The adult entertainment industry has long campaigned in favour of a special .xxx suffix, similar to the .com and .co.uk domain names used by other companies."
"Dr. Blackwell was also the first black tenured professor at the University of California at Berkeley, where he became chairman of the statistics department. ...
"While in Washington, he became interested in statistics after hearing a lecture by Agriculture Department statistician Meyer A. Girshick. After Dr. Blackwell challenged one of Girshick's assertions, the two met and became friends and colleagues.
"They wrote a 1954 book, "The Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions." It established them as leaders in the burgeoning field of game theory, which uses mathematics to understand winning strategies in situations that can be applied to economics, biology, engineering, political science and international relations. "
Steve Leider writes:
The Indian Parliament will be considering legislation to regulate the practice of commercial surrogacy in India. There are approximately 350 clinics overseeing an estimated 1500 pregnancy attempts annually, one third of which involve foreigners, making up a $445 million industry. Surrogacy in India is much cheaper than in the United States: “The entire process costs customers around $23,000 — less than one-fifth of the going rate in the U.S. — of which the surrogate mother usually receives about $7,500 in installments.”
Surrogacy in India has been largely unregulated since being legalized in 2002 - the Indian Council of Medical Research issued guidelines in 2005, but IVF clinics often establish their own policies. The draft legislation proposes several substantial restrictions:
“Exploitation of surrogates by infertile couples, and vice versa, has been a serious concern ever since in-vitro fertilization (IVF) started in India. ‘But this will put an end to it. Infertile couples don't have to go hunting for surrogate mothers. The bank will help them get one. As a result, the couple will have all information about her background and medical history before hiring her womb,’ said Dr R S Sharma, deputy director general of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), who has been involved in the process of drafting the Bill.”
“These banks - both private and government - will be accredited by state boards. The board will also have a registration authority which will maintain a list of all IVF centres and monitor their functioning. ‘So far we didn't have any law regarding surrogacy. This is a step towards legalizing surrogacy and fixing responsibilities of the parties involved in the process," said Dr Sharma’”….
“These ART [Assisted Reproductive Technology] banks will be independent of IVF clinics. Oocyte (unfertilized egg) and semen preservation will be their main focus. ‘In the past few years, IVF clinics have mushroomed in the country. There is no check on their practices. There is no quality check on the semen and oocytes preserved by them and offered to infertile couples. These banks will have a proper system, where every minor detail about gametes and surrogates will be documented,’ said a senior doctor at AIIMS who too is involved in the drafting of the bill.”
“Experts say that once a bank is in place, it will maintain a database of surrogate mothers. A woman is allowed five live births, including her own children. ‘It has been seen that poor women sell their womb several times for money. This has a damaging effect on their body. The new bill clearly states that a woman can't have more than five live births and donate oocytes more than six times in her life,’ said Dr Sharma.”….
“The bill proposes stringent rules for foreigners looking for surrogate mothers. It will be mandatory for foreign couples to submit two certificates - one on their country's policy on surrogacy and the other stating that the child born to the surrogate mother will get their country's citizenship. "They also have to nominate a local guardian, who will take care of the surrogate during the gestation period," said Dr Sharma.”
Prominent IVF doctors like Dr. Nayna Patel (who was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2007) have objected to the new regulations:
It's a suggestion that has caused a stir in the medical community. Patel insists that she will not accept a surrogate sent to Akanksha unless she herself is permitted to perform medical and background checks. She maintains that ART banks will not have enough experience to determine whether a woman is fit for surrogacy, let alone replicate the personal bonds she cultivates with her surrogates. ‘The trust they have with me is what makes the whole thing secure and safe,’ she says. ‘And at the end, when they want to buy a house or a piece of land for farming, we get them the best deal. With this bill, we will not know what they are going to do with such a big amount of money.’”
Two recent court cases highlighted the need for increased regulation. In 2008 a Japanese couple divorced during the surrogacy:
“The husband still wanted to raise Manji, but his ex-wife did not. The father found himself in a catch-22. India requires that a child be legally adopted before leaving the country, but bars single men from adopting. Manji's father was denied travel documents for the baby. The situation was widely covered in Indian and global media, and grew into a legal and diplomatic crisis. Manji was eventually permitted to leave for Japan [after custody was granted to the child’s grandmother].”
A German couple also experienced legal problems:
“Since the day they were delivered more than two years ago, twin toddlers Nikolas and Leonard Balaz have been stateless and stranded in India. Their parents are German nationals, but the woman to whom the babies were born is a 20-something Indian surrogate from Gujarat. The boys were refused German passports because the country does not recognize surrogacy as a legitimate means of parenthood. And India doesn't typically confer citizenship on surrogate-born children conceived by foreigners. Last week, Germany relented, issuing the Balazes travel visas, and the entire family is finally going home.”
Surrogacy is also subject to substantial disapproval within India, being criticized as the "commoditisation of motherhood" and “a peculiar form of prostitution”. Surrogates often hide their pregnancy by moving away from friends and family temporarily: "Otherwise, we'll be treated like social pariahs… This isn't a respectable thing to do in our society." Others say it is their husbands’ baby, and then after giving the baby to the intended parents say the newborn has died. The Catholic Church has also opposed the new law for legitimizing surrogacy:
“An Oriental-rite Catholic Church in Kerala says it plans to try and torpedo an upcoming bill to legalize surrogacy in India, which it says will destabilize a family system already struggling ‘under Western influence.’ ‘The Church will take all possible steps to stop the bill and will alert elected state representatives about the impact it will have on family life,’ Syro-Malabar Church spokesman Father Paul Thelakat told ucanews.com on June 24. ‘We have been teaching our faithful about moral living, so if the government enacts a bill which is against our teachings, how can we sit idle,’ the priest said.”
A documentary focusing on the outsourcing of surrogacy (particularly to India) called Google Baby recently premiered on HBO (an additional trailer is available on the director’s website).
"Viewed in that light, the argument for upholding California’s gay marriage ban has merit — not because the policy is fair or wise (it isn’t) but because it represents a reasonable judgment that the people of California are entitled to make. Barring gay marriage but providing civil unions is not the balance I would choose, but it is a defensible balance to strike, one that arguably takes “a cautious approach to making such a significant change to the institution of marriage” (as the lawyers defending Proposition 8 write in one of their briefs) while going a long way toward meeting gay couples’ needs."
"U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro on Thursday ruled in favor of gay couples' rights in two separate challenges to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA.
"The state had argued the law denied benefits such as Medicaid to gay married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal since 2004.
"Tauro agreed, and said the act forces Massachusetts to discriminate against its own citizens.
"The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state, and in doing so, offends the Tenth Amendment. For that reason, the statute is invalid," Tauro wrote in a ruling in a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Martha Coakley.
"Ruling in a separate case filed by Gays & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, Tauro found that DOMA violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
"We've maintained from the very beginning that there was absolutely no basis for this law treating one class of married Massachusetts couples different from everybody else and the court has recognized that," said Gary Buseck, GLAD's legal director.
"The Justice Department argued the federal government has the right to set eligibility requirements for federal benefits -- including requiring that those benefits only go to couples in marriages between a man and a woman.
"The law was enacted by Congress in 1996 when it appeared Hawaii would soon legalize same-sex marriage and opponents worried that other states would be forced to recognize such marriages. The lawsuit challenges only the portion of the law that prevents the federal government from affording pension and other benefits to same-sex couples.
"Since then, five states and the District of Columbia have legalized gay marriage."
Here's an earlier post: Same sex spouses versus Defense of Marriage Act, and here's an even earlier one: When a protected transaction meets a repugnant one: The MA suit over the Defense of Marriage Act
"It’s not insufficient schooling or a shortage of scientists. It’s a lack of job opportunities. Americans need the reasonable hope that spending their youth preparing to do science will provide a satisfactory career."...
"Many young Americans bright enough to do the math therefore conclude that instead of gambling 12 years on the small chance of becoming an assistant professor, they can invest that time in becoming a neurosurgeon, or a quarter of it in becoming a lawyer or a sixth in earning an MBA. And many who do earn doctorates in math-based subjects opt to use their skills devising mathematical models on Wall Street, rather than solving scientific puzzles in university labs, hoping a professorship opens up."
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