Results tagged “gatesfoundation”

• There are some crankypants smokers who have been forced to quit because of the federal tax hike. Watch out as some become even crankier because their non-smoking daily commute has doubled in time, thanks to the I-90 bridge closures.
• All schools that closed due to swine flu will re-open tomorrow. Ha.
• The government says they won't be able to save the newspaper industry, but Amazon says they can help save the newspaper industry with their new e-reader.

There may be a scary economic recession, but the Gates Foundation won't be slowing down on their philanthropy this year, according to Bill Gates' first annual nine-page letter to the Foundation supporters at large. "The goal of our foundation is to make investments whose payback to society is very high rather than to pay out the minimum to make the endowment last as long as possible," he writes.

I am impressed by individuals who continue to give generously even in these difficult times. I believe that the wealthy have a responsibility to invest in addressing inequity. This is especially true when the constraints on others are so great. Otherwise, we will come out of the economic downturn in a world that is even more unequal, with greater inequities in health and education, and fewer opportunities for people to improve their lives. There is no reason to accept that, when we know how to make huge gains over the long term.

Most news reports and editorials that reference the striking Bellevue teachers list salary as the primary motivator for the strike, which is the easy play because it's always about money. Except when it isn't. The striking Bellevue teachers we've talked to (full disclosure: Seattlest's wife is a striking Bellevue teacher) list the current implementation of the centralized curriculum as the primary motivation for the strike.

We guess Forbes went back to measuring rich folks. It was announced today, courtesy of Forbes' annual billionaires list, that Bill Gates is no longer the richest man in the world. The title now belongs to U.S. financier Warren Buffett, who had a very good year in 2007. He saw his wealth jump from an estimated $52 billion to $62 billion. A $10 billion year in the midst of a recession--wow.

On Saturday, Frank Hughes of the Tacoma News-Tribune reported that local real estate developer Dave Sabey had offered to buy the Sonics from Clay Bennett and make them the centerpiece of a development he's planning south of Boeing Field.

Last week we posted about the story the Los Angeles Times did on the Gates Foundation and how a lot of the Foundations investments are contrary to the charitable work they do. We refrained from heaping scorn on the Foundation because by that time they had agreed to review its portfolio "to determine whether its holdings were socially responsible" and what a portfolio, by the way: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has some $65.95 billion in holdings according to the L.A. Times.

While it's tempting to make fun of the Seattle Times (or the P-I, for that matter) for not getting the story the Los Angeles Times reported this weekend on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the conflicts that exist between the foundation's charitable work and its financial holdings, and while we're somewhat inclined to point out the fact that no one in Seattle is in a position to say boo to the Gates Foundation, it's really just fantastic work by the L.A. Times which continues to be one of the country's best newspapers despite the fact that it's under assault by its owner the Chicago Tribune. The Gates Foundation is based here so it's easy to lose sight of their place in the universe and jump on them for things like buying up the land that contains Seattle's only municipal skatepark and bulldozing it, but they're really a global giant with a tremendous amount of money. Thank you to the L.A. Times for pointing out that while a fraction of that money is injected directly into various charitable causes the Foundation also has a mountain of cash the size of Rainier that can also be working either for, or, in some cases against, those same causes. Take some time out on Snow Day #1 2007 to read the entire article - We learned more about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from that piece than we had previously through years worth of Seattle Times and Post Intelligencer full-release massage pieces. Kudos, at least, to the Seattle Times for reprinting it.

--Turns out 1% of the best hotels in the world are in the Seattle area.

When we lived in Los Angeles we worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District, more specifically we worked on grant trying to determine if the state mandated mathematics pacing plan was helping or hurting students. Guess what there Oppenheimer, it was hurting them.

-The nation's fifth Latino-owned bank is coming to a Kent near you.

We heard a rumor and since rumors are one of our favorite things to propagate (second only to "the species") we're getting off to a good Friday. Unfortunately, while there are potentially lots of good rumors surrounding the Seattle public school district (no school closures, across the board school closures, Gates Foundation bought the district) AND lots of good rumors surrounding Apple (new wireless iPod will get you chicks, Apple recalling those crusty and yellowing iPod sleeves, Jobs going to space and not coming back), this rumor falls squarely into the "meh" category.

Last night after an imaginary evening in Ballard, we got ditched by our ride and ended up waiting for the 44 bus to 45th Street which, of course, took forever to come and was nearly full when we finally boarded and dumped our handful of dimes and nickels into the machine. There was only one seat left next to some weird-looking wirey guy so we considered standing in the aisle, but finally laziness won out and we sat down next to him. Dude turned out to be Bill Gates.

-Some people loved the new Pride for what it was and some people loved it for what it wasn't. And some people weren't that impressed.

Bill Gates announced today that he's leaving Microsoft to join Robert Scobleizer at Podtech.net where the two will do a call-in style podcast together to air three times a week. It will also include the two of them riffing on the tech news and prank dialing startups ("Hi, this is Bill Gates, I have a billion I'd like to invest in your...olefactorycasts? Ahahahahahaha! Right! Ahahahahaha!"). The two were said to share a moment of sad silence after they mistakenly pranked their own employer, netpod.tech, during a trial run.

The Global Health department that the UW founded last year with Gates Foundation money has finally settled on some digs. The university leased some of the 1616 Eastlake Ave building that also houses a portion of the Hutch for the Global Heath people who will hopefully get along well with their new roommate: The Molecular Diagnostics Division who will move there from their current location of "all over campus."

When all of the bubbly started wearing off on the first morning of 2006 we exited the bed, scaldeded off some of the dirt and defeat of 2005 in the shower and sat down with the first pot of coffee of the new year to crack open the laptop and see if the internet was still as we'd left it. Oh All That Is Holy, what bizzaro world have we awoken to?!? The Seattle Weekly's website is no longer terrible! Quickly we ran to the window - The sky was not blood red. We shook our fiancee awake - She didn't greet us with the voice of a 65-year-old blues man. We looked in the mirror - Admittedly it was a little rough, but there were no extra ears, digits or nipples to great us. Peaking through the cracks in our fingers we once again laid eyes on www.SeattleWeekly.com...

Seattle's own Bill Gates was named Time magazine's Man, or "Person," of the Year. Well, he and that wife of his, Melinda, who will share the honor with 'You Too' front man Bono.

Salon.com is reporting today that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, local philanthropy extrodinaire, has pledged ten million smackaroos to the Discovery Institute since 2000. Wait, you say, the same Discovery Institute tank of thinkers that promotes Intelligent Design? Yes, we tell you, that same Discovery Institute. Say it ain't so, Bill.

Thanks to Mister Snitch for alerting us that Bill Gates is legally changing his name to 'The Gates', after buying all rights to the name from the artist Christo for $30 million.