Rich Karlgaard of Forbes writes:

At an August 6, 2010 conference in Lake Tahoe, the richest and smartest guy in the room, Bill Gates, offered his opinion on the next big thing.

Ready?

Toilets. All kinds of toilets. Broadband biffies that email PSA counts to your doctor. Do-gooder dumpers that save water in the third world. ”[Toilets are] one of the greatest under investments,” Gates effused. ”Not much money goes into that. You end up with the low IQ guys on the toilets.”

I think what Bill is saying here is that low IQ guys go into the toilet industry.

If you know Gates – I once spent 5 days on the road with him – you’ll know he uses the term, IQ, a lot. Gates has always loved IQ. He loves it like a football coach loves 40-yard-dash speed. It never seems to occur to Gates that IQ has become a politically incorrect subject for many.

Which raises the question of who is actually running the Gates Foundation, which has devoted billions to educations fads, such "small learning communities" and to bullying school boards into requiring passing Algebra II to graduate from high school. It's just another example of today's lack of intellectual integration between private life and public policy discourse.

(To its credit, the Gates did, however, give $15 million to adding iodine to salt in Third World countries, which helps reduce cretinism.)