HiredMan's Journal: Bill Gates - AntiChrist or just Evangelical Creationist?

Alright, I'll admit it. I'm pissed - in just about every sense of the word. I'm pissed at Bill Gates on a number of levels, pissed (well at least annoyed) at the Slashdot editors and perhaps a little drunk. (Which is a meaning only if you're British.)

I submitted an article to our beloved Slashdot about the subject I'm about to mention and wasn't terribly surprised with I saw this: Bill Gates - Closet Creationist? - Monday August 22, @10:03PM - Rejected

But that wasn't what inspired me to blog^H^H^H^H journal this subject it was actually inspired by the fact that I've been chasing a bug for the past week (maybe a week and a half) in which .asp sessions seem to randomly loose variables. People have been yelling at me about this ever since around the time of the SP2 upgrade and I've been trying to track it down. Finally, after exhausting EVERY setting - both on the server and on the browser, replacing every global.asa, after searching and editing every include file and after intermittent successes reported by users I finally discovered today that using IIS 6.0 and Windows Server 2003 .asp sessions will (no matter what you do) randomly loose variables. But this isn't the worst of it. The kicker is - it is an Explorer specific bug. I downloaded Firefox and was able to successfully fill out the form 5 times while the simultaneous Explorer session logged one success and then failed four more times in succession.
I immediately had to delete my test posts because they were (I think understandably) filled with comments like, "Fuck Bill Gates right the ear!!!!!" and some other things that were impolite (and perhaps inappropriate for work) as well. (See my previous journal for more of what I think of Microsoft.) So without further ado - here is the article that the Slashdot editors didn't think was worthy of your time or their space...

Our story starts with a place called the "Discovery Institute". The "institue" is financially backed by funds from people who back a heavy evangelical Christian agenda. The "institute" is the genius behind a number of recent rash of "intelligent design" mentions in the news including the focus group tested talking points of "teach the controversy" that President Bush seems to have picked up recently out of the blue.
"So what?" you say, evangelical Christians have as much right to found pseudo-institutes that back pseudo-science as much as any other cult, right? "This is America - the land founded on freedom to practice whatever wacko religion is frowned upon in the old country."

The difference here is is that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributes 1 million dollars a year and specifically $50,000 of the directors $141,000/year salary.
At least according to this NY Times article. (See page 2 for the gory details.)

So what are we to make of this? The seemingly secular and pro-education Bill Gates paying a million dollars a year to fund dissemination of religion dressed as pseudo-science in both the political and education realms? Why is his institute that actually does some decent things with his (obviously undeserved) money backing this lunatic venture? Is there more to the agenda of the Foundation than we know or is this simply an oversight?

And perhaps most importantly, why is it everytime I start to think, "Maybe Bill Gates _isn't_ the focus of evil in the modern world" does he actively do something to remind me that he is?

=tkk

PS And about the Server issue? Since for at least some of the realms I think Explorer is the only "approved" browser so I'll probably forced to add a bunch of trash session variables around the variables I really need in hopes that Explorer will "lose" the chaff variables rather than the ones I really need. I couldn't bring myself to write such ugly, pointless, hackish code today. I'l try to face it tomorrow - with the hangover from drinking today. Thanks to Bill...

"He drove me to drink and it's the only good thing I can say about him!"

PPS Maybe I'll even change my .sig to point to my journal. This would mean changing my /. .sig for the first time _ever_. (Note the ID number.) Am I that pissed? I just about am...
More on the "Discovery Institute".