At the risk of angering a commenter again, I want to point out this interview with Bjorn Lomborg:

So if we stand back, as Al Gore asks us to do, and look at it from the coming generation's point of view, they are going to ask 'what were they thinking?' They tried to do a tiny little bit about climate change at a fairly high cost, but have done very little good, whereas there are many other problems that they could have tackled that would have left a much better world behind.

I'm firmly in Lomborg's camp here. Sure, people should do whatever they're passionate about to reduce human suffering. But some things are more effective than others, and pointing that out does not amount to discouraging people from acting at all.

Conservatives give more to charity than liberals, says Arthur C. Brooks:

In essence, for many Americans, political opinions are a substitute for personal checks.

You think of technology these days as super high-tech satellites and billion-dollar fusion reactors. So it's refreshing to hear about a guy who invented a new nail. Sounds like it's a pretty good nail, too.

This week's wrong definition of faith comes from Steven Pinker, who says faith is "believing something without good reasons to do so."

Jeeves and W. The funniest thing I've read in a while.

Emily Oster has what she thinks are three earth-shattering, controversial ideas about HIV/AIDS. I'm not so sure they're that different, but I'll let you decide.

Another article about autism, this one offering the very plausible but perhaps not very exciting "assortative mating" theory: partly-autistic John meets partly-autistic Mary and they have fully-autistic Junior.

I've written about autism several times before. Why am I so interested? Well, I see a little bit of it in myself. I scored a 32 on this quiz, which is allegedly the borderline score.

Slate is doing a series on philanthropy. So far my favorite is Sebastian Mallaby's advice about how to make sure your giving actually makes a difference. You know, just in case you have a spare billion you want to give away.

I hate roundabouts, but, well, this counterintuitive approach - removing all traffic lights - almost has me convinced:

It works well because it is dangerous, which is exactly what we want. But it shifts the emphasis away from the Government taking the risk, to the driver being responsible for his or her own risk.

This sort-of vaccine-like approach to fighting AIDS looks exciting.

Bjorn Lomborg argues that global warming is not our most pressing concern:

Faced with such alarmist suggestions, spending just 1% of GDP or $450 billion each year to cut carbon emissions seems on the surface like a sound investment. In fact, it is one of the least attractive options. Spending just a fraction of this figure--$75 billion--the U.N. estimates that we could solve all the world's major basic problems. We could give everyone clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education right now. Is that not better?

Dan Gilbert talks about why we're not afraid of global warming:

First, global warming lacks a mustache.

Bruce Schneier has related thoughts about the difference in how we perceive threats and how threatening they actually are.