It serves me right that the du Toit post got so much attention, given that it contains...ahem...one or two rhetorical excesses, and given that one of the things that I'm really interested in doing is raising the level of public discourse, in particular by working to make it more civil. Needless to say, I have a plethora of fascinating thoughts on that subject, but they're not ready to be posted yet. But the Estimable Statisticasaurus Rex has pointed out to me that Nicholas Kristof speaks truth on the subject in today's NYT.