How to spend $40 billion; and, Don't fuck with the Bear

[unixronin]

Brought to my attention by fruitylips:  Warren Buffett is giving away his fortune.  (Well, 85% of his $44 billion, anyway.)  Most of the giveaway, some $31 billion at the current value of Berkshire stock, will go to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, doubling its net worth.  The remainder will apparently be divided between four other philanthropic foundations run by or in memory of Buffett family members.

If he's having any trouble getting rid of any of it, I could help him out with his pocket change.  Say, a few paltry tens of millions.  You know how that small change adds up.  Hell, a mere few hundred large would totally turn our lives around.

"Excuse me, Mr. Buffett?  Could I please have four hours' worth of the interest on your m00lah?  I promise I'll put it to good use."

In other news, it appears Al-Qaeda, or an Islamic jihadist group reportedly linked to them, may have made an error of judgement.  The group, which calls itself the Mujahedeen Shura Council, announced today that it had killed four kidnapped Russian diplomats, after Russia evidently failed to comply with a demand on Monday to withdraw its troops from Chechnya and release all Moslem prisoners within 48 hours.

I expect the Russian response to this to be swift, bloody, and effective.  The Russians have never been ones to let terrorists dictate terms to them.  We Westerners could definitely take some lessons from then in that regard.  If I had to list the world's three most competent organizations in this particular arena, I'd probably name the KGB, the SAS, and the Mossad, and I'm not really sure what order I'd rank them in.  I'd purely hate to ever have all three mad at me.

Comments

Re: six of one, half a dozen of the other

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Can't argue with that.

I tend to look as examples at the SAS retaking whichever embassy it was that was seized by Iranian radicals in London about the time of the hostage crisis (0 civilian casualties), and the Israeli raid on Entebbe (iirc, two civilian casualties, one of whom got shot because he had the poor judgement to stand up in the middle of a firefight).

Re: six of one, half a dozen of the other

[captoblivion.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of the situation in Lima several years ago when the Japanese delegation were taken hostage in their own embassy, and the Peruvian state police went in and whacked 'em all in short time, and with not so much as a mussed-up civilian hairdo.

Re: six of one, half a dozen of the other

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Whacked the Japanese deleg.... Oh, the tangoes. I was going to say, aren't they supposed to rescue the delegation? ;)

Re: six of one, half a dozen of the other

[captoblivion.livejournal.com]

Dammit, don't parse my semantics! You know I is bein' talkin in Eengleesh real good like y'all is!