Harold Evans (author of The American Century: A slavish press connives to hide GW’s shady side. It’s not only his drink-driving arrest Bush has lied about.
Gates Takes on the Tech Industry
New York Times: Bill Gates Turns Skeptical on Digital Solution’s Scope. “I mean, do people have a clear view of what it means to live on $1 a day?” the speaker, William H. Gates, asked. “There’s no electricity in that house. None.”
Listen to him on this.Bill Gates is a relentlessly logical man. That quality has gotten him into trouble as a business person, but when it comes to philanthropy, it’s going to be one of the reasons he will go down in history with as many allocades as brickbats.
Gates has dared to tell the technology establishment to grow up, to recognize that Moore’s Law won’t cure poverty or feed the hungry. It will help, someday, but much of the globe’s population needs real help, now, not possibly illusory help from computer mavens in five or ten years.
The response from Sun Microsystems’ John Gage, a man I admire, is disappointing. I wonder if Gage is so wrapped up in Sun’s institutional loathing of Microsoft that he has to find something bad to say about Gates. No, that’s probably unfair. But Gage’s mutterings don’t parse for me.
Who might have thought Bill Gates would turn, even in a small way, into the conscience of the technology world? Whatever is going on here, on this he deserves applause.
Hong Kong and a Free Press
Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required): Longtime Chinese Journalist Resigns In Sign of Pressure on Hong Kong. Supporters of Mr. Lam, a famed China pundit and author of five books, worry that his departure signals a rising temperature for journalists who cover politics, particularly Chinese politics, in Hong Kong.
Not a good signÂ…