Money quote from this story about the Beastmaster’s “creative capitalism” idea and his involvement with Bono’s Red campaign: “To date, Red has provided $50 million to a global fund for treating AIDS and malaria, and nearly 2 million people in Africa are receiving `life-saving’ drugs today, Gates said.”

Negroponte’s response? He’s furious because that $50 million could have been used to buy OLPC’s XO laptops, and he’s really pissed that Gates is getting involved with Bono instead of focusing all his attention on OLPC. Says the Double-N: “Fighting AIDS and malaria is all well and good, but what is the point of curing diseases if children can’t learn about the world and explore the Internet? A lot of people just have their priorities backwards. If the children had laptops they could do the research and cure AIDS and malaria by themselves. People are just stuck in the same old way of thinking. Which is a pity, honestly.”