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Bill Gates, Business Personality 

•  Born: 28 October 1955

•  Birthplace: Seattle, Washington

•  Best Known As: Founder and head of the Microsoft Corporation

Gates is the head of the software company Microsoft and one of the world's wealthiest men. Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in the 1970s, though Allen left the company in 1983. Gates oversaw the invention and marketing of the MS-DOS operating system, Windows, the Internet Explorer browser, and a multitude of other popular computer products. Along the way he gained a reputation for fierce competitiveness and aggressive business savvy. During the 1990s rising Microsoft stock prices made Gates the world's wealthiest man; his wealth has at times exceeded $75 billion, making Gates a popular symbol of the ascendant computer geek of the late 20th century.

Gates married Melinda French, a Microsoft employee, on 1 January 1994. The couple have a daughter, Jennifer, born in 1996, and a son, Rory, born in 1999.

inheritance tax

A tax imposed on the privilege of receiving property by inheritance or legal succession and assessed on the value of the property received. Also called death tax.

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Federal Reserve System

A U.S. banking system that consists of 12 federal reserve banks, with each one serving member banks in its own district. This system, supervised by the Federal Reserve Board, has broad regulatory powers over the money supply and the credit structure.

Corporate law 

Corporations law or corporate law is the law concerning the creation and regulation of corporations. A corporation is a group of people which are legally treated as a person; the corporation can own property, sign contracts, sue, and be sued.

Corporate law refers to the law governing the relationships among shareholders and management. For example, corporate law can answer the question: under what circumstances may a corporation rent property from a director? Corporate law governs such areas as the duties that directors and officers have to the corporation, the occasions that require a shareholder vote, annual shareholder meetings, the number and type of shares that can be issued by the corporation, and dissolution of the corporation. Corporate law also sometimes includes securities laws, which govern the conditions under which corporations can issue shares and is aimed at preventing fraudulent offering schemes.

Corporate law does not include law that relates the corporation to third parties, such as commercial law, antitrust law, and environmental law.

In the United States corporations are regulated by both Federal and state governments and must comply with local law where it is applicable. However, they are chartered by the individual states and applicable rules, regulations, and law can vary dramatically from state to state.

advocacy 

Advocacy is an umbrella term for organized activism related to a particular set of issues.

Unlike much propaganda, advocacy is expected to be non-deceptive and in good faith. Typical examples of advocacy in the computing world include operating system advocacy and open source advocacy.

Issue advocacy is any speech relating to issues and the policy positions taken by political candidates and elected officials. It can be as simple as a single statement or it can be as involved as a multimillion dollar campaign of broadcast and print advertisements that spreads the same message. Any group or individual can engage in issue advocacy. A message stops being issue advocacy if it expressly endorses the election or defeat of a candidate.

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block grant 

A financial aid package that grants federal money to state and local governments for use in social welfare programs, such as law enforcement, community development, and health services. Block grants provide money for general areas of social welfare, rather than for specific programs. This arrangement not only reduces bureaucratic red tape, but also allows grant recipients more freedom to choose how to use the funds. A product of Republican administrations in the 1970s and 1980s, block grants reduce federal responsibility for social welfare.

state of the art

The highest level of development, very up-to-date, as in This new television set reflects the state of the art in screen technology. Despite including the word art, this term originated in technology, and its first recorded use appears in a 1910 book on the gas turbine. Today it is often used adjectivally, as in This is a state-of-the-art camera, and sometimes very loosely, as in That movie is state-of-the-art Woody Allen.

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Grassroot 

A political lobby movement organized by a network of citizens. Inspired by the German word "Keimform" Grassroot activists want change in the political institutions by non-violent action. Grassroot activists reject hierarchical and ideological organisation structures.

Federalist Society 

The Federalist Society began at Yale Law School in 1982 as a student organization that challenged what it saw as the orthodox liberal ideology found in most law schools. Its members argued that, while some members of the academic community dissented from orthodox views that advocated a centralized and uniform society, by and large those views were taught simultaneously with the law and were presented in academic settings as if they were law.

The Society currently has chapters at 145 law schools in the United States, including all of the top-20-ranked law schools, as well as a parent organization for conservatives and libertarians who are interested in the current state of the legal order, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. In its Statement of Principles, the Society states that it is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of powers is central to the United States' constitutional form of government, and that the role of the judicial branch is to say what the law is, not what the law should be.

The Society seeks to promote the ideology set forth in its Statement of Principles through its activities. In working to achieve these goals, the Society has created a network of intellectuals that extends to all levels of the legal community. The Student Division has more than 5,000 law students as members and, through the national office's network of legal experts, the Society provides speakers for differing viewpoints at law school events. The activities of the Student Division are complemented by the activities of the Lawyers Division, which comprises more than 20,000 legal professionals, and the Faculty Division, which includes many of the rising stars in the academic legal community.

Some critics of the Federalist Society see the organization as a bastion for conservatives who present their right-wing views as being right and proper. Indeed, the Society does have many prominent conservative members, including United States Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, former United States Circuit Court Judge Robert Bork, former United States Attorney General Edwin Meese, and former California Attorney General Dan Lungren. The Society also has many prominent libertarians who are members and frequent speakers at Society events, such as Professor Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago Law School; Professor Randy Barnett of Boston University School of Law, and Roger Pilon, Director of Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute.

Some people who don't ascribe to the Statement of Principles on which the Federalist Society is based nevertheless respect the Society for aspiring to be a force for serious, intellectual discussion and debate. For example, ACLU president Nadine Strossen, who is a frequent participant in Federalist Society conferences, has said that the Federalist Society has made a "marvelous contribution" to free speech, free debate, and public understanding, awareness, and appreciation of the Constitution. Dean Paul Brest of Stanford Law School - decidedly not a conservative - has credited the Federalist Society for bringing a "commitment to real, honest, vigorous, and open discussion," and for creating "a wonderful environment for discussing social, political, legal, and constitutional issues."

Members hope the Federalist Society is seen as a non-partisan organization that seeks to foster spirited debate of constitutional issues and public policy questions. Some events the Society sponsors attract noteworthy participants and attendees who do not share the views of the Society's conservative and libertarian members. Moreover, on many issues they see as important, such as drug legalization, there is a clear split in opinion between conservative and libertarian Society members.