Author: Freddie

Matt Steinglass has responded at length to some of my thoughts on the circumcision debate, in the comments of my posts on the subject. If you’ve read any of my posts on this issue...

“When David Souter retired, the political class put on an amusing dress rehearsal of the first year of the Obama presidency: Obama did something expected and fairly moderate, and the Republican opposition responded with...

Forgive me if someone has already coined a superior term for this. rollover– The kind of hangover that comes and goes in a wave-like pattern over the course of the day, lulling you into...

Parents consistently rate their child’s education far higher than the country as a whole.

The continuing debate on circumcision and HIV infection is very strange. Circumcision is tangential to the politics that interest me. While I’m convinced of my position on circumcision for medical gain, and particularly the...

Who Goes with Fergus? by William Butler Yeats WHO will go drive with Fergus now, And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade, And dance upon the level shore? Young man, lift up your russet...

For all the people defending bringing a gun to a political protest: if we go beyond merely saying, “you have the right to,”– and just saying that, you aren’t saying much– what is the...

Let your eyes rest on this argument for while, and be amazed. Matt Steinglass has weighed in on the circumcision argument. (Judging from his picture, he also apparently chose the “Alpine” background on school...

The Daily Dish’s guest bloggers continue to post on circumcision. Yet they continue to ignore what to me is the central issue regarding these studies, the vastly different rates of infection between sub-Saharan Africa,...

If you’re not one to travel in feminist blogs, you may not have heard that there was some controversy over this post in Double X by Katie Roiphe, in which she talks about how...

Hanna Rosin continues to polish her trophy as the least thoughtful person, and worst reader, to ever blog in any capacity for the Atlantic. In a post as hectoring as its title, Rosin writes,...

I’m happy to say that a favorite of mine, Rortybomb– aka Mike Konczal (whose real name I didn’t know until I saw this)– has made his Bloggingheads debut, and alongside the always brilliant Reihan,...

I think this post is mostly just a bit of being a punk, and as you know, I’m a big supporter of being a bit of a punk. But come now, Conor. One policy...

So– Conor Clarke has written to me to suggest that I have misrepresented him here. (And misspelled his name.) The offending post is here, and the offending line is, “both sides have crazies, and...

The Wind by James Stephens The wind stood up, and gave a shout; He whistled on his fingers, and Kicked the withered leaves about, And thumped the branches with his hand, And said he’d...

… from Mac fans if this or this had been the doing of Microsoft or Steve Ballmer. But it was Apple and Steve Jobs, so it’ll be stony silence, or yet more hero worship,...

You know, Marc, maybe you should just stop digging. Just a thought.

You can count me among those who, in regards to the Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi situation, think a life sentence means just that– you spend the rest of your life in prison, and it doesn’t...

is entirely right, and on the occasion of his post, I say again that the culturally and socially liberal leanings of many reporters cannot begin to overwhelm the reflexive, self-congratulatory political anti-leftism of the...

from Gregg Easterbrook: “While the fixed vote in Iran received extensive international attention, the world paid no notice to an honest election in Indonesia — the world’s largest Muslim nation. As recently as the...