Eideard

Sony is preparing to ban gamers from the PlayStation Network (PSN) unless they waive the right to collectively sue it over future security breaches. The firm has amended PSN’s terms and conditions and users have to agree to them next time they log in…

The new clauses, dubbed “Binding Individual Arbitration,” state that “any Dispute Resolution Proceedings, whether in arbitration or court, will be conducted only on an individual basis and not in a class or representative action or as a named or unnamed member in a class, consolidated, representative or private attorney general action”…

Those that want to opt out will have to send a letter to Sony’s Los Angeles headquarters in the US. Once they do, the subscribers will be able to keep their right to file a class action lawsuit without any need for arbitration.

But before subscribers have a chance to opt out, they will still be required to agree to the new terms the next time they log into their accounts. Otherwise they will not be able to use the online services.

In many countries, forcing individuals to agree to contracts which violate constitutional rights – are automatically invalid. Someone might mention that to Sony.

A new analysis published by the UK journal Reproductive Health Matters shows that the criminalisation of abortion in Poland has led to the development of a vast illegal private sector with no controls on price, quality of care or accountability. Since abortion became illegal in the late 1980s the number of abortions carried out in hospitals has fallen by 99%. The private trade in abortions is, however, flourishing, with abortion providers advertising openly in newspapers.

Women have been the biggest losers during this push of abortion provision into the clandestine private sector. The least privileged have been hardest hit: in 2009 the cost of a surgical abortion in Poland was greater than the average monthly income of a Polish citizen. Low-income groups are less able to protest against discrimination due to lack of political influence. Better-off women can pay for abortions generating millions in unregistered, tax-free income for doctors. Some women seek safe, legal abortions abroad in countries such as the UK and Germany.

“In the private sector, illegal abortion must be cautiously arranged and paid for out of pocket,” says Agata Chełstowska, the author of the research and a PhD student at the University of Warsaw. “When a woman enters that sphere, her sin turns into gold. Her private worries become somebody else’s private gain.” The Catholic Church, highly influential in predominantly Catholic Poland, leads the opposition to legal abortion.

Since illegality has monetised abortion, doctors have incentives to keep it clandestine, “Doctors do not want to perform abortions in public hospitals,” says Wanda Nowicka, Executive Director of the Federation for Women and Family Planning. “They are ready, however, to take that risk when a woman comes to their private practice. We are talking about a vast, untaxed source of income. That is why the medical profession is not interested in changing the abortion law.”

The kind of “morality” enforced by religious fools, stuck into the Dark Ages. Just in case anyone wonders what might follow the Kool Aid Party and the rest of the Republican Crusaders.

The abortion rate in the United States, which has declined steadily since a 1981 peak of more than 29 abortions per 1,000 women, stalled between 2005 and 2008, at slightly less than 20 abortions per 1,000 women, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute.

While the new report is a statistical survey and does not provide any explanation for why the numbers hit a plateau, Rachel Jones, the lead author, said the economy might have played a role.

“Unintended pregnancy is increasingly concentrated among poor and low-income women, and for the 2008 survey, we were collecting data in the midst of a recession,” Ms. Jones said. “So there are more poor women in the survey, women who in better economic times might have decided to carry to term, but since they or their partner lost their job, decided they couldn’t…”

The report found that more women were turning away from surgical abortion in favor of medication, usually mifepristone, the drug formerly known as RU-486, to end their pregnancies. The report estimates that about 17 percent of all 2008 abortions, and more than a quarter of those performed before nine weeks of gestation, were medication abortions.

Randall K. O’Bannon, director of education and research at the National Right to Life Committee, said the trend toward medication abortions had helped keep the abortion numbers steady…

Mifepristone was introduced in the United Sates in 2000, and according to the report, there were 187,000 medication abortions in 2008, compared with 158,000 the previous year. Many clinics that do not specialize in abortions offer only medication abortions.

Ms. Jones sees the increase in medication abortions as good news, because such abortions occur early in pregnancy, when abortion is safest…

The Guttmacher report found an increase in harassment of abortion providers, with clinics in the Midwest and the South the most likely to experience harassment and those in the Northeast and the West the least.

Do those statistics signify anything special to you?

Certainly, the geographic spread in harassment of women who feel they have a right to choose fits right into America’s politics and religion. And, frankly, whatever the application – I think most folks would choose pills over surgery when practical.

A pact grounded in love and mutual respect

Some are divorced and disenchanted with marriage; others are young couples ideologically opposed to marriage, but eager to lighten their tax burdens. Many are lovers not quite ready for old-fashioned matrimony.

Whatever their reasons, and they vary widely, French couples are increasingly shunning traditional marriages and opting instead for civil unions, to the point that there are now two civil unions for every three marriages.

When France created its system of civil unions in 1999, it was heralded as a revolution in gay rights, a relationship almost like marriage, but not quite. No one, though, anticipated how many couples would make use of the new law. Nor was it predicted that by 2009, the overwhelming majority of civil unions would be between straight couples.

It remains unclear whether the idea of a civil union, called a pacte civil de solidarité, or PACS, has responded to a shift in social attitudes or caused one. But it has proved remarkably well suited to France and its particularities about marriage, divorce, religion and taxes — and it can be dissolved with just a registered letter…

France recognizes only “citizens,” and the country’s legal principles hold that special rights should not be accorded to particular groups or ethnicities. So civil unions, which confer most of the tax benefits and legal protections of marriage, were made available to everyone. (Marriage, on the other hand, remains restricted to heterosexuals.) But the attractiveness of civil unions to heterosexual couples was evident from the start. In 2000, just one year after the passage of the law, more than 75 percent of civil unions were signed between heterosexual couples. That trend has only strengthened since then: of the 173,045 civil unions signed in 2009, 95 percent were between heterosexual couples…

As with traditional marriages, civil unions allow couples to file joint tax returns, exempt spouses from inheritance taxes, permit partners to share insurance policies, ease access to residency permits for foreigners and make partners responsible for each other’s debts. Concluding a civil union requires little more than a single appearance before a judicial official, and ending one is even easier…

Bravo – for trying something new, for modifying what was a stopgap, a halfway measure which would maintain diminished civil rights in a nation like the United States – which has become a step into extended liberty in France.

A new study has determined that teenagers who have abortions are no more likely to become depressed or have low self-esteem than their peers whose pregnancies do not end in abortion.

The study conducted by researchers from Oregon State University and University of California, San Francisco, is the first to use both depression and low self-esteem as outcomes with a nationally representative sample of adolescents.

The researchers found that young women in the study who had an abortion were no more likely to become depressed or have low self-esteem within the first year of pregnancy – or five years later – than their peers who were pregnant, but did not have an abortion…

Jocelyn Warren said previous research has shown that adolescent girls who get pregnant report more depression and lower self-esteem compared to those who don’t. “What we didn’t know was whether psychological outcomes are worse for girls who choose abortion. This study says, ‘No.’”

“In the interest of women’s health, it’s critical that we conduct the most rigorous studies possible and use evidence-based information to inform public policy,” Marie Harvey, co-author, said. “This is our goal in public health research but it may be even more important in areas such as abortion that are highly politicized.”

As a proper science-based study, the authors make the point that decisions about medical procedures should be evidence-based. Almost an impossible standard to reach given the farce that passes for lawmaking in the United States.

Nutballs trot out their pet ideology, favorite superstition, and ask the whole nation to adhere to whatever spooky crap they believe should be so. Scientific study, measured programmatic analysis over time, has minimal influence on hacks inclined to base political and social decisions upon myth – and possible votes.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

A soft-spoken 14-year-old’s nose piercing has landed her a suspension from school and forced her into the middle of a fight over her First Amendment right to exercise her religion.

Ariana Iacono says she just wants to be a normal teenager at Clayton High School, about 15 miles southeast of Raleigh. She has been suspended since last week because her nose ring violates the Johnston County school system’s dress code.

”I think it’s kind of stupid for them to kick me out of school for a nose piercing,” she said. ”It’s in the First Amendment for me to have freedom of religion.”

Iacono and her mother, Nikki, belong to the Church of Body Modification, a small group unfamiliar to rural North Carolina, but one with a clergy, a statement of beliefs and a formal process for accepting new members.

It’s enough to draw the interest of the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has contacted school officials with concerns that the rights of the Iaconos are being violated by the suspension…

On Tuesday, after her first suspension ended, Ariana went back to school with her mother — and her nose ring. She was suspended again, this time for five days. If she comes back to school on Sept. 21 with the nose stud, she’ll face a 10-day suspension or referral to ”alternative schooling,” Nikki Iacono said…

”We don’t worship the god of body modification or anything like that,” he said. ”Our spirituality comes from what we choose to do ourselves. Through body modification, we can change how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about the world.”

The church claims roughly 3,500 members nationwide, having started about two years ago, after adopting the name of a similar group that had been dormant for several years.

RTFA. Humorous, interesting. 99% of most Americans don’t have a clue what freedom of religion means in the broadly-held constitutional sense. I wouldn’t expect most school administrators to have any more of a clue.

Face it – this is a country that’s been going backwards for decades over religious crap, anyway.

Since Apple granted music labels the flexibility to set individual song prices between $0.69 and $1.29 on the iTunes Music Store, growth of digital music sales has slowed, one music executive has revealed.

According to Peter Kafka at MediaMemo, Warner Music Group revealed Tuesday that it has seen digital music sales slow down since the price increase took effect in April 2009. Digital album downloads grew 5 percent in December, down from 10 percent in the September quarter and 11 percent in the June quarter. Digital revenue is slowing as well: Warner saw 8 percent growth in the holiday quarter, versus 20 percent a year before.

Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. reportedly said the pricing change has been a “net positive” for Warner, but conceded that a 30 percent price increase during a recession was not the best move…

Do you think so? Idiot!

In early 2009, Apple convinced record labels to remove digital rights management from iTunes music downloads. But in the process, the Cupertino, Calif., company conceded price flexibility. Starting last April, some popular tracks saw a 30 percent increase in price, from 99 cents to $1.29.

Anyone believe the Music Barons have a clue about marketing to 21st Century consumers?

Spain’s socialist government has formally unveiled plans to liberalise the country’s abortion law. Under the proposal approved by the cabinet, abortion would be made available on demand for the first time.

Girls as young as 16 would be allowed to terminate a pregnancy without parental consent.

Ministers say it is about rights and respect for women.

The government’s proposal is that abortion should be made available on demand during the first 14 weeks of a pregnancy.

This is the latest ideological clash between Spain’s Catholic right and a left-wing government, which has already legalised gay marriage and made it easier to get divorced.

In my neck of the global prairie the whole confrontation is shifted further to the Right. Religious opposition is larger than just the Catholic Church, including every flavor of True Believer. The Left has no real voice in government outside of lip service from the Democrats.

US Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) is taking heat today for calling US Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia a homophobe during an interview with 365gay.com. When discussing gay marriage, Frank said he believed the issue would eventually make its way to the US Supreme Court, but said he wouldn’t want it to go there now because “that homophobe Antonin Scalia has got too many votes on this current court.”

Now, some of you may disagree and follow the reasoning that Scalia isn’t anti-gay, just anti-progressive. He’s a firm believer that the US Constitution is not a living document and it should be strictly construed as written in 1781 because, well, things just haven’t really changed that much since then, have they? And of course, everyone knows there were no gay people until the mid-20th century, around the same time those pesky blacks wanted their right to eat at the same table as whites.

If you really want proof that Scalia is a homophobe, all you have to do is read his scathing dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, the seminal 2003 case that struck down sodomy laws and affirmed gay citizens’ right to privacy denied to us by the hateful 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick. In Lawrence, Scalia compared homosexuality to bigamy, incest, prostitution, and bestiality. He also said homosexuality was contagious and that teachers could induce their students to become gay. He accused the Court of “signing on to the so-called homosexual agenda”. Scalia has said publicly that he considers being gay an “immoral lifestyle choice”.

I guess it’s a measure of progress that American bigots get upset nowadays if they’re identified as bigots. The United States has no more racism, no misogyny, no homophobes, no xenophobia.

In your dreams.