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Given the number of positive things I've heard about his donations, I figure that this is one of his rare screwups. Or, more accurately, it's a screwup by one of the charities that Bill Gates decided to give money and a positive statement to.

Not everybody would agree on that:

- The flip side to Bill Gates’ charity billions

- Why the Gates Foundation is Evil

Show me someone from the open source community who has helped and donated more towards charities than Bill Gates. Uh huh, that's what I thought.

Bill - is that you? Don't forget to lodge your claims for charitable donations - we filed it under "the spit shield fund".

the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (foundation) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. Both entities are tax-exempt private foundations that are structured as a charitable.

One good thing Bill Gates has done. Though not everyone agrees.

Personally, my own life would be little different -- except for a big change of not engaging in bouts of unrelated paid employment for expenses. I'd still spend time with my kid and homeschool. I'd still work on free software like the Pointrel system or software related to my wife's free book. I'd still work towards organizing all manufacturing knowledge (OSCOMAK) and work towards designing self-replicating space habitats. I'd hopefully be doing all those software and hardware things a lot better and a lot faster because I'd have more time (without taking on unrelated employment, even as I'd still be happy to help out on other projects just to be helpful and exchange ideas, same as helping any neighbor). I'd probably have lab space for physical experiments which would also speed things up. Another speed boost would (hopefully) be lots of like minded peers who were free to do similar things who I could collaborate with -- including on simulating and building and running free automated tire production factories as I posted on yesterday, especially since people will probably still need tires, even in space habitats: :-)
"Automated FOSS tire plant ideas; simulation tools? "
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

I'd probably feel less compelled to do those things quickly though, so I might do more gardening. I'd still help out with my local historical society.

I think most people could find interesting things to do. It might take some period of "deworking" to make the transition. For kids leaving public school to do "unschooling" (or even just plain homeschooling) a rule of thumb is that it takes at least one month for every month in school to make a transition to independent learning. So, for someone who has worked at a conventional job for a dozen years on top of a dozen years of schooling, it might take a couple years for him or her to start to regain some independent initiative.

I feel it likely a lot of people would just have the time to be better parents, better friends, better neighbors, and better family members. As Bob Black wrote in his essay on "The Abolition of Work":
http://www.whywork.org/rethink...
"Socrates said that manual laborers make bad friends and bad citizens because they have no time to fulfill the responsibilities of friendship and citizenship. He was right. Because of work, no matter what we do, we keep looking at our watches. The only thing "free" about so-called free time is that it doesn't cost the boss anything. Free time is mostly devoted to getting ready for work, going to work, returning from work, and recovering from work. Free time is a euphemism for the peculiar way labor, as a factor of production, not only transports itself at its own expense to and from the workplace, but assumes primary responsibility for its own maintenance and repair. Coal and steel don't do that. Lathes and typewriters don't do that. No wonder Edward G. Robinson in one of his gangster movies exclaimed, "Work is for saps!" "

Is it any wonder you want to avoid such desperate people? Even if most of them are doing a heroic job of trying to hold everything together despite limited time? And the flip side of it is, the people in the USA with lots of spare time, they tend to either be those who are (inherited) wealthy parasites who accept or ignore the huge rich/poor divide or they are people who are poor or old/tired or disabled or mentally ill. Obviously, I'm exaggerating here -- but not by that much. People in Western Europe are more likely to have free time and be able to use it to be better companions and more involved citizens and volunteers.
http://www.neatorama.com/2012/...
http://newint.org/features/201...

I think there are serious questions about accountability, undue influence and private priorities that can be raised without touching how he made his money:

Research by Devi Sridhar at Oxford University warns that philanthropic interventions are ‘radically skewing public health programmes towards issues of the greatest concern to wealthy donors’. ‘Issues,’ she writes, ‘which are not necessarily top priority for people in the recipient country.’

Hyperbole just makes you look like a fool.

No one owns landmines legally and while many do have automatic firearms, they are highly regulated and owners go through extensive background checks.

Indeed; hyperbole would make me look like a fool. However, I'm not being hyperbolic. I'll reiterate what I said to Archangel Michael:

You seem to have a very small partisan US-centric world view. Hopefully my comment will help you to think outside the box :)

Read these: http://newint.org/features/199...
http://www.un.org/en/globaliss...

Every year, landmines kill 15,000 to 20,000 people — most of them children, women and the elderly — and severely maim countless more. Scattered in some 78 countries, they are an ongoing reminder of conflicts which have been over for years or even decades. Yet despite this random carnage, they continue to used as weapons of war.

Once again, this isn't hyperbole -- it's just how things are. I guess if you've never lived near an area that at some point had landmines deployed, with no record available of exactly what the coverage area was, nor of how many may still be left, you might not find this an issue. I've spent time near some WWII testing areas where this is the case -- thankfully, the result was that the entire suspected area has been fenced off ever since, and it's been scanned multiple times to ensure there are none left, but what a waste of land and energy.

http://newint.org/features/201...

Also: http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/

This is worth a read:

http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/

TL;DR

Gates's and others' philanthropy prolongs poverty by sowing as it does the seed of more inequality (in Gates's case, through the formation of health policies in the third world that make it easier for Western drug companies to open up markets for treatments there). They give away the fruit, but never the trees.

As Oscar Wilde observed of the philanthropists of his era: ‘They seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see in poverty, but their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it.’ Then and now, as Wilde said, ‘the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible.’

This is really the question that needs to be addressed: why is poverty still possible - and why can it even get worse - after 200 years of Gates's capitalism? Surely by now if capitalism was the answer, we'd not be where we are today.

If folks want evidence in support of this claim, refer to this
http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/
I can't find it now, but there was another article about how Gates' agenda of pushing private health care is undermining public health care systems in Africa.

Got any citations for that claim that aren't from conspiracy sites?

0) Who the fuck are you to ask me? You don't even have a mother.

1) Conspiracies are the norm. Any time two people get together secretly to bone a third, it is a conspiracy. The only overarching conspiracy of which I'm aware is that to deprecate the word "conspiracy". Those involved thank you for doing your part as a useful idiot.

2) If you actually wanted a citation, you would already have found one with google. But you don't actually want a citation, you just want to make me look bad so that people won't believe what I'm saying. For example:

However, Microsoft lobbied vociferously for the World Trade Organizationâ(TM)s TRIPS agreement (the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property), which obliges member countries to defend patents for a minimum of 20 years after the filing date. As recently as 2007, Microsoft was lobbying the G8 to tighten global intellectual property (IP) protection, a move that would, Oxfam said, âworsen the health crisis in developing countriesâ(TM).[1]

Or perhaps you would prefer it to come straight from the horse's mouth, where their primary IP lawyer places "respect" of IP laws and markets above saving lives, by making it the primary consideration? He includes a lot of weaselly speak about protecting access, of course, but what he focuses on is the law — which the Gates foundation is promoting.

There are no shortage of similar references, and if you are unaware of them it is because you are willfully ignorant.

[1] The flip side to Bill Gatesâ(TM) charity billions. Bowman, Andrew. New Internationalist Magazine, April 2012. ( )

Look kids, you have to pick your fights. For me its been Apple. Apple has been my windmill. All others are nessessary evil.

"People are aware that Windows has bad security but they are underestimating the problem because they are thinking about third parties. What about security against Microsoft? Every non-free program is a âjust trust me programâ(TM). âTrust me, weâ(TM)re a big corporation. Big corporations would never mistreat anybody, would we?â(TM) Of course they would! They do all the time, thatâ(TM)s what they are known for. So basically you mustnâ(TM)t trust a non free programme."

"There are three kinds: those that spy on the user, those that restrict the user, and back doors. Windows has all three. Microsoft can install software changes without asking permission. Flash Player has malicious features, as do most mobile phones."

"Digital handcuffs are the most common malicious features. They restrict what you can do with the data in your own computer. Apple certainly has the digital handcuffs that are the tightest in history. The i-things, well, people found two spy features and Apple says it removed them and there might be more""

From:

Richard Stallman: âApple has tightest digital handcuffs in history
http://www.newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2012/12/05/richard-stallman-interview/

IMHO Disney is worse then Nick. Both have tween programming that heavily pushes boyfriend / girlfriend relationships at much too early an age and also tends to reinforce the idea that the strange kids never change and its ok to exclude someone. However, Disney is much heavier handed in their tween propaganda, Nick has more of a tendency to show various types of people in a positive light.

I'm not sure it's intentional, more laziness on the writers part, but the story-lines will veer deeply into the I changed myself for my boyfriend and now he loves me territory. Then they will tag some feel good message on the end that doesn't make sense and seems to make kids more jaded.

Disney also heavily cross promotes things, although Nick is getting worse about this. I have never seen a Disney show get cancelled. They basically pick a child star and ram it down their audiences throats. The young audience is mostly not capable of noticing, and enough of their age group picks it up to make it part of the tween culture.

In closing, I hate Disney and try to avoid it for my children as much as possible, and I'm not the only one. http://www.newint.org/easier-english/Disney/diswomen.html

Regarding proposals:

http://www.newint.org/features/2009/01/01/climate-justice-countdown1/

Both the "EMISSIONS TRADING" and "KYOTO2" proposals don't seem to exempt Least Developed Countries at all - only the "GREENHOUSE DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS (GDRS)" seems to explicitly set an exemption.

So perhaps your use of the phrase "under actual consideration" was ignorantly, or conveniently chosen :)

You are correct, my statement had nothing to do with his other than to be a bit of a troll and point out that his analogy was poor at best.

but as long as we're off topic, please note the following pages on land mine statistics-
http://www.newint.org/issue294/facts.html
http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=1945&tid=110
http://www.unicef.org/sowc96pk/hidekill.htm

a couple of key facts:
2,000 people are involved in landmine accidents every month - one victim every 20 minutes. Around 800 of these will die, the rest will be maimed.
One deminer is killed and two are injured for every 5,000 mines cleared.

you can say i'm ignoring what you're saying about well planned and well maintained minefields, but you decided to ignore "shitty" armies in your calculations, and I feel that 24,000 casualties a year at least warrents some consideration.

From what I've read, more than 90% of drug industry R&D goes into "me too" clones of existing drugs with proven markets and likely ways to produce slight variants. The other 10% maybe genuinely new, but even there, most of the research behind them was done by academics on grants paid by the US government usually spanning decades of academic work. It's true that in the 10% case drug companies are paying for human trials (which are now costing in amounts approaching a billion dollars), but that isn't really R&D in the way most people think of it, and that cost could also be paid by the government (and even is, in some cases). It might be better if the functionality of *producing* drugs could be separated from the functionality of *researching* drugs. In any case, in general, high costs for today's drugs harms people today, whereas it is just speculation that future profit-driven research might help somebody someday. With that said, I have little doubt most people who work in most drug companies sincerely want to help people and see working for these companies as their best alternative. But it is still, overall, a broken health care system.

Consider:
http://www.newint.org/issue165/testing.htm
"Out of more than 100 drugs approved each year by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), only a fraction represent major therapeutic advances'. For example, in 1984, there were 142 new drug applications approved, of which 22 were 'new chemical entities' - that is, used new chemical molecules and were not variations on existing drugs. Out of those 22 new chemicals (mostly antibiotics, antidepressants and agents for heart disease) only two were judged to be 'major advances' by the FDA and eight 'modest advances'. Most of the other 12 were the so called 'me too' drugs by which a company makes its own version of an already marketed drug ... To conclude: we have to have testing for the drugs we need. The colossal waste is in testing on apparently pointless new compounds. That's the problem."

By the way, for many of the conditions drugs make manageable, it is possible water-only fasting might be a better option for some:
From:
http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/fasting.pdf
"""
Throughout most of the 20th century, which witnessed a period of remarkable medical innovation in surgical techniques, radiation therapies, and new "miracle" drugs, the self-healing mechanisms that are unleashed during water-only fasting were largely unappreciated. However, as the century drew to a close, something extraordinary began to occur. After decades of collective awe of modern medicine and its purveyors, a strong undercurrent of disillusionment began to appear. There came the beginnings of a philosophical revolution that would lead health science in a promising new direction. This new direction centers on the realization that health and healing are best supported when the biological roots of our nature are understood and respected. This new philosophical approach is based on the awareness that health and healing are natural processes. As a result, the focus of attention has increasingly shifted away from the traditional medical emphasis on drugs and surgery toward an exploration of the circumstances and requirements necessary to unleash and enhance these natural processes. Fortunately, unlike health problems in the past--including such phenomena as water-born diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and epidemics of tuberculosis and pneumonia--that at one time were confusing puzzles, our present day epidemics of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer are not nearly so mysterious. It is becoming increasingly clear that the majority of present day health problems are the result of modern dietary excesses. Simply put, most of our health problems are the result of our getting too much of the wrong t

I don't think people are tools, just that; as Douglas Adams observed when he posited we were descended from exiled management consultants, hairdressers, and phone cleaners; they are more concerned with how things look, than how they really work.

From your website, it's clear that how things look is what you are good at, and what matters to you.

That doesn't mean that the choices you make actually make the world a better place, or even meet your stated goals. But the choice of a plug-in hybrid does meet your unstated ones, and the ones that clearly matter to you, being cool. Also, given that you live in a very dense city, where driving is mostly short distances, and plugs are readily available, a plug-in electric may well be the right choice for you. Go for it. Just make sure that battery isn't "recycled" in Latin America.

For the vast majority of the individual transportation market, and especially for any commercial transportation, it isn't practical. Bio-Diesel, however, is. And the trash of the bio-diesel, iron and steel, has enough value that finding a place where local officials turn a blind eye to dumping toxic waste, for a bribe, isn't the most economical way of dealing with it at the end of its useful life.

Beautiful photos, by the way.

Gosh! Now, what we need is a way around that. Sigh. Too bad we don't have one! Oh, wait! I think I've heard about a ways to store energy...a 'battery' is it?

So: how did you overcome the problem of knowing in advance what's going to happen at and around the site for the next 25,000 years or so that the spent fuel (and all of the associated materials, which I'll wager aren't stored onsite, but shipped to bulk low-grade waste storage facilities...spent fuel is only part of the problem) will be dangerous?

And where does this 25000 year bullshit come from? A reactor generates only one cubic meter of solid waste per year. After 10 years it is 1000 times less radioactive. After 500 years it is less radioactive than the ore from which it was originally mined. You only need a temporary storage solution, not a permanent one.

Besides, the next generation of reactor, fusion, will be able to process this fission waste as fuel. All waste from a fusion reactor is biologically safe after about 10 years, and becomes completely non-radioactive after 50-100 years.

I guess you also don't realize that the materials used in your battery are toxic? More toxic in terms of people getting sick and dying than from the waste from any nuclear reactor.

Patrick Moore is a nuclear lobbyist, hardly an 'environmentalist' though he loves to trumpet his green credentials. This whole environmentalist argument for nuclear has been roundly debunked already. Don't believe the hype.

It is in my books. In order to ascend so high in the ranks, he has to be complicit in what Unilever does. And that company, like virtually all companies of its size, has an abysmal record of exploitation and abuse all over the globe.

Can you tell me what 'costs' this CIO has spent in order to get to his position? Come on, anything. Anything solid, at all. Can you do it?

How does child labour sound?

Perhaps you should learn how to use a search engine prior to posting a retarded challenge like that.

Thought not, you're just a common troll.

In light of the above, you did label yourself quite accurately.

Nope - but telling people in AIDS-stricken regions that using condoms is a sin... not so cool.

especially when this is simply the opinion of the church... not the opinion of god.

1) Do you really think that Microsoft has a 90% profit margin on Office?
Yes they do - actually 86% - Ok I exagerated a bit

2. the price of software is insignificant compared to the other costs. That $100 WindowsXP license is peanuts compared to the $800 computer it's running on, or the annual salaries of the employees, or even the cost of the office space that computer is sitting on....

- Office + XP = $350 USD per year
Not counting application server licenses, Exchange server license, SQL server etc. Just the basics.
- Cost of $800 computer (depreciated over 4 years) = $200 USD per year
Salary per week in Brazil $30

Cost of saving a child with Oral
Rehydration Salts (ORS)(500,000 die per year): 10 cents

another example:

Canada's work force totaled 15.6 million people in 2001 (stats Canada).
Microsoft Office + Windows profit margins are 86%

If 40% of the Canadian workforce use Office and Windows and an additional 20% just use Windows (conservative I think)

MSOffice + Win: $1,767,168,000
Win: $314,496,000
Total : $2,081,664,000 per year profits leaving Canada

Other Stats:
60% of all canadians were online in 2001 (not included - and the majority used windows)

Softwood lumber has been hit with constant US trade barriers in the past 10 years. Total profitability of BC Forestry in 2001 was $200 Million from selling world wide - not only the US. Plus this number includes hardwood lumber that is sent to Japan. Does anyone else think Canada is getting shafted by our friendly neighbours to the south?

3) The Microsoft employees that I know always talk about "killing" their competitors. 123 Killer, Netscape Killer. I'm just wondering who is next - I have a feeling it is Oracle.

Can you elaborate ?

What exactly leads you to think the Pentagon report may be wrong ? Why do you think I am jumping to conclusions bonehead ? I just said it could be the cause.

They said weather changes will come sooner than almost everybody expected.

The fact is that our weather is changing. Can you deny that ?

It's been happening for some years already. Read this, from 1999.

From there, things are getting worse. Islands in the South Pacific abandoned by their residents as their ground water turns salty; Connecticut-size bergs calving off the antarctic ice mass; record floods in Europe followed by more record floods. Across northern India this year, record-breaking heat storms arrived before the monsoon, raising the temperature to 123 degrees in the shade--so hot that the birds were dropping dead from the trees. You can read it all here

So, please, explain to me why I am a shallow thinker.

Issue 363 of New Internationalist has a special edition on sugar.

Specific to Florida is a subarticle

Issue 363 of New Internationalist has a special edition on sugar.

Specific to Florida is a subarticle

The following file contains a register that describes the weapons on order or under delivery, or for which the licence was bought and production was under way or completed during the period 1982 to 2001. This register also provides comments and some additional information on each deal.

As well as

The SIPRI Arms Transfers Project

only reports transfers of complete major conventional weapon systems. Thus, reports that indicate Iraq has obtained parts of a given weapon system, even if confirmed, would not be registered as a transfer.

I recommend reading "Body of Secrets" for an example just how usually "undercover" weapon shipments are made. A hint: It isn't a complete system.

Here, is another nice link that might entertain you.

Some quotes:

Iraq's generals hit back at the Russians by requesting that their government purchase an Anglo-French fighter, then one of the most advanced aircraft in the world. In my London office I received the call to begin unofficial negotiations with a British aircraft manufacturer. My exact mission was to determine this company's possible interest in supplying Iraq and to secure a six-per-cent commission agreement for my Iraqi associates.

Whatever contacts I had with intelligence establishments wanted more in return for their help than I was willing to offer. A CIA chum, however, recommended I tap the Peace Institute in Stockholm. They kept thorough files, he advised. To get at them I bribed the correspondent of an American weekly. This young man went to Stockholm and came back with the prize; he had copied all the price data they had on Mirage Fl sales. The Institute files were complete.

So yes, the French sold Iraq airplanes but it seems the CIA was very well aware of what was going on.

Here is another link from the BBC this time, again an interresting quote:

In fact, the UK arms trade has been mired in controversy since the 1980s, when British firms joined the scramble to supply Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

In the early 1990s, Coventry-based engineering firm Matrix Churchill hit the headlines when it breached an arms export ban by providing Iraq with equipment used by the military to build a "supergun" capable of striking Israel.

Following the arrest of Matrix Churchill's directors, it emerged that Conservative ministers had signed the export certificates.

They had also signed Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificates to try to stop the disclosure of documents which showed that the defendants had been working for British secret services.

The judge in the case refused to accept the certificates and the prosecution collapsed in 1992.

So the UK was activly involved as well. I guess they all did this on their own, not while Saddam was a Protege of the Reagan Administration?

And where exatcly is the US selling all these weapons to if they only sell to "friendly" countries as was claimed?

BTW, let's not stop at the BBC with the whole armstrade thing from back in the '80s. Here is a nice report from the Guardian about Saddam trying to

Here the World Trade Organization (WTO) lent the biotech industry a shoulder to cry on by allowing the major players to formulate the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) which came into force in 1995. TRIPS aims to force all countries to take on board a menu of biotech patents and 'harmonize' their national patenting regimes accordingly - the aim is to make the world follow the US example.

See also why Biotech patents are patently absurd. As members of the WTO, and signatories to TRIPS, these countries really don't have a choice; they'd be in breach of the TRIPS treaty if they do not ratify these laws.

As you can read here and here, USA benefitted from IP theft in 1790 when Samuel Slater stole the blueprints of the the water-powered spinning frame from England and used it to build a textile industry in USA comparable to England's. England called him a traitor, but USA called him a hero and the father of the industrial revolution. Today, USA is the capitol of IP and China benefits whenever they steal some.

Most likely, enforcing US IP laws in Iraq will help USA but hurt Iraq.

Denim jeans are made from cotton - the world's most popular fibre, which still provides as much yarn as all the 'modern' artificial fibres put together. Cotton crops cover 34 million hectares of the surface of the earth and use 25% of all the world's pesticides. An estimated one million cases of pesticide poisoning and 20,000 deaths per year are attributable to cotton.

If "Nobody likes a weirdo" is the moral of Beauty and the Beast, will Spirited Away assume the more Japanese "The nail that sticks out gets hammered in"?