Bill Gates: “I Had No Clue — Boy Was I Naive” — $1 Billion Down the Drain — Along with Money from Bloomberg, Rubenstein, Stayer, and Zuckerman….

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Bill Gates
Bill Gates

Gates' ‘Grand Challenges' result in few payoffs

Bill Gates used the word “naive” — four times — to describe himself and his charitable foundation. It was a surprising admission coming from the world’s richest man. But the Microsoft co-founder seemed humbled that, despite an investment of $1 billion, none of the projects funded under the Gates Foundation’s “Grand Challenges” banner has yet made a significant contribution to saving lives and improving health in the developing world. “I was pretty naive about how long that process would take,” Gates told a gathering of nearly 1,000 people in Seattle. Read more.

Phi Beta Iota: Using kids to distribute money without doing your homework, to include holistic analytics and design, true cost economics, and — heavens — open source everything engineering — is not how you make impact investments.

John Steiner: Responses to Mark Bittman in NYT (“Is It Bad Enough Yet?”)

Cultural Intelligence
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John Steiner
John Steiner

Letters

Fixing What’s Wrong With America

To the Editor:

Re “Is It Bad Enough Yet?,” by Mark Bittman (column, Dec. 14):

EXTRACTS:

01 The question is whether any change can occur with such a bought-and-paid-for, dysfunctional Congress and president.

02 But where are our leaders? Truthfully, too busy chasing their next campaign contribution or positioning themselves for their next political campaign.

03 Continuing protests are needed, but protests fall on deaf ears among those politicians who have created safe districts for themselves by drawing gerrymandered borders.

04

SchwartzReport: US Fossil Fuel Industry: $721M to Bribe Congress; $4.8B in Subsidies (ROI), $271B in Profit

05 Energy, Commerce, Corruption, Government
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Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

This is how you buy the government of the United States. You say, “$721 million is a lot of money.” I respond it is a cost of business item. Fossil fuel companies operating in the U.S. and Canada made $271 billion dollars in profit in 2012, while continuing to receive billions in subsidies. As of April 14, 2014 , according to Mother Jones, “Taxpayers currently subsidize the oil industry by as much as $4.8 billion a year, with about half of that going to the big five oil companies—ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips.” So let me see. They spent $721 million to buy the government; they got $4.8 billion in subsidies. And the conclusion is: You and I paid the fossil fuel companies through subsidies, money which they metaphorically in turn used to buy the government so that it operates responsive to their interests, rather than the interests of the citizens who paid the taxes. What a deal.

The Fossil Fuel Industry Spent More Than $721 Million During 2014’s Midterm Elections

Yoda: Peer Review Stifles Innovation

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Got Crowd? BE the Force!
Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Multi-part problem.

Does the peer review process stifle scientific innovation?

A new study suggests the current model may succeed in keeping out the scientific riff-raff, but its maintenance of the status quo comes with a drawback, the study's authors argue — the regular rejection of cutting-edge work.

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Berto Jongman: 300+ Mind-Expanding Documentaries

Cultural Intelligence
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Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

300+ Mind Expanding Documentaries

[1] Life in the Biosphere   [2] Creativbity and Design   [3] The Education Industrial Complex   [4] The Digital Revolution   [5] A New Civilization   [6] Politics   [7] Biographies of Genius   [8] War   [9] Economics   [10] Digital Enrepreneurship   [11] Sports   [12] Technology   [13] Origins of Religion   [14] Western Religion   [15] Eastern Religion   [16] Consciousness   [17] Mysteries   [18] Mass Culture   [19] Corporate Media   [20] Art and Literature   [21] Health   [22] Drugs   [23] Environment   [24] Cosmos   [25] Science  [26] Evolution  [27] Psychology and the Brain   [28] Modern History   [29] Pre-Modern History   [30] Current Events   [31] Ancient Civilizations

Also see:
+ Huge index of free documentaries (a collection spanning a few years from re-configure.org)

 

 

Earth Week in Review — End of Year Donations Sought, Tax-Deductible for US Donors

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Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

In 2008 Winston Maiki, our most treasured Australian analyst and the Latin scholar who corrected our first motto (E Veritate Potens) died and with him to the grave went his servers and our invesment in the automated rolling headlines database and weekly curated documents known as

GLOBAL REALITY: THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Destabilizing Threats, Stabilizing Policies, and Global Powers at a Glance

A sample from that era is here: PDBweekly20070716

Continue reading “Earth Week in Review — End of Year Donations Sought, Tax-Deductible for US Donors”