>> ^omnistegan:
I'm willing to bet he's the only richest man ever to have a "Philanthropy" section on his Wikipedia page.

Not necessarily. Doing some research for my website, I found out the philanthropy is the norm among the world's gazilionaires.

Large donations have been made recently by:
* Bill Gates of Microsoft to The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
* Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway to The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
* Carlos Slim Helu of Latin American telecoms to health programs in Mexico
* Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google to Google.org

I wouldn't say Opeth "started out in death metal" since that kind of insinuates that they left death metal behind for this prog style, while they are still very much death metal. This is my fav off Damnation by far.

For anyone who digs this and not death metal, check out Opeth's album Damnation, which is all clean-vocal proggy stuff like this. Or perhaps a couple of my favorite slow jams 'Face of Melinda', 'Benighted', or 'Harvest'.

I'm sorry but anyone who thinks global warming is a more pressing issue than malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, maternal fatalities and malaria has been brainwashed by exorbitant media coverage for the in-thing to be 'mildly concerned and then forget about it a few years later'.

I don't see anything mildly deplorable about what you've quoted MINK. Bill Gates' entrepreneurial skills and success gave him the capacity to launch his charity, how can publicizing your philanthropy and associating it with your former company then be viewed as a negative? Regardless, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is still the largest charity in the world. What oil companies need are more stringent regulations put upon them, that establish global pollution restrictions, not an outflux of investment.

I would have to agree and disagree here Theo, I believed in the same thing, that any amount of aid is warranted. But the fact is that such methodology should only applied in critical situations, the fact is the willingness and dedication is never there when it comes from the foreign nations, there is a knee jerk reaction at the onset of something terrible which is slowly replaced by something else. I mean look at how the world is just standing by watch Darfur self implode. This does not mean I don't support aid programs to it, I just support aid programs that actually factor in what they are trying to do and not try cause more harm by being there. Such as Oxfam, EWB and others http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Road-Taken-Mdecins-Sans-Frontires

Yes America and such has resources and the same can be said of Canada, but one must also remember these nations were developing nations at one point as well. There was no Great British empire giving aid donations to the New World colonies when they emerged (Boston Tea party?).

Africa is not devoid of natural resources to develop itself, it was colonized specifically for it's natural resources (North and South Rhodesia).

However there is problem when you have the interference of aid agencies. Let me give you an example, the provision of electrical power is very important for the development of any economy. Thats a given fact. Development of such power grids and the lines to support them in Africa was funded by NGOs at first, only what this gave rise to is an infinite loop of waiting for more donations to spread the power grid further. People didn't think about raising themselves out of the problems themselves, it became "let's wait for the NGO to do it", and unfortunately there are hundreds of idealistic organizations out there waiting to come in.

This is totally against the way the same issues were settled in Canada and the US during it's development phase after Nicola Tesla's provision of AC power to the Western world over DC by Edison. The Canadian goverment knew that provision of electrical power to all communities in Canada was an important developmental issue, so they would develop the system via goverment subsidy and provide the service to the population at a loss to itself. This is how cheap, affordable electrical power was provided for.

In Africa what happened in various projects was that local electrical power is provided for in localities by NGOs, the goverment then basically sits on it's hands waiting for NGOs to modernize the countryside. However such development is not sustainable in the long term. The reason the goverment subsidized power grid layout worked in Canada was because you had development from centralized localities outward and not a splotch of various power generators all over various communities the NGOs went to.

My basic point is this, yes aid is good, but only aid that is properly vetoed against it's actual effects on the local populace and development as a long term goal. Aid that is looking to end it's own presence in the developing world so it can become developed.

The sad fact at the crux of it is this. NGOs are beholden to themselves. It is profitable for them not to do their job properly because how else are they supposed to raise money for issues. AIDs is always mentioned as the biggest killer in Africa, its not, it's malaria. But how media sensational is malaria compared to HIV/AIDS? NGO's always use their altruistic aims to cover up serious flaws in their application and usage. Look at United Way, just recently found out to spend more then 50% of it's allocated fund raised cash to basically pay itself and inflate its own growth. The whole Live8Aid fiasco a year ago, where did the money go? How was it applied? Does the average person know? No. It's always going into Africa, like it's some blackhole for cash donations.

This is why I like the approach of Melinda and Bill Gates foundation that is strictly self regulating. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF) is the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates in 2000. The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and, in the United States, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology.

Asian economies in the Eastern rim were also poor and underdeveloped just 50 years ago. Look at how sound goverment policy, education and proper investment in infrastructure has allowed places like Taiwan, South Korea, other Asian Tigers to thrive. There were no NGOs or AID agencies there to do that right?