Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia.  She was raised a Muslim and was subjected to many tortures that that barbaric religion practices.  Everything from genital mutilation, to regular beatings from her mother, to being forced into an arranged marriage.

Well, almost being forced into an arranged marriage.  She managed to flee to Holland and gained refugee status. 

Ali was amazed at the things she saw in Holland: Females would openly drink, not wear a burka, and - most surprisingly - Holland was not degenerating into a life of debauchery as "Muslim scholars" said it would.

Ali gradually shed her own burka and her religious ideas to eventually become an atheist (yay!) and became a  member of the Dutch Parliament where she was a strong voice for women's rights, especially those trapped in the hell that is Islam.

It was about this time that she met Theo van Gogh, a controversial Dutch filmmaker (and a relative of the famous painter, Vincent van Gogh).  van Gogh and Ali collaborated on a film about the horrors that Muslim women face called Submission Part I.  You can watch the ten minute film here.  The reaction from the Muslim community in Holland was not positive and Ali and van Gogh received death threats.

van Gogh refused any bodyguards.  He had received plenty of death threats in his life, and saw this as just one more.  This turned out to be a tragic mistake.  van Gogh was brutally murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri - a Muslim Fundamentalist.  Bouyeri shot van Gogh eight times, slit his throat and pinned a written death threat to Ali onto van Gogh's chest with a knife.  Bouyeri never showed any remorse for his actions and is currently serving a life sentence without parole in a Dutch Prison. 

Ali was immediately swooped up by Dutch Police and moved from safe house to safe house to keep her safe.

I dunno about you, but if I were Ali, I would step back a little and try not to be so controversial.  But no, Ali become even more resolute and continued to speak out against Islam and its oppression of women in her role as a Dutch politician.

Ali eventually lost her job as a Dutch politician (due to her lying to receive her refugee status) and ended up moving to America. 

She still is in a great amount of danger.  She gets bundled around from safe house to safe house and is under 24 hour protection, yet she continues to speak out.

The Dutch Parliament - in their infinite wisdom - decided to no longer pay for her protection.  The U.S. government has not come to the party and Ali is being forced to dig into her own somewhat shallow pockets to keep herself safe.  By the way, if you think this is a grave injustice, you can donate to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust here, as I have done.

If you want to learn more about Ali, I suggest you read her autobiography Infidel.  You can also watch a speech of hers here.

Ayaan, you are a strong, brave and beautiful - in every sense of the word - women.  If we were ever to meet, I'd be happy to buy you a glass of wine, which I know you like.  Keep well.  Be safe.

Prof. Daniel Dennett
Here is the secret to happiness according to Daniel Dennett.

Find something more important than yourself and dedicate your life to it.

I think that is quite brilliant.  I have taken his advice to heart and have indeed found happiness.

Dennett is a philosopher by trade and - in my opinion - one of the most brilliant men on the planet.  His book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, is the book that has single greatest influence on my life.  It is that good.  It allowed me to finally break free from the lingering shackles of Christianity and face the world anew.

Some of ideas are just plain old brilliant.  Here are some samples:

• Compulsory Religious Education
  Let's list some ideas: Mohammed ascended to heaven on a winged horse; Vishnu sustains and governs the universe; the communion bread and the wine literally become the body and blood of Christ.
  
  At most, one of the ideas will seem plausible to you.  Which one is it?  Well, it depends on your upbringing.  Bible Belt folk will most likely believe the whole transubstantiation thing, Hindus the Vishnu thing and so on.
  
  Every religion has some crazy ideas at it heart.  Everybody can see they are crazy, except for the people in the religion.  Some of these crazy ideas are downright dangerous.  Sunni and Shiites regularly slaughter each other over just where the true lineage of Mohammed lies.
  
  What can we do about this?
  
  Dennett suggests that we have compulsory religious education.  Every kid would be required to learn the four R's: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Religion.  They would learn the basic tenants of all the major religions. 
  
  If we give children the opportunity to think - and not be indoctrinated into the religion that their parents happen to be - then they can make sensible informed decision.  One would hope that if they see the crazy ideas at the heart of every religion, then they'll choose no religion.  But hey, if they happen choose religion A, then more power to them.  At least it was an informed decision.
  
  
• Distill Religion for its Good Parts
  Some folk think all religions are evil and that evil and the world would be better without them.  I sometimes think this way myself.  Dennett says something like:
  
  Well hold on there.  There is undoubtedly some evil things that have been done in the name of religion, but what about the good things?  Maybe we should study religion and find out how we can remove the extreme things that cause evil, and keep the good things?
  
  This is the basic premise of his latest book, Breaking the Spell.  The spell he wants to break is that it is wrong to study religion.  If you are not religious, then it pays to study religion to see where it came from and where it is going.  If you are religious, then it is surely in your best interest to study your religion so that you know what makes it tick and how you can further your own religious agendas.  There is no good reason not to study religion. 
  
  After answering the question "Should we study religion?" in the affirmative, Dennett proceeds to give a blow by blow account of how we got from a world with no religion to a world filled with such bizarre cultural features as the Wailing Wall, Catholicism and Mecca. 
  

Prof. Dennett, if we were ever to meet, I would most assuredly buy you a beverage of your choice.  Your books are just brilliant and have had a profound and positive effect on my life

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs is an economist by trade, and a crusader for the poor at heart.  His book The End of Poverty, has been very influential on my thinking about poverty and what meaningful (there's that word again) things I can do in places like the Philippines and Africa.  (You can see my copy of his book lying on an African floor here.)

The main point of Sachs' book is that it is not hard to fix poverty.  We know what the solutions are.  We just have to do them. 

Wanna reduce malaria?  Well, get mosquito nets in the hands of the poor, educate them in their use, give antihistamines to those who contract it anyway, and Bam!, you've saved many lives in Africa.

Wanna minimize the affect of AIDS? Well, set up health clinics with trained personals, and get ARVs into the hands of those who need them.

Wanna boost up the economy?  Well, build some damn decent roads!

Ditto for building schools, getting electricity to all, increasing crop yields, and so on.

"Aha", says the pessimist, "How you gonna fund that, huh?"

Well, at the turn of the century, just about every modern country pledged to give 0.7% of their GDP to a fund.  That equates to 70 cents from every $100 you earn.  This would mean $70 to every extremely poor person in the world.  This would be more than enough to fund roads, schools, hospitals, clinics, electricity lines, ARVs...

The big problem is - of course - that countries are not following through on their promise.  I mentioned this way back over here.

Jeffrey Sachs, like Daniel Dennett is just packed full of good idea.  One I really like is the deal he suggests aid workers make with farmers.  They'll increase the farmers' crop yields by 50% if they give 10% of the yields to the local schools for lunch programs.

There are - of course - the naysayers who say his big ideas won't work.  As a (preemptive?) response to this, Sachs set up the Millennium Villages - which you can read more about here.  Needless to say, the Millennium Villages are flourishing.

Prof. Sachs, if I ever have the pleasure of meeting you, I would most assuredly buy you a beer.  If I could achieve a tenth of what you've done, then my life will be well spent. 

Bill Gates?!  Wtf?  Why would I buy Bill Gates a beer?  Many people see Bill Gates - the richest man in the world and the man behind Microsoft - as a symbol of everything that is wrong in the world.  Capitalism gone mad.

Well, this might all be true but Bill Gates has changed his focus.  He is now a billionaire philanthropist.  The vast majority of his sizeable fortune has been channeled into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - which, among other things, is working on:

• Fighting Diseases such as:
  
  • Acute Diarrheal Illness
    
    
  • Acute Lower Respiratory Infections
    
    
  • Child Health
    
    
  • HIV/AIDS
    
    
  • Malaria
    
    
  • Poor Nutrition
    
    
  • Reproductive and Maternal Health
    
    
  • Tuberculosis
    
    
  • Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
    
    
• Research including:
  • Needle-less vaccines
    
    
    
  • Vaccines that don't require refrigeration
    
    
    
  • Preventing insects from spreading disease
    
    
    
• Global Development
  • Agriculture Development
    
    
  • Financial Serices for the poor
    
    
  • Global Libraries

I could list more, but I won't.  If Bill Gates achieves just one of these things, he will of had a profound and positive affect on the world.

Warren Buffet - currently listed as the world's second richest man - has also donated the vast majority of his wealth to the foundation.

Mr. Gates, if we ever to meet you in real life, I would buy you a beer.  I'm sure you could probably afford your own one, but you get the point... 

I've met a million cool people on my travels.  None of them as famous as Bill Gates, or as clever as Daniel Dennett, or with as much influence as Jeffry Sachs.  But everyone of them shares the courage of Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Take this guy for example.  He saw too many road deaths in his neighborhood, so he got some cardboard and old clothes and made a stop-go sign to control traffic and allow kids to safely cross the road.  His simple actions have saved many lives.

Or how about, Nasubuga.  Nasubuga is and old lady and runs a small school in Uganda (where Nakalema used to gand Nanta go to by the way).  She gets no glory, no big pay check and hardly anybody outside of her neighborhood knows she exists.  Many children, however, get an education because of her.

Or, how about Loise?  She works her butt off in an orphanage in war-torn Kitgum. 

Or my crazy Filipino journalist friend who risks his life to get the truth out there. 

Or the Rwandan man who weeps everyday for lost loved ones, but still tells his story.

The list goes on and on. 

I would gladly buy a beer for any one of them.