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Bill Gates to Receive Honorary UK Knighthood
jolyon writes "Yahoo is reporting that Bill Gates will receive his honorary UK knighthood on Wednesday. He doesn't get to call himself 'Sir' though. He becomes a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire."
So, exactly how much money does one need in order to be called "Sir"?
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"The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place." (Douglas Adams)
:-)
Now all he needs is the shining armour
Knight of... what?
I have a few stolen original Windows CDs. There were 80 or so in the box so, already installed on computers they had been shipped with, so I grabbed a handfull and pocketed them. So now I have them, the owner doesn't. I wasn't caught red-handed, so I'm quite safe, any control will show a bunch of legal Windows CDs. I can even sell them now for profit legally. Unless they find the original CDs are missing, and find out who took them (quite impossible now), I'm perfectly safe.
But if I copied them, the original owner would still have them. But if they checked my property they would find a box of "stolen Windows CDs" and prosecute me for them.
This is the model of the world mr Gates is promoting. Is that the virtue he received the knighthood for?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
But he's given enough of what he stole to decent charities that I say let him be crowned or sainted or venerated by the sort of people who do that sort of thing. As long as he keeps giving to charities, I just don't care.
=brian
he has done wonderful things through his Bill and Melinda Gates foundation
Here's a question:
If a criminal gives a small proportion of his ill-gotten gains to good causes, does he deserve an award?
- Brian.
You have to be a British Subject to be called 'Sir'. For Bill Gates, that would mean a lot of taxe$ - probably more than he is willing to spend, and very expensive indeed.
It's odd that all it takes to get the civilian hono(u)rariums that a country has to offer is a lot of dough. I watched "The age of Wal*Mart" the other night. It featured a scene where George Bush I placed the Medal Of Freedom (highest US civilian honor) around Sam Walton's neck. I was like: For what? Being really rich? Maybe there was some charity involved somewhere with either Billy Gates or Sam Walton, but on a percentage-of-wealth scale, they don't look more impressive than the same level of giving by a poorer person. Heck donating 5% of income is a heroic sacrifice for the average Wal*Mart employee, but for Sam Walton, or Bill Gates, giving 99% would leave them still extremely wealthy and living like kings. Less impressive, really than the cashier who donates 5%.
It's just the British. We have a big thing for pomp and ceremony, helps keep things moving.
I believe the US invented a lot of things along a similar vein - useless things given for no reason. The Oscars, for example.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
You mean he's done something more wonderful than what could have been done if all those billions had not been siphoned out of the economy? This is the "breaking windows creates profit" line of thinking. It's total crap. How about not ripping people off in the first place? Coercing people to give you $40 billion and then giving $10 million back is not charity.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
of the US constitution:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
(emphasis mine)
So, Mr. Bill could be Sir Bill if he can get Congress to pass a bill giving him permnission to receive it. As it is, he can only receive the "honorary" honour, so to speak.
Recent American KBE's (according to my friend Google) include Tommy Franks, Alan Greenspan, Wesley Clark and Andres Previn. Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell, a KCB, which IIRC is more exclusive. Of course, Reagan, Bush the First and Cap Weinberger got GCBs, which is a more exclusive degree than KCB.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Americans don't kneel to any so-called "sovereign".
Friggin' disgrace he is.
-- The Funk, The Whole Funk, And Nothing But The Funk
Maybe with some luck the Queen will have a bad day with her computer "feature full of bugs, viruses, and various vulnerabilities" and haul him off to the dungeon for public disservice instead.
When was the last time the Queen had someone imprisoned anyway?
Hah! In honor of this occasion, I shall make a rap song, to the tune of mc chris's "Fette's Vette":
"Runtime exception, In windows explorer
Hit ctrl-alt-del to restart your session
Problem has stumped nerdy computer geeks,
even if they thought they was leet!
Reformat!
C: fried!
Hackers gettin past your firewall, no sweat!
They gotta have your boxxor to roxxor with botnets
My Name is The Gates;
My bank account got yo checks;
I monopolize for Melinda Gates, to pay off Viagra debts."
Okay, I gotta go get lunch. Someone else finish this : )
Not more pomp and tradition. You Americans might love it, but im sick of all the crap that goes on in this country. Why do we have such rubbish traditions here in the UK??
Look at Europe - yes Europe, any European hating beer drinking louts (hopefully they cant use a keyboard let alone a PC). Simple formal parliaments, not morons in an old fashioned ornate horrible old building who yell at each other like children instead of agreeing when things are a good idea, and constructively working towards a sollution to things which need solving.
Why does the prime minister have to follow silly old traditions where he goes and talks to the queen and all that crap? Hello there was a civil war, parliament won, and at that point we should have formed a secular, truly democratic state like france attempted at that point. But no... instead we have some horrible mess of inefficiency.
Dont get me started on how if the royal familly has all their money and businesses, that MY taxes that I pay for working hard, are paid to those morons who do NOTHING for me!!!
Knighthood indeed, he can have it. Outdated tacky traditional crap.
Honorary Convicted Monopolist or something
Okay, this just sounds really stupid at this point. I know this is way off-topic, but can one be a convicted monopolist? Doesn't convicted imply "found guilty of doing something wrong?" Being a monopoly isn't illegal. Misusing one is. Microsoft has been *declared* a monopoly by the courts. But I don't think they were *convicted* of it.
I work for a company that has been declared a Fortune 500 company. Not one that has been convicted of being a Fourtune 500 company.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Of the Constitution states:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Office of profit? Perhaps that means someone who controls vast amounts of money.
Does this deny, and make unconstitutional Bill Gates's "reward"?
Small fraction? Nope. He's publicly stated he will give 95% of his wealth away.