Todd Weiner asks:

On the surface, this is extremely perplexing. Professional athletes are filthy rich, are always in the public eye, and are an object of worship for millions of fans. Hollywood stars are also filthy rich, are always in the public eye, and are objects of worship for millions of fans. Why then do the latter become mouthpieces for the most tiresome liberal [sic] causes while the former quietly do their jobs and vote for the G.O.P on the first Tuesday in November?

He has a good answer; but I wonder whether it might also have something to do with race, since Hollywood stars are less pigmented on average than athletic stars.

Does anybody know a good guitar teacher (for beginners) between, oh, San Leandro and Milpitas inclusive?

2006 May: Never mind, I’m selling the guitar. I find no way to hold it without causing pain in at least one wrist.

FOXNews.com

Sen. Ernest Hollings said Monday a return of military conscription is necessary to strengthen a military spread thin by its global duties and would show that the people stand behind any decision by the president to make war.

“It’s not the Army going to war. It’s the country going to war,” Hollings, D-S.C., said at a news conference with Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., Congress’ most vocal supporter of a return of the draft.

What sort of mind equates compulsion with consensus?

Later. David Henderson relays this exchange, from the end of the previous draft:

In his testimony before the commission, [William] Westmoreland said he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. [Milton] Friedman interrupted, “General, would you rather command an army of slaves?” Mr. Westmoreland replied, “I don’t like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves.” Mr. Friedman then retorted, “I don’t like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries. If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general; we are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher.”

Jacob Sullum discusses the ‘gateway effect’, concluding:

A few years ago in the Drug Policy Analysis Bulletin, the social psychologist Robert MacCoun laid out seven – count ’em, seven – different versions of the gateway theory. “Given our current state of knowledge,” he concluded, “one can coherently argue that (a) the gateway is a myth – it doesn’t exist; (b) the gateway is very real and it shows why we must sustain or strengthen our ban on marijuana, or (c) the gateway is very real and it shows why we should depenalize or even legalize marijuana.”

A theory that versatile will never die.

Have I told you my favorite gateway story? Some years ago, a passing mention of marijuana in conversation prompted a friend to say that he didn’t care for the stuff at first, preferring LSD, but socializing with other acidheads who also used marijuana led him to a more sophisticated appreciation of the latter. I repeated this to another acquaintance (who had acquired a nicotine addiction while drying out from heroin); he pondered for a moment and observed that for him cocaïne had analogously been a gateway to beer.

Which in turn reminds me that, as I was signing up for pistol training a few years later, I was told to get someone of “good moral character” to vouch for my not being especially likely to misapply the knowledge that I was about to acquire. “You probably don’t know any people of bad moral character,” said the guy on the phone. I managed not to mutter, “That’s a matter of opinion.”

Found in the archives (1999 Jul 15):

What might be the biggest event of our time of which the only surviving evidence, a thousand years from now, will be indirect allusions rather than direct records?

For example: the life of Elvis Presley. His records, his movies and all serious material about him are lost in the sands of time, but some parodies of Elvis remain, the initial population being greater. Historians debate whether the custom of altering voice and posture while saying “Thagy’ver’much” is a religious/taboo ritual or a nervous disorder caused by faulty learning-machines; whether the man in the ornate white clothing, a minor character in so many movies, is a priest, a prostitute or an angel . . .

Found in the archives: my cast list for Walt Kelly’s production of LotR:

• Porky Pine as Frodo
• Albert as Aragorn
• Deacon Mushrat as Gandalf
• Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred as Sam, Merry and Pippin
• Hepzibah as Arwen
• Miz Beaver as Eowyn
• P.T.Bridgeport as Boromir
• Owl and Churchy as Legolas and Gimli
• Pogo as Bombadil

Ananova – Man arrested over police chief sex call

An Ohio man accused of dialling a sex chat line says he ended up talking dirty to a police chief because he misdialled.
. . .
Mullen’s roommate claims he was trying to call a woman friend. Detectives say Mullen is due to face charges.

Charges of what?! (Link from Rational Review.) Is anyone else reminded of Ruthless People?