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Bill Gates to be Knighted
gexen writes "According to an article in the Telegraph Bill Gates is going to be knighted by the Queen of England for "services to the global enterprise." She's just handing them out like candy these days!"
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I forget what its called but Bill Gates cannot be "Knighted" with full title as he is not a british subject , its kinda like being knighted "lite"
Don't you need to be British to become a knight?
If you'd bothered to read the article, you'd know that it's Gordon Brown's work, not Blair's. The article states that the Blair camp is pissed off about it.
Thanks, I just found this doing a search "Citizens of countries which do not recognise the Queen as head of state sometimes have honours conferred upon them, in which case the awards are "honorary" - the holders are entitled to place initials behind their name but not style themselves "Sir ...". Examples of foreigners with honorary knighthoods are Bob Geldof and Rudolph Giuliani, while Arsene Wenger and Gerard Houllier have honorary OBE's. Recipients of honorary awards who later become subjects of Her Majesty may apply to convert their awards to substantive awards. There is no law preventing foreigners from holding a peerage, though only Commonwealth citizens can sit in the House of Lords. However, the Canadian prime minister was able to advise the Queen not to grant Conrad Black a titular honour while he remained a Canadian citizen. "
Because he's not a British citizen he can't officially be called 'Sir' Bill Gates, just Bill Gates KBE (no, not KDE).
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It is not the commies, the government, the nigger, nor the corporates. It is your paranoia.
At least torvalds doesn't donate money he didn't earn in a fair way
To correct myself... because he's not a citizen of a Commonwealth country (were he Canadian he could be called 'Sir'), rather than purely Britain itself.
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It is not the commies, the government, the nigger, nor the corporates. It is your paranoia.
Make that hereditary heads of state being told by the politicians who they will bestoe an honour upon.
Since the restoration (where the British asked the king back 'cos even he was less tyranical than the parlimentarian revolutionaries) the monarch has had no real power to do anything much. In fact the monarch is forbidden to do anything remotely seen as overtly political.
Honour lists are made up by Whitehall functionaries (civil servants) and the political classes, most notably the ones in power at the time. The majority of knighthoods are given to civil servants so that they can be given a certain level of job where one of the unofficial prerequisits for the position is the title. This is especially true in the Ministry of Defence. As for the others they seem to be all purely political "thank-yous."
The best argument for the current status quo with respect to the British constitutional monarchy is that the head of state has no political power and hence no politician craves the position. Hence, we don't have a power hungry lieing sod in the position, merely a grandmother in a disfunctional family.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
It probably has something to do with all the money he's donated to AIDS research and educational grants (warning, this link is to the gates foundation website so is certainly biased, but it does list the monetary amounts they've donated to various schools) in recent years.
I'll admit that he's not the best philanthropist, but he does donate a lot of money to a lot of organizations. He could just swim in it all day like Scrooge McDuck, so he deserves some definite props for doing what he does.
Don't sell him short just because he's mostly evil...
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
Unfortunately, That applies to officers of the government, not to businessmen.
In Europe, there's nothing strange in being a knight and a robber at the same time - the castles of the Raubrittern (robber knights) are actually a tourist attraction of the Rhine valley. If you want to try to convince Her Majesty to change Her mind, you have to prove that Bill Gates is a coward - but if you'll just say "Your Majesty, this man is a criminal!", the response would be "so fscking what, my dear subject?".
Were he Canadian, he couldn't be knighted at all. He would have to settle for an Order of Canada.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
From Wikipedia.org:
It's generally accepted that when the constitution speaks of "The United States" as if it were an entity, it is referring to the Government. He's a private citizen, he can get the knighting. Doing so will ensure we never have to worry about President Gates though. ;)
He is meaning the modern artist Francis Bacon (1909-1992).
I suspect that this was passed by Pierre Trudeau so that John Diefenbaker couldn't be knighted, but I have a nasty imagination.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I thought it was just that Canadians cannot be knighted without Parliamentary approval and that the Conrad Black thing was the exception rather than the rule.
you had to be a citizen of one of the countries that the queen is the head of state of?
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
>But what has arisen from this that would lead their
>chairman to be considered for an honorary knighthood?
> Thrust aside the seething hate for a second and just look.
> What accomplishments have arisen? Computers running
> software whoseprice/performance [tpc.org] is fantastic?
Well, both the initial software and BIOS were so simple they both would have been reverse engineered so this was probably inevitable anyway. The only difference is that MS made a license deal where the software wouldn't have to be. But, it is way out in left field to give Microsoft credit for these fast computers. Also, even if everything stayed proprietary there was price pressure within the old structure. There's absolutely no reason to believe that MS had anything to do with fast cheap computers. They didn't develop any of the hardware and they primarily keep the cost of computers UP not down.
> One of the easiest-to-develop-for video game consoles ever?
OK, easier than a PS2. But, you haven't developed for many consoles (obviously).
>Highly capable web servers that run some of the busiest
> sites--Dell.com, Nasdaq.com, MSNBC.com?
Ummm, since most of the internet is run on a competing web server that is "cheaper" and better in nearly every aspect this is ridiculous. Nadaq would run on a different server. If MS weren't around all this would likely be done more efficiently and cheaper.
>Software conformity (and all the positives and negatives that result)?
Whoever had the biggest share would be able to push this. But, even better, if there was no MS likely no one would have a share that could cause this. Then the conformity would have to come form the OS and not everyone else. That would be a much better situation. MS has done nothing to make things better there.
>As I said, this is intended to be an exercise, not a
> trumpeting endorsement, in the interests of shedding
> new light on this piece of news.
OK, so your exagerated and wrong statements were intentionally just that.
No - most of these refused lower honours, not knighthoods.
That says two things:
1 - The US Government does not grant titles of Nobility. It means they can't invent a "Noble" class and start knighting people, etc. This goes along wiht "All people are equal" and stuff.
2 - It says that, more or less, someone holding a public office or public trust cannot accept entitlements, gifts, knighthoods, etc, from a foreign monarch or government, without permission of congress.
So basically it means if Britain tries to knight Arnie, he has to refuse, or get permission from congress first.
The article specifically said he was getting an honorary KBE (Knight Commander).
It's based on the 1919 Nickle Resolution (and not Trudeau at all, oops), and it's all very very debatable (Scroll down a little.) In practical terms, the government of Canada should be told and approve (which it probably won't). Tony Blair's government seen fit to ignore that. (I'm shocked.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Tim Berners-Lee got the knighthood less than a month ago.
The Gates Foundation has an endowment of approximately $24 Billion. When you put $5 in the collection plate, you have, perhaps, paid for one meal for one homeless person. When you donate $24B, you can, among other things, spend more than $65,000,000 per year to treat AIDS in the developing world.
Look, you don't have to like Bill G's company or the software they make, but until you've figured out how to earn a few billion and donate it to charity, you should not try to insult the generosity of those who have.
Not, as you seem to assume, how much they have GIVEN.
AND your $65 million figure is spread over YEARS that haven't even passed yet.
Here's an example:
12.3.2003
TCI Foundation
$8,500,000 over 5 years to implement a large scale effective HIV preventive intervention among the truckers and associated sex workers of India
So, LAST MONTH they promised to give $8.5 million OVER THE NEXT 5 YEARS.
Which works out to about $1.7 million per year.
"Look, you don't have to like Bill G's company or the software they make, but until you've figured out how to earn a few billion and donate it to charity, you should not try to insult the generosity of those who have."
So, if I break the laws of this country and ILLEGALLY make lots of money, then it's all okay if I give back a TINY PERCENTAGE of to charity?
Like I said, anyone with $50,000 giving $5 every week at Church is doing THE EXACT SAME PERCENTAGE as someone with $1 Billion giving $100,000.
I wouldn't miss $10 a week and Bill certainly isn't missing that money.
It's easy to be "generous" when you won't even notice the "loss". So you admire Bill for doing something that is easy?
Now, I'm not going to be involved in a discussion about whether Bill Gates deserves honorary titles or not, but the royals in England have been under critisism for giving titles out like candies.
It is felt amongst some people that the titles are a way of trying to make artists and others conform.
A number of people have also been refusing the titles lately, like the poet Benjamin Zephaniah, who wrote this about it:
"The lure of meeting royalty
And touching high society
Is damping creativity and eating at our heart."
I was mod'ed up because it was "insightful". Deal with it.
.52% of $50,000.
....... $5.2 MILLION per year.
I was using those numbers as an example of how the PERCENTAGE works out.
Here they are again, slightly corrected.
Someone making $50,000 a year give $5 a week at church.
$5/week = $260 / year
Which is
Now, if we're talking about $1 billion, then the $5 equivalent is
So don't let the SIZE of the numbers fool you (as they obviously have with you). Look at all the factors. What percentage of his wealth he donates and what form the donations come in. It's easy for him to transfer a lot of Microsoft stock to his foundation because Microsoft gives him a LOT of stock.
Monopolies are not per se illegal under British Law. The top people at De Beers (world diamond monopoly based in London) cannot travel to the US because they are under indictment for illegal trade practices.
BTW he won't be Sir William since he is not a British subject. Neither is Speilberg Sir Steven. However, the difference between an honorary knighthood and a "real" one eludes me.
What's "criminal" is that they let you out of your cage every morning. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstech nology/2001734681_school18.html
Bob Geldof's knighthood is not honorary. He is addressed as Sir Bob Geldof. Giuliani, and others such as George Bush (Snr, not GWB), Steven Spielberg, and Alan Greenspan are honorary.
Err... KBE
/usr/games/fortune
Just on a technical note: he isn't permitted to prepend his name with the title "Sir" unless he is a subject of the Crown.
see here for an overview of the full british honours system
He can't be knighted, he can only be awarded a KBE, as he is not a British subject. KBEs don't even entitle a person to be called "sir".
That may be true.
Microsoft wrote OS/2! To say they broke its back is ridiculous! ... They couldnt sell it.
That is only part true and contains enough omisions to make it a deliberate lie. IBM also put lots of development into OS/2. They provided sane guidance but what they got from Microsoft was nothing compared to what it became. More importanlty, however, Microsoft did break OS/2 with anti-competive agreements with big PC makers that insured that OS/2 would always cost the end user more than Microsoft's offerings. Microsoft was convicted of breaking anti-trustlaws for that it is the main reason OS/2 lacked device drivers and never was adopted. It was a better system, it could have cost less and it is still better than Microsoft's current kludge, XP.
Today, free software is better and it will soon take over. Once again, IBM is on the bandwagon. They have always picked the best of breed. Microsoft's days are numbered because they can't lock out free.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The Canadian government, at least, would officially ask the British government to withdraw the nomination. It is the policy of our government that citizens, even joint citizens, may not accept foreign honours.
A few years ago, Conrad Black, a joint British-Canadian citizen, was nominated to be knighted. It might have had something to do with him being arch-nemesis of the Prime Minister of Canada at the time, but the knighting was blocked. So Conrad renounced his Canadian citizenship and went on to become Lord Black of Crossharbour.