Yes, Evil Line is becoming the all-Bjorn Lomborg all the time channel. The latest:

In poor countries, where heart disease represents more than a quarter of the death toll, these cheap drugs are often unavailable. Spending just $200 million getting them to poor countries would avert 300,000 deaths each year. The lower burden on health systems, and the economic benefits, mean that an extra dollar spent on heart disease in a developing nation would achieve $25 worth of good.

When I started my research related (indirectly, yes, but still) to cardiovascular disease, I felt a little guilty because I thought it was a rich person's disease. That, of course, is false.

Feeling guilty about the carbon footprint of that apple that came from New Zealand? You'd feel better if it was shipped by sail:

He said CTMV had chartered five sailing ships to transport products such as Fairtrade coffee, jam and alcoholic drinks. “We are 5 per cent more expensive than standard merchant shipping companies at the moment. But we are going to build our own ships and when they enter service, we will be cheaper.”

As far as I can tell this is not a joke.

Carl Wieman, a Nobel prize winner who until recently was here at CU, has thoughts on improving undergraduate science education.

The Chevy Volt:

Next to me was a 23-year-old grad student who thought the car was historic; next to him, a 21-year-old network engineer who said he loved the car and would buy one now if he could; next to him, a 59-year-old foreman (and grandfather) who said, “I just want to be a part of this.” None of them were car people or GM people, at least not before the Volt. Glancing at the concept car on the dais, I realized I was looking at the Barack Obama of automobiles—everyone’s hope for change.

This is a good article. It's hard to paint the ninth largest corporation in the world as a plucky underdog facing one chance at redemption, but Jonathan Rauch pulls it off.

This is exactly the kind of internet rant that I don't like to link, but I haven't posted in a while, so here goes:

The Starbucks I go to is next to a Burger King, a muffler shop, a Chaldean hooka joint, a dirt cheap barber shop you could clear out instantly by shouting "La Migra!" and some sort of store front holy rolling student ministry. On a typical 102 in the shade summer day, with the 18 wheelers rolling by on their way to El Cajon, I can do with the AC blasting and some gal crooning about whatever is troubling her sensitive soul at that moment. It may not be America. I live in America and I want a place I can get away from it for 45 minutes and pretend I'm in Portland or wherever.

A person by themself is fine. It's in groups that we become cruel:

Now, you look on with all the brilliance of hindsight and say you would have done it differently. You would have called for help the moment the woman collapsed on the hospital floor. You would have pulled the man out of the street after the car hit him and other cars just passed him by.

Or would you?

The article is chilling.

In the local paper - and in the online world too, to some extent - there has been a lot of discussion about pedestrians, bikes, and cars sharing roads. Yesterday's Daily Camera editorial says you should be careful. Well, I'm in favor of apple pie too, but is there some policy change we should make in Boulder?

One letter writer to the Camera thinks the current blinking light crosswalk system is too ambiguous, and should be replaced with a standard green-yellow-red pedestrian crosswalk.

This is exactly backwards. The whole problem is the perception that pedestrians are strange and don't belong on the road, that we need to shunt them to specially marked crosswalks with giant red and white signs and blinking yellow lights. If streets are designed so pedestrians are normal and expected instead of a weird anomaly, everyone will be safer.

What you do is slow traffic down (use roundabouts if you have to), make streets part of the environment instead of a barrier, and give drivers less rather than more guidance in the form of lights, signs and signals.

If you hadn't already guessed from the length of this post, this is one of my favorite topics.

Improving education is simple. Fire bad teachers. But it turns out that simple is not easy.

William Deresiewicz can't talk to his plumber, and he blames Yale:

Because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it.

The article is a thoughtful but not very focused description of what's wrong with elite education.

The problem in China is that there are a lot more boys than girls. The solution:

Our national ability to pick up chicks will reach heights unparalleled in human history.

Self service:

Critics scornfully call such trips "religious tourism" undertaken by "vacationaries." Some blunders include a wall built on the children's soccer field at an orphanage in Brazil that had to be torn down after the visitors left. In Mexico, a church was painted six times during one summer by six different groups. In Ecuador, a church was built but never used because the community said it was not needed.

Silly Christians. They try to feed the hungry and help the poor and end up making mistakes. Better to sit at home on the couch and drink fair trade coffee.

Language Log likes to highlight strange translations. The latest one is classic - almost as good as my all-time favorite.