I am a large admirer of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The world's richest man -- whose company's software is allowing me to type this -- has given away billions to fight certain diseases and help global health on a scale that's hard to comprehend, let alone measure.

On that vein, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation just today pledged $83.5 million to fight malaria on a global scale. The pledge will provide for better controls, vaccine research and prevention of a the disease malaria -- which kills more than a million people a year.

The Foundation -- which is the world's largest charity -- has given $765 million to fight malaria since its founding. Malaria, when looked at from a killer scale, results in the death of someone in the world every 30 seconds. Melinda Gates -- wife of Bill and co-chair of the Foundation itself -- said "The continuing toll of malaria is a moral outrage -- we would not allow it in the U.S., and we should not allow it anywhere."