An unashmed hobby of mine is to emphasise theism in its own sake, rather than any religion.  This is why in a nutshell, and was thought up late at night on the 9th November 2005.  Comment, lambast or argue if you please.

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Written after I got back from an amazing trip to China.  I was also annoyed by this idiot girl on the trip.  She couldn't ruin my trip, but that's because of the following tactics...  Feel free to comment or lambast or sigh.

I should mention now that I went to China, and had a phenomenal time, finding interest in things both Chinese, and things that can only be called vaguely, Human.  And before the question is asked, I didn’t just go to China for human interest, but it just happened to be a bonus.

Again, this is from a while ago, written by me on the 13th September '05.  It is possibly my least favourite, but in the interests of full disclosure, voila.  Again feel free to comment, lamabast or say anything.  Ideas are free, and should be encouraged.

"The man who is angry at the right things and with the

An entry written on the 18th October, 2005.  One of my better ones, I feel, but still suffering from impreciseness in language.  However, I'm sure y'all will forgive me.  Feel free to comment, lambast or tease.

This was written by me almost exactly a year ago, when I was a lot less articulate and accurate with language, so apologies for that.  Feel free to comment, lamabast, or praise.

Having attempted to justify my decision to partake in some volunteer work, I came to realise that the only thing that did justify my volunteering was indeed my disregard for the logic of self-gain in favour of providing a very limited type of national public good. 

 (If the expressions in this blog are troubling you, they also trouble me, but in an attempt to be more like the incomparable genius Michael Mandelbaum, I avail myself of his writing style.)

Mandelbaum's book brought to my attention an amusing argument for free-riding (free-riding being the reliance on another entitiy for one or another personal pleasure, or other useful thing, such as how a government provides its population with national security at little cost to the population in blood).  In the notes to The ideas that conquered the world  by Mandelbaum, he cites an example in Joseph Heller's book, Catch-22: A crack airforce pilot decided not to fly for fear of being killed in flight.  Asked to consider what would happen if "everybody on our side felt that way", he replies with admirable candour, "Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel the other way."

The roundabout point I make is that I and the fifty-odd other volunteers at Trinity did show the logic of a fool by deciding to volunteer, as we were helping others free-ride, and playing the part of what should be a much larger organistaion than fifty volunteers: the government.

However, consdering that everyone I met was neither stupid, nor illogical, I must conclude that any organisation that does propagate free-riding has another reason, for surely not every government that does this (and there are a few hundred) is foolish.