I hope I'm not alone when my antennae go up when the reason I'm being asked to go along with something is because "all the cool kids are doing it..."

Peter Suderman quotes Glenn Reynolds on his wish that Obama would go ahead and lower the drinking age.

Some of my fellow libertarians hope that the Obama administration will put an end to the drug war. I hope so too, but I’m not too optimistic. Instead, I propose a smaller step toward freedom—eliminating the federally mandated drinking age of 21. This mandate was a creature of Elizabeth Dole (who is no longer in the Senate to complain at its abolition), and it has unnecessarily limited the freedom of legal adults, old enough to fight for their country, to drink adult beverages.

Reynold's argument is actually a far better than what Amethyst Initiative is trying--a collective petition by university chancellors and professors pointing out that binge-drinking still exists despite the 21 year old age limit, and so we should abolish it, and besides we're smarter than you, so you should agree with us...

Suderman assesses that Obama will ignore these pleas, and outlines the political reasons for doing so, but let's actually consider the problem, the current policy, the recommendations and an actually sensible policy.

Its only fair to deal with the arguments already presented--are you old enough to drink if you're old enough to fight for your country?

Non sequitur Professor Reynolds.

Reckless, impulsive, aggressive and socially malleable makes for a bad drinker, but a good soldier.

Andrew Stuttaford, on Michael Phelps's recent scandal:

In the meantime, I merely note that this broken wreck of a man's failure to win any more than a pathetic fourteen Olympic gold medals (so far) is a terrifying warning of the horrific damage that cannabis can do to someone's health—and a powerful reminder of just how sensible the drug laws really are.

Legalize it. Regulate it. Then tax the everloving hell out of it. There's your stimulus money!

via Samizdata

Just got back from watching the new Star Trek movie. When someone gives you a budget of $200,000,000.00, it had better look like you spent the money, and so visually the movie is absolutely state-of-the-art for special effects (although I take issue with the lame ship phaser sound effects--toy-like comes to mind...).

Unfortunately, I got the impression that the writers were handed a "treatment" that said

1. Planet blows up
2. Spock meets Kirk, they don't get along at first, then become friends
3. Find a way to introduce other iconic characters
4. Find a role for Leonard Nimoy.
5. Three major space battles--work around them.
6. Make all the main characters misfits who triumph.

I suspect a lot of big budget movies get made this way.

Perhaps more interesting though was the Heinleinian political dynamic, where very bright, attractive people find they have no need for useless nonsense like experience, interpersonal skills and the indispensable taskmaster of failure. Success is destiny!

Caffeine for the mind--up now, crash later.

Still; its completely consistent with the risible socialist outlook of all the Star Trek series, where people are highly motivated to employ their intellectual and other gifts on behalf of "humanity" without credit or compensation. Bureacrat teat-suckers, power-obsessed politicians and apathetic entitlement slaves seemed to have gone extinct between the 21st and 23rd centuries.

This is what sex with prostitutes must feel like...