The South African blogosphere has been overwhelmingly critical of Brandon Huntley and the Canadian immigration board that granted him refugee status. (See Pierre De Vos, Ray Hartley, Michael Trapido, and Sarah Britten, to name just a few.) However, I think that in the rush to bash Huntley for the sin of bringing the country into [...]

Michael Gerson, one of the primary architects of Bush’s big-government “compassionate conservatism”, defends needle-exchange programmes for heroin addicts:
They are also at the center of a controversy. Needle-exchange programs have always been politically controversial, with opponents arguing that they send a mixed moral message about drug use. The House of Representatives recently passed an amendment banning [...]

by Mayibuye Magwaza
Rape is a part of South African culture. It’s a disgusting and abominable part that we need to discard, but it’s definitely a part of South African culture.
There, I went and said it. The next time you hear a South African defending something – anything – on the basis that it is ‘part [...]

This month’s Atlantic cover-story, on a group of 268 Harvard men whose entire lives were studied as they unfolded, makes for fascinating and engaging reading. A sample:
What allows people to work, and love, as they grow old? By the time the Grant Study men had entered retirement, Vaillant, who had then been following them for [...]

For the record, this post by Megan McArdle is a good illustration of the things I like about her writing: her willingness to question her own underlying assumptions, to take her political opponents’ ideas seriously, and to take unusual stands on even taboo topics like terrorism. (It’s worth noting McArdle does a far better job [...]

The murder of late-term abortionist George Tiller by a pro-life extremist has provoked several interesting arguments in the blogosphere. A number of pro-choice writers (notably Will Saletan and Richard Spencer) have made the case that Tiller’s assassin was simply taking the logic of the pro-life argument - that abortion is morally equivalent to the murder [...]