Bill Gates And His Super Banana

Evil genius Bill Gates doesn't just experiment on other people's children in education policy - he also experiments with genetically modified food that he would NEVER feed himself or his kids but is supersure is "safe" for other people's consumption.

To whit, his "Super Banana" - here's a propaganda piece from the Washington Post that is so breathless in it's desire to only say good stuff about the GMO project that it literally has NOTHING negative about GMO's in the story at all:

In half of the world’s countries, vitamin A deficiency is a scourge that leaves disease and death in its wake.

Every year, it inflicts between 250,000 and 500,000 helpless and malnourished young people with early-life blindness. And in half of those cases, it also brings death, according to the World Health Organization. Vitamin A deficiency also puts pregnant women at risk.

It’s rare in developed countries, but the goal of completely eradicating vitamin A deficiency — mostly in Africa and Southeast Asia — remains unmet.

Scientists are now working to genetically engineer “super” bananas that are fortified with crucial alpha- and beta-carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A.

“There is very good evidence that vitamin A deficiency leads to an impaired immune system and can even have an impact on brain development,” Queensland University professor James Dale said in a news release. “Good science can make a massive difference here by enriching staple crops such as Ugandan bananas with pro-vitamin A and providing poor and subsistence-farming populations with nutritionally rewarding food.”

Some of the genetically modified cooking bananas are being sent to the United States for their first human trial; scientists aim to have them growing in Uganda by 2020.

The project is being backed by nearly $10 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

 East African Highland bananas are usually chopped and steamed, but they have little in the way of nutrients — especially vitamin A, according to Dale.

On the outside, the genetically modified crops essentially look the same as other East African Highland bananas; but on the inside, the carotene enrichment gives them an orange hue.

Lab tests in gerbils have been successful, and Dale is confident in his science. But in order for the crops to be planted in Uganda, the country’s legislature has to approve a bill allowing genetically modified crops. It is currently in the committee phase.

Dale also believes that the technology can easily be replicated in other parts of Africa where different varieties of bananas or plantains are dietary staples.

“In West Africa farmers grow plantain bananas and the same technology could easily be transferred to that variety as well,” Dale said in his statement. “This project has the potential to have a huge positive impact on staple food products across much of Africa and in so doing lift the health and well-being of countless millions of people over generations.”

What are the long-term consequences of screwing genetically with the food system?

What are the long-term consequences of feeding humans GMO's?

What unseen consequences will arise from the "solution" the Gates Foundation has for vitamin A deficiency?

They don't know and they don't care - and neither does the writer of this Post puff piece about the GMO banana Gates is pushing.

You have to wonder, is the Post looking to make things up to Gates for putting him on the front cover a few weeks back in a CCSS piece that made him look like an arrogant, whiny schmuck on wheels?

Bill Gates As Bond Villain

Bill Gates responds to criticism that he's making money off the Common Core:

“This is about giving money away,” he said of his support for the standards. “This is philanthropy. This is trying to make sure students have the kind of opportunity I had . . . and it’s almost outrageous to say otherwise, in my view.

Sure this is about giving money away - and getting an agenda promoted in return

Gates gets a couple things out of his philanthropy:

He gets to call the shots on a whole host of issues - from education policy to global warming response to disease eradication policy.

Gates claimed in today's Post article that he wants "competition" in the R and D efforts around education policy - but it's pretty clear from his past at Microsoft and the present at the Gates Foundation that what Gates likes most is stifling competition and making sure he's the only one strong enough to have any affect on either the computer business or philanthropic efforts.

Which is the second thing Gates gets out of his philanthropy - ego aggrandizement.

This guy's got a messianic complex and he truly believes he's got the answers to the world's problems if people would just let him provide the funding for the R & D to figure out how to make public education better, to mitigate environmental problems, to tackle disease and pestilence around the world.

It never occurs to him that maybe he's wrong about things, never occurs to him that maybe somebody other than him (or one of his funded shill groups) might have a better way to go about things.

In a lot of ways, Gates is like a Bond villain from the 60's - certain of his own brilliance and genius, hell bent on controlling the world and proving his genius and brilliance to us all.

I'll say this for him:

Gates is a genius at one thing - he's a genius at ruthlessly pushing for what he wants, either in the computer software business or the philanthropic world and convincing enough of the public that he's not just another egoist trying to have his way on everything.

But that's been changing, as people on both the right and left start to view Gates's philanthropic monopoly in education policy, environmental causes, disease eradication and other areas with either suspicion or outright hostility because that monopoly pushes out any other solution other than a Gates-funded one.

Jay Greene noted this problem in the Washington Post piece:

Jay P. Greene, head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, says the Gates Foundation’s overall dominance in education policy has subtly muffled dissent.

“Really rich guys can come up with ideas that they think are great, but there is a danger that everyone will tell them they’re great, even if they’re not,” Greene said.

Let's assume that Gates is being honest with us, that he's really not trying to make more dough off the CCSS and its ancillary reforms (a dubious assumption, as he seems to be worth more every year even as he claims he wants to give away all his money before he dies.)

Even if it's true that Gates is spending billions on education policy out of the goodness of his heart and his desire to do some good, the other two things that Gates gets out of his philanthropy - assuaging his own ego and getting to call the shots on nearly everything - are quite problematic.

It is beyond the time to start questioning the so-called "good" that philanthropy does - Gates obviously still thinks it's a decent enough defense because he runs to use it when he's pressed over the CCSS.

But as men like Gates and Michael Bloomberg run around the world using their billions to buy the policies they want in their pet issues, it is becoming clearer and clearer that "philanthropy" is no longer a public good.

There's no difference than a Bond villain wanting to own the world and run it his way or Bill Gates wanting to fund solutions to every problem and make sure that whatever gets tried is a Gates-promoted solution.

Behind both the Bond villain and Bill Gates is a fevered ego in need of control - and it's time to dump some water on that fevered ego and cool it just a bit.