Is this for your cell phone, a "landline", or both?

How does one go about this and confirm that the block is in place. Is this legally required of phone companies (cell, landline, VOIP, cable phone providers)?

3rd party billing is clearly something that should be required by law to be explicitly opt-in.

You are OK with religious beliefs no longer being a protected class for employees. You are not OK with the government setting minimum requirements for businesses above a certain size or fitting some other categorical description. This has nothing to do with contraception and religious views for you. You just want employer to have "expanded freedoms" with less limitations from the government.

Am I interpreting you correctly? Are there any limitations that should be place on employers in your opinion? Is OSHA, in any way, appropriate?

I don't see why religious organizations or organizations funded by religious organizations or organizations managed or owned by religious people should have an exception to following a broad mandate for minimum coverage of health care plans for organizations required to offer or voluntarily offer such plans to employees. You now seem to be arguing that the minimum coverage should not be mandated at all for any employer and no employer should be required to offer health care plans to employees (with the exception of governments as employers). This is not the argument that you were making earlier.

Whoosh...

Not really. If an employer found out that you were planing to use money from the raise you were asking for in order to buy a placard to protect outside of an abortion clinic and denied you the raise solely on that basis as such an act is against the employer's religion, would you have a problem with that? What if the employer fired you on the basis that you spent some of your wages (or is it still the employers wages in your view?) to hold a vigil near on a public piece of land that your employer thought was sacred and should not be stood upon?

This kind of thing is illegal. It is discrimination against a religious belief. Just as denying someone income due to their religious beliefs (nothing wrong with buying condoms) is illegal. Reducing employees' benefits covered in employer subsidized health insurance is a reduction in pay. It's kind of like saying, "I don't think I should pay minimum wage because I know my employee will use it to buy condoms and I'm catholic."

This is the most insightful post on this article. I'm all for consumer information. But not at any cost. This issue needs to be hashed out a bit longer rather than put up to a vote with out much prior public discussion.

Whoosh...

I'll give you the Tax break part, but it seems irrelevant. The tax breaks pale in comparison to the amount he gives away. He's giving away way more than he makes each year and has been doing so since circa 1994. If that is the way he is increasing his influence. I'm OK with that. Why aren't you?

You haven't answered any of the questions I posed. You've continued to assume malice on the Gates' motivations. Yet you have no support for your claims. His actions since 1994 have indicated that he is genuinely interested in helping as much as he can with his philanthropy. Have you even read their audited financial statements that they are not required to share but do anyway?

Um. No. Not even close.
If you want to bitch about using foundations as a tax shelter while being minimally compliant for tax purposes look at Ingvar Kamprad and the Stichting INGKA Foundation and the Interogo Foundation

But he doesn't own the Foundation or the Trust. The Gates give more to the Foundation and Trust each year than their combined incomes. The Foundation and Trust must spend a minimum of ~$1.5 billion per year on philanthropic work to maintain its status as a charitable foundation (which it continues to maintain). Additionally, it must give another ~$1.5 billion per year on philanthropic work as a condition of Buffet's donation. All of the resources of the Trust and Foundation will be spent within 50 years of the Gates' deaths. Neither Bill Gates nor any of his family draw a salary from the Trust or Foundation.

Further, the foundation has convinced Monsanto to give its IP royalty free to the farmers the Foundation is trying to help.

None of what you claim adds up.

Except Gates doesn't benefit, so it doesn't make any sense.

This is baseless and shallow.

Well, if you are going to make the argument that all acts are selfish, it is hard to single out the Gates for personal self-aggrandizement as a criticism.

You should read what he writes and says in interviews about what his motivations and goals are. Particularly the one where he tries to give Mark Zuckerberg advice on his vast wealth.

  "Frankly speaking, the only reason I see to kill off the foundation after Bill & Melinda die is ..." look further.

Again, why is it bad that the foundation makes a return on it's endowment? Why is it bad that Merck sell drugs at a discounted rate? Why is it bad to become dependent on the only company that can help you grow enough crops to survive? (BTW the Gates foundation is getting Monsanto to give farmers royalty free licenses to use their protected technologies, i.e., seeds.)

I guess if you assume lies and bad motivations, anything the Gates do can be viewed as malevolent...

The first time I heard Scheherazade it was by recommendation of guttentag on slashdot.org who provided a link to a recording of it on musopen.org. I didn't know what it was, but it got my attention.

Thank You.

This makes no sense. He's giving his money away (the vast majority of it). He's repeatedly said that when he and his wife die, the foundation will give all of it's money away within X years (I think I remember the number being 10 or 20). When he makes more, he just has more to give away. So is this an evil plot to do more good?

Thanks for the link, excerpt, and summary.