Writing in Scientific American, Million Belay and Beatrice Mugambe complain that the Gates Foundatuon is steering African agriculture in the wrong direction.
Financed by Gates, the Cornell Alliance for Science is promoting the use of genetically-modified seeds, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, petroleum-dependent machinery and artificial irrigation. The authors defend “agroecology,” which they describe as small-scale, ecofriendly, reliant on indigenous methods. Agroecology, they say, increases the variety, nutritive value, and quantity of foods produced while sustaining millions of small-scale farmers.
Gates’ grantees dismiss critics of agribusiness as irrational, unscientific, and harmful. But critics allege that the approach endorsed by Gates’ grantees are paving the way for multinational corporations to take over farming in Africa.
Their own organization, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), represents more than 200 million farmers, fishers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, women, consumers and others across Africa.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Mars Foundation
Gates should go to Mars
Tell Martians what to do
The Earth is really ours
Not Billyanaires’ to screw
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Mars is too close to Earth. Think further, like the Andromeda galaxy.
At 2.5 million light-years from Earth, the Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object visible with the naked eye. It’s the closest major galaxy to the Milky Way, and can only be seen if you have a really dark sky.
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Probably right.
Then again, Mars was the god of war, so Gates might meet more resistance on Mars then he has met here on earth.
And in that case, how far away he is might be a moot point.
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Even alien bacteria on Mars might be more than Bill can handle.
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The Voyager spacecraft , which are travelling at about 35,000mph will take nearly 40,000 years to reach a distance of 2 light years from earth. 2 light years is the distance to the closest star to our sun.
And given Gates is already close to 70 and probably only has 20 years (max) left go live, one would really not have to send him even out of the solar system.
If we sent Gates out to Neptune (2.7 billion miles from earth at closest) today at 35,000mph, it would take him the vast majority of his remaining life to get there and back (assuming he was gravity slingshotted around the planet)
So, that decides it. Neptune it is!
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And even travelling at 35,000mph, relativistic time dilation is very small so would not significantly reduce the time for the round trip.
We might be able to send him off a bit faster, but the 2.7 billion miles I used assumed the minimum distance between earth and Neptune which would not apply in practice because the earth and Neptune do not remain stationary relative to one another over time. So the actual distance travelled would be significantly more .
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One can calculate the actual distance and time assuming a Hohmann transfer orbit, but that would take more time than I wish to devote to this matter.
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I think the ballpark calculation suffices in this case.
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Keep Bill Gates on Earth. The IRS doesn’t have an office on Mars. He needs to begin to pay taxes and some hefty fines for his crimes against the environment and humanity. Keep him away from the moon, Mars, and Andromeda — and, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg too. Keep Bill Gates out of Washington D.C., for crying out loud! Keep him from the entire African, Asian, and South American continents. Don’t let him near any state capitals or school district headquarters, either. There is one and only one place in the entire known universe Bill Gates belongs. It has iron bars for a door.
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The IRS doesn’t have an office on Mars, but their reach is galactic.
And they accept electronic payments. They just might take a little longer to get there from Mars or Neptune.
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Well, the earth to Neptune one way transit time on a ballistic Hohmann transfer orbit , with an initial rocket velocity of about 40km/sec is 25 years! That’s just there, not there and back!
https://transfercalculator.com/calculator/
And that assumes a rocket velocity over twice that of voyager, which is still about 1.5 times the velocity of our fastest rockets for human passengers.
So, Bill would clearly not even make it out to Neptune in his lifetime.
On a rocket with an initial velocity of about 40km/sec, Bill might be able to barely make it to Saturn and back on a hohmann transfer orbit . It would take about 20 years round trip.
But even that assumes a rocket for humans that doesnt currently exist.
The hohmann orbits optimize for rocket energy expenditure, which means that they take considerably longer than more direct trips
the upshot (if you will pardon the pun) is that we don’t really have to send Bill very far to keep him out of our hair for the next 20 years.
Note to Bill: this is all hypothetical. No one is actually proposing to send you to Neptune (Saturn, maybe…)
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Okay, how about this: Gates carefully cultivates his image as a genius and a philanthropist. (He is neither.) So, since he wants everyone to think he’s such a star, he should fly directly to the sun to be with his own. We can tax his estate.
I can spew bile at Bill Gates all day for the rest of my life, and it still will never make up for even a small
part of the troubles that that ____ has caused my students and me over the years. But every little bit helps. Oh, I feel a very short poem coming! It’s called Bill Gates:
Sucks
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Rockets travelling toward the sun are a different story entirely, since they are falling into the sun’s gravitational well and thereby gain enormous speed.
NASA sent a probe that was going 150km/sec at its closest approach.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2276358-nasas-parker-solar-probe-has-gone-faster-than-any-spacecraft-ever/
But alas, that is a one way trip that I would not wish on anyone.
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It swings around the sun out past Venus then back toward the sun several times, each time getting closer to the sun.
And eventually, it will meet its fiery end.
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To Infinity and beyond
With Jeff in depth
Of outer space
And Elon gone
From human race
And Bill on hill
On frigid Mars
The Earth at last
Will then be ours
So boost the Bilyanaires
(With their cars 🚗)
Rocket 🚀 the Rich
Beyond the stars
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Bilyanaires
But Bileyanaires also works
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Billyanaires
Doesn’t autocorrect even know how to spell Billy?
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“Financed by Gates, the Cornell Alliance for Science is promoting the use of genetically-modified seeds, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, petroleum-dependent machinery and artificial irrigation.”
Interesting that these promoters of science and rigorous debate won’t allow any other approach to be presented.
Couldn’t they have both? The Gates directives for farming in Africa and the local farmers approach?
Gates has to plunk a huge wad of money down to shut everyone else up. Gross.
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I am very disappointed that Cornell is associating itself with such a misguided program.
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Cornell Alliance for Scions
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Cornell All-lie-ance for Scions
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Scion:
a young shoot or twig of a plant, especially one for graft
a descendant of a notable family.
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Graft:
A shoot or twig inserted into a slit on the trunk or stem of a living plant
The unscrupulous use of authority for personal gain.
Choose whichever definition fits best .
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Patents on genetically modified seeds preclude farmers using seeds generated from one years’ crops for the next years’ planting.
So the farmers have to keep buying the GM seeds year after year under threat of being shut down by big companies with high powered lawyers.
It really IS about monopolizing agriculture.
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This practice is so evil.
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It is also “inhuman” since it denies and violates the very essence of humans’ relationship with the natural world.
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People should really write to Cornell university about this because it is grotesque that a public land grant university receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding is involved in this in any way shape for form.
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Writing to Gates wont make any difference, but if enough people wrote to — and embarrassed — Cornell , it might.
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Great idea, SomeDAM!
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Lets just say that this hits particularly close to home for me.
I find it utterly disgusting.
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What is particularly galling is that are using the mantle of “Science”(TM) to cow people into submission on a subject that is fundamentally about human choice and political policy, not science. Science is agnostic with regard to the latter.
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Thank you, SDP.
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Second that. Thank you, SDP!
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This is one of the worst abuses of ” science” that one can imagine.
“Science” to Silence
“Science” to Silence
Is never legit
“Science” compliance
Is dangerous pit
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“Science” as violence
Dangerous pit
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As Linda points out below, there is a recurrent theme
The same technique was used to silence teachers with VAM (which also his behind a mantle of “science”
“Science” used to silence.
Someone should make a documentary :
” The Silence of the VAMs”
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Silence of the VAMS. Good one!
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Monsanto, the largest producer of GMOs, has been at war with farmers around the globe for decades. Monsanto has won most of lawsuits against the farmers. Big money generally wins, although they lost one case against a Missouri peach tree farmer last year. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/missouri-farmer-wins-265-million-verdict-against-monsanto
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Bayer, the company that gobbled up Monsanto, has a close (some might say intimate) relationship with Yale University.
So it would seem that the Ivy is inextricably entwined with this stuff.
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Thanks for the link.
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More bad ideas from the ed reform echo chamber on workplace training:
“creating 529 savings accounts for blue-collar apprenticeships.”
Would someone explain to ed reformers what the word “apprenticeship” means? They can’t just slap that word on all their Right wing programs that involve students covering the cost of training.
Why in the world wouldn’t employers cover some of the cost of training? Why do these people work so hard to load students down with all the cost of education and training?
It’s a rip off. They’re giving students a bad deal. We may have to employ a whole cohort of public school guidance counselors to steer students AWAY from the rip off schemes developed by ed reformers.
https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/wisconsin-2030:-the-education-path-to-prosperity-within-the-decade/
All ed reform-generated workplace training plans involve shifting the cost of training from employers to employees. If ed reform wasn’t such an insular echo chamber this might occur to someone, but there’s never any dissent or opposing views so we get the same garbage over and over.
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Gates is like a socially inappropriate uncle that people must tolerate at family parties, even though they secretly wish he would stay home. Gates suffers from foot in mouth disease. His clash with African farmers is typical of Gates’ arrogant behavior. He is a self-appointed expert on everything. Even though he has more money than anyone should have, he is always looking to corner markets with his weaponized wealth. I think Gates is trying to cash in on climate change and potential food scarcity.
Gates has been buying lots of US farmland. He is currently the largest private owner of US farmland, although he claims it has nothing to do with climate change.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/05/bill-gates-climate-crisis-farmland
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Gates says about all this farmland, oh, that’s something my people did. As if this autocratic, top-down micromanager allowed anything to happen that he wasn’t directing.
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Seeds of Destruction
Gates is a farmer
A planter of seed
A small-farm disarmer
For harvest of greed
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Here’s the US DOL definition of “apprenticeship”
“Apprenticeships combine paid on-the-job training with classroom instruction to prepare workers for highly-skilled careers.”
Ed reformers have taken that word and redefined it to mean “the student pays the employer for the privilege of working”
They’re going to ruin apprenticeships. They’ll be absolute cheap junk by the time they’re finished “reinventing” them.
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Bill Gates Should Stop Telling ___ What Kind Of ___ ___ Need
Blankety Blank
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LOL
Thanks for the template, Jon!
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Once a monopolist, always a monopolist
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Once a monoculturist, always a monoculturist.
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Monopolizing monoculture neocolonialist. Monoculture cult-tourist. The neocolonial face of the ugly American. Ugly American face-ist. Fascist.
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Once again, Bill Gates pokes his nose into something about which he knows nothing.
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Of Camels and Tents
The snooping camel nose
Was poking in the tent
And what do you suppose
The latter really meant?
Of course, we have the beast
Inside our Berber tent
And at the very least
The stinky camel scent
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The Nose Knows Not
The nose of Gates knows squat
But though we asked for naught
The nose is what we got
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Donald Trump and Bill Gates have this in common: their entirely unsupported beliefs and the wherewithal to insert them into public policy.
We’re in a world of trouble.
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Another thing they have in common: the Jeffrey Epstein connection.
But of course, that means nothing.
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Except that “Epstein knew a lot of rich people”
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Again? No more telling the victims of colonialism to raise chickens, it’s synthetic farming now? https://dianeravitch.net/?s=Chickens Using synthetic chemicals instead of grazing animals to fertilize soil is an environmental catastrophe. The greed of that bigot is not to be believed. The parallels between Gates on GMO seeds and Gates on Common Core are uncanny. His people call democratic, local control of farming methods and democratic, local control of teaching methods a dead end. He buys favor with key officials. He forces people by the continent to become dependent on the products he sells. The quality of life is ruined. He stuffs his pockets and walks away without a care.
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The Common Cure
The Common Core of Gates?
Monopolistic fates
The Common Cure of Bill?
Monopolistic pill
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In a prior post, Diane rightfully wrote something similar to the point she makes in this post. It was about CRT. Paraphrasing, White people in the U.S. are unjust when they tell Black people, the correct way to explain Black historical experiences. White colonialism
is also on display in the equivocation blather by some of conservative religion’s spokespersons who attempt to massage CRT conflicts so that there is the appearance of being “woke” while not offending Trump supporters.
It’s the same Bill Gates’ arrogance.
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Great points.
It takes an extreme kind of arrogance to essentially tell everyone not only how to live but how to think and speak about their own lives and experiences.
I updated the (in)famous White Man’s Burden poem some time ago to reflect our own time.
The Billionaire’s Burden” (based on
“The White Man’s Burden”, by Rudyard
Kipling”)
Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
Send forth the tests ye breed
Go bind your schools to test style,
To serve his market’s need;
The weight of heavy VAMness,
On captive folk and mild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half teacher and half child.
Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
In patience to abide,
To veil the scheme for teach-bots,
The prime intent to hide;
With coded speech of Orwell,
You really must take pains
To make a hefty profit,
And see the major gains.
Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
The public schools to fleece—
Fill full the days with testing
And Common Core disease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end that you have sought,
Destroy the Opt-out movement
Lest work be all for naught.
Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
A tawdry rule of Kings,
The toil of IT keeper,
The sale of software things.
The data ye shall enter,
On privacy to tread,
To make a “decent” living,
Until they all are dead.
Take up the Billionaire’s burden
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard—
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:—
“Why brought he us from bondage,
From stupid blissful night?”
Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
Ye dare not stoop to less—
So fulminate ‘gainst Apple
To cloak your Siri-ness;
And strategize in whispers,
For all ye leave or do,
Or silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh Diane on you!
Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
Have done with childish ways—
The Kindergarten playing,
The test-less former days
Come now, to join Reform-hood,
The pride of Duncan years
Cold, edged with Gates-bought wisdom,
The plan of Billionaires!
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Poet,
You’re amazing.
Gates has a new for-profit AI venture with Payton Manning.
To hear Bill tell it, he’s all about charity, not about greed. He’s all about equality but, not for women (Melinda says).
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Agreed”
Manning and Gates agreed
“It’s not about the greed”
“But charity instead”
“So rest your pretty head”
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SDP: “Lets just say that this hits particularly close to home for me.” I didn’t know we had that in common. It’s the town I grew up in, my alma mater, plus it’s family: stemming from a great-grandfather who was a career-long prof there, I have 15 immediate & close relatives who attended. First I knew of this asinine CAS, read the article & this one plus its links: https://usrtk.org/our-investigations/cornell-alliance-for-science-is-campaign-for-agrichemical-industry/ I have fantasies of getting the clan activated, but none of us were rich/ big donors. Doubt CU would care since obviously now they’re all about the benjamins… What a comedown. What an embarrassment. We hear bad stuff about other Ivies, but frankly this takes the cake.
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Many members of the EU are refusing to jump on Gates’ GMO bandwagon. I suppose it is easier to buy American politicians than most European representatives. https://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/countriesruleoutgmos/
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Gates is not the only billionare using their wealth to wreck the planet.
The actions of Gates, et al, are evidence that Lord Acton was right when he wrote, “”Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men…”
The Bible also supports this with the term “eye of a needle” used as a metaphor for a very narrow opening. … The New Testament quotes Jesus as saying that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”.
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Actually, it’s easy for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
You just light one up and then blow the smoke through the eye.
But we can’t fault Jesus for not knowing that because it was before TV ads featuring Joe Camel.
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The Old Testament speaks to this when it says that Rachel lit off a camel
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Har har, Roy! Had to look that one up. BTW it was Rebekah, but hey they were probably both smokers.
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If I am not mistaken, Rachel smoked Pall Mall, so it is likely he comment was actually about lighting up a mall
And, of course, for the same reason, it is possible for an entire mall to pass thru the eye of a needle.
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See Bill McKibben’s review of Bill Gates’s book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster–The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need” at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/books/review/bill-gates-how-to-avoid-a-climate-disaster, or just google it.
Gates’s approach seems to be, “We just need to get the Green Revolution right”. His simplistic arrogance and illogic is astounding; he appears to believe “I’m a computer whiz and a wealthy, successful businessman, so I must be an expert at everything.”
I have lost all respect for Gates after his opposition to open-source vaccine production, his one-sided approach to education reform, and now his agriculture pseudo-expertise.
As the saying goes, “Wealth corrupts, and absolute wealth corrupts absolutely.”
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You must admit that he is consistent in his belief that monopolies are the best solution to every problem.
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He must have loved that game as a kid.
Prolly threw a tantrum when he got the “Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200 million” card. Or more likely, he just removed that card from the Chance deck.
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Mark, the link doesn’t work.
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Google ‘McKibben Gates book review’. Probably the original NY TImes review will come up first, but they have a paywall. So, scroll down farther, and the review will come up from several other sources; also there are conmentaries on it.
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Not a problem. I subscribe to The NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post and a few others.
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What’s next for Gates after he saves the Africans and our school children? “Now I’ll help the Indians” ?
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He’s going to “save” everyone. It’s his manifest destiny.
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I believe that’s spelled “Man-infest destiny”
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“What’s next”- Gates, similar to John Arnold and the Pew heirs, wants to protect himself.
Gates invested in Evolve, a crowd-safety firm, AI recognizes people carrying weapons.
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Undoubtedly also picks out kids carrying squirtguns.
These systems are notoriously unreliable.
But it’s only a matter of time before it is integrated with a robot (dog?) carrying a real gun.
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If the public would have listened to TEACHERS a decade ago when Gates was meddling in schools, he wouldn’t have the power he does now whether this or his elevated profile during COVID. But, the “teachers unions” didn’t like him, so Gates must have been doing something good… (rolls eyes)
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I grow convinced that the explosion of monopolies is the greatest threat to us all. No more scaling up. Time to scale down.
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Does this ring a bell?
“While describing how GM seeds and other technology would solve hunger in African countries, Bill Gates claimed that “it’s a sovereign decision. No one makes that for them.”
That’s exactly what he said about Common Core, that it was a “state sponsored initiative”
Gates is so uncreative that he can’t even think of anything new to do or say.
He keeps recycling the same old rubbish.
Steve Jobs was right about him. He’s completely unimaginative.
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Nail. Head. Hit.
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Corporate Alliance with “Science”
Farmers V dollar$
The “game” isn’t fair
With CAS “scholars”
To blind us with glare
The dice have been loaded
With corporate lead
And science eroded
“Alliance in bed”
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“Four Food Companies Control 80% of American Groceries”
https://thetakeout.com/four-food-companies-control-80-of-all-american-groceri-1847319769
Remember when Jeb Bush, DeVos, or someone else in that camp said that we should have school options akin to picking chocolate milk at the grocery store?
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Send all the billionaires into space. Don’t let them back to Earth until they pay their taxes.
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A consensus is developing
The only unresolved issue seems to be on whether they should be allowed to return
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Which really becomes a moot point if one makes the destination far enough from Earth.
So maybe there is no real disagreement after all.
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Maybe Bill got the idea from the disastrous war on Iraq.
https://www.gmwatch.org/en/news/archive/2005/4363-biopiracy-and-gmos-the-fate-of-iraqs-agriculture
A closer examination of these “100 Orders” and U.S. policy in Iraq shows that the war on Iraq had nothing to do with WMD, terrorism, “democracy” and “liberation,” but to colonise Iraq and enrich U.S. corporations at the expense of the Iraqi people.
Order 81 deals specifically with Plant Variety Protection (PVP) because it is designed to protect the commercial interests of corporate seed companies. Its aim is to force Iraqi farmers to plant so-called “protected” crop varieties ‘defined as new, distinct uniform and stable’, and most likely genetically modified. This means Iraqi farmers will have one choice; to buy PVP registered seeds. Order 81 opens the way for patenting (ownership) of plant forms, and facilitates the introduction of genetically modified crops or organisms (GMOs) to Iraq. U.S. agricultural biotechnology corporations, such as Monsanto and Syngenta will be the beneficiaries. [4] Iraqi farmers will be forced to buy their seeds from these corporations. GMOs will replace the old tradition of breeding closely related plants, and replace them with organisms composed of DNA from an altogether different species, e.g., bacterium genes into corn. In the long run, there won’t be a big enough gene pool for genetic viability.
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