(no subject)

[vicarz]

Last dolley-housey is tonight! I'll be there (early).

As the winter holiday of your choice is approaching - it's time to think about buying things for your family, things like giant plushy disease models at http://www.giantmicrobes.com. If you've seen them before, they're clearly updating and modernizing.

For instance:
They've added larger pests / smaller size ratios in the http://www.giantmicrobes.com/critters/
HIV! http://www.giantmicrobes.com/professional/hiv.html
Hey Elle? Like you, they have the clap! http://www.giantmicrobes.com/venereals/

Now - a microbe-shaped liquid soap dispenser! http://www.giantmicrobes.com/medical/soapdispenser.html

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I don't buy this - the "world's greatest philanthropists listing" http://biz.yahoo.com/special/charity05.html
Obviously a measure in whole dollars. I think you should be measured in the % of your money that you give, though this may be difficult depending on your circumstance. How much do you pay for rent and food, and how much of that is a choice? How many hours do you give to charity? Do you give money to charity while treating people in your day-to-day life like shit? For the record, I'm not living up to my own standards about charity on a % basis right now - I hope to improve when my life is more under control

I remember hearing that Gates was getting credit for giving millions to DC schools, when in reality he was giving the prior version of his software to them and being credited for the full retail value - even though the actual value was zero. Not only were they throwing out trash, they were building MS dependency in schoolkids.

I did notice lately that the red states were listed as giving a far greater amount (or % I can't remember) to charities than the blue states. That was a very odd perspective - the anti-welfare attitude but welfare taking states gave more to charity than the tax-base pro-poor-policy blue states, on average. Wouldn't it be funny if the "liberals" were intellectually for the poor, but unsupportive in practice - while the "conservatives" were against hand-outs in voice, but in practice gave in droves? I don't know what the data shows but it would be cute to look it up.

Comments

[cobwellac.livejournal.com]

I think that most conservatives are not against helping the poor, only against helping them via governmental entities. The original thought was that the poor should be taken care of through charitable giving and through churches and other sources that administer to the poor. Obviously in a society that's as big as ours, that becomes difficult, but maybe that's what you're noticing here.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Could be. That, and a difference in opinions on the church. I'm pro-helping the poor out (but not with an endless stream of handouts) but not through churches - I think churches damage society, so I prefer a non-denominational government for reasons other than logistics. The logistics argument probably carries more weight though :)

[ex-dasboot.livejournal.com]

Microsoft doesn't make hardware aside from the Xbox and a few periphs. Gates donates complete computers, not just the OS for them, so the loss value to him isn't 0. But, even if it was, I think the positive value for the recipiant is a better judge of the quality of the donation, rather than the negative affect on the donor. Though, I agree with you that the net loss on the donor is a better judge of their personal philanthropy. For beter or worse, Windows is the OS of choice in tha vast majority of the professional world. Donating machines with Linux or Apple insalled would be beneficial, but not as beneficial. Also, if he donated wiped machines and offered to have their OS of choice installed, %99.9 of them would want Windows anyway.

[groaninggirl.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the link to Giant Microbes -- I think I just found a few of my X-mas presents!