of themselves.
I didn’t want to believe it, but...
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/philanthropy/2009/02/04/bill_gates_buzz_sting.html
Yes, it’s true. Those were really mosquitoes.
Bill Gates did release a jar of the insects at an elite tech gathering in California. “Not only poor people should experience this,” Gates said. A picture and blog post from the event is here.
Gates released “several” mosquitoes, thinking it would be a good way to draw attention to the issue of malaria, since that was part of his talk, says a Gates Foundation spokesperson, adding that the mosquitoes were not carrying malaria.
It wasn’t clear whether the mosquitoes came from a nearby lab or flew to Long Beach in a private jet. One commenter suggested they would starve in a room full of bloodless technocrats.
In case anyone was wondering, the mosquitoes did not come from Seattle Biomedical Research Institute (SBRI), a top malaria research center, where volunteers are paid to get bitten. In our informal poll, 1,586 out of 2,464 people said they would be willing human hosts.
Here’s the in-depth series we did on malaria in 2007. Gates spoke about the topic with an almost feverish enthusiasm during a lengthy interview.
One thing a conference on technology does not need is more bugs!
And...yeah...what an idiot. I would’ve been OUT of there; I don’t care what gee-whiz new Windows feature I’d miss. He should at least get some sort of “never, EVER do that again or else X happens” notice from every potential conference/seminar organizer in the world.
Get real! Where would Bill Gates pick up a jar of infected mosquitos? My reasonable guess is he picked up laboratory quality bred disease free. And not the type that spreads disease. They were probably males to begin with. That don’t bite. In fact they may not have been mosquitos at all but the larger mosquito hawk. Scary looking but completely harmless.
...thank God they weren’t Vista bugs...those are horrible. :o)
Since when do mosquitoes only bite poor people?
We operate four skeeter-vacs all summer at our ranch, and still get bit now and then!
Gates spreading bugs? How is this new?
Wish I had been there.
Suing Bill Gates is a better payout than hitting the lottery.
ML/NJ
Gates has always been the world’s foremost supporter of abortion. He is a flaming liberal.
I grew up with mosquitoes. We didn’t used to have air conditioners in every home, believe it or not. And somehow people survived.
Gates is arrogant in more ways than one.
Manipulating people’s guilt is how the Left gets over on people. Feeling faux-guilt is how the Left feeds its self-righteous sense of superiority. It doesn’t really work with me, or most conservatives, which is yet one more reason they hate us.
There is such a thing as lab-raised clean mosquitoes. I doubt Bill is dumb enough to have had some shipped over from Congo.
Mosquitos can’t pass Malaria unless they have bitten someone infected with Malaria, so unless he brought them from a Malaria infested country they were harmless.
What are the Law Enforcement agencies going to do?Go out and trap Mosquito's that are in the building and test them to see if they are carrying diseases and How would they Know if the Mosquito's that they found were actually released by Gates when they could have flown in the building on their own accord as soon as a door was open.
PETA should be all over his ass for endangering those mosquitoes.
Actually it was an act of terrorism by any real definition. It would have been no differnt than if he had a cardboard box on the stage and said ‘There is no reason why just the poor have to die from land mines...’ and then opened the box.
Bill Gates should be prosecuted.
I thought this was about that damned “ribbon” on Office 2007. He deserves jail time for doing that.
Think of the irony (and the justice) of Gates contracting a disease carried by one of his mosquitoes. He’s an ass.