT? Not with the pre-flop action. KJ? Again, not with the pre-flop betting. Two diamonds? Which two diamonds would have caused him to call pre-flop? No, I can't see two diamonds. TT seems the most likely. I'm already counting my newly acquired chips. I raise, he calls.

River is a blank. He checks, I bet, he calls. He turns over KJo for a turned straight. KJo!

What idiot cold calls two raises from the SB with KJo? The rest of his play is fairly rational, though his lack of pushing the straight indicates he figures me for the flush, and that makes as little sense for me as it did for him.

So, how do you combat this? I think my analysis of the hand was correct, but to do a rational analysis of a hand you need players who behave in a rational manner. Looking at a raise from UTG and a re-raise from UTG+1, how can you not think you're way, way behind with KJo? No rational player would make that call. Ever. Not even if he knew UTG and UTG+1 were maniacs. He's down 2-to-1 against the worst of the likely pre-flop holdings from those two positions, and that's assuming he's only going against one of them. Against the both of them his best odds are on the order of 4-to-1 against.

Suggestions welcome.