Billionaire Bill Wastes Dividend on Charity
It's been an exceptionally sunny in Seattle these days, and the weather seems to have gone straight to Bill Gates' head. Showing a $60 billion cash-and-stock surplus, Microsoft has announced it will pay a one-time dividend of $32 billion to its shareholders, or three dollars per share. As chairman and chief shareholder, Gates stands to receive $3 billion personally.... and has decided to donate it all to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, our Bill's kooky $30 billion side project dedicated to global health, education, public libraries, and support for at-risk (read: poor) families in Washington state and Oregon. "While our family foundation is making progress, there remain so many urgent needs and challenges that we must address together as a society," Gates' wife and charity co-founder Melinda said in a statement yesterday.

Well, yes, Melinda, you couldn't be more right. In other news, the Washington Post announced that in this year's fundraising race, the Dems are beating the GOP like a red-headed stepchild with a mouthful of potty swears. Based on reports from the Federal Election Commission, John Kerry and the major Democratic Party committees have raised more money from Jan. 1st to June 30th 2004 than Our President and Leader George Bush and the Republican national and congressional fundraising committees combined. This is the first time such a travesty has occured since that Dark Year of Our Lord, 1992 when, I don't need to remind you, a certain unwashed Arkansan got his grubby hands on just enough of the loot to win the White House. In June alone, according to numbers released today by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has outraised the NRCC by $2.2 million, $9.2 mil to $7.0 mil.

Does Windows Boy realize what a fraction of his dividend could do to close this gap?? While we all know he can't simply cut a $3 billion check to the NRCC (thanks a lot, McCain-Feingold), he could at least invest in upping the production values in recent campaign commercials. I mean, the man 'invented' Windows (shut up, Steve Jobs) -- Couldn't he do something nifty with Windows MovieMaker? MoveOn.org is really kicking our heinies in the nifty smear-ad department. Clearly Gates, whose last act of patriotic spending was the unfathomably tiny amount allowed by federal election guidelines in September 2003, could stand to Do His Bit, as they say.

- posted by Alexis Anna Rolles