You'd better hurry.

This is what my barman friend told me when I offered to burn him a CD. "Why do I need to hurry? It's only Jimmy Buffett!"

"I have to go to the Army on February 1."

I was shocked. Here's this young man in front of me, perfectly content to serve drinks and listen to reggae music and he's been conscripted!

Now I don't want to get too involved with Polish politics. It's too comical to be taken seriously. But I just can't see the logic in this. He'll have to serve for nine months. Only nine months. That doesn't seem very economical to me. All the resources necessary to train, house, and feed this man and they'll only get nine months out of him.

Of course, they'll get only the bare minimum out of him because he's a conscript.

I'm not saying that he should have to serve longer. I firmly believe that conscription is one of the most foolish ideas in human history.

I'm not good at political analysis, so I'll just bring this back to my level (a quite low one, indeed). Here I am sitting at a bar with a young guy who's going to have to leave his family and friends for nine months for no discernible cause. And I have no words with which to comfort him.