Sex, Toys, and the Internet

Background checks are all the rage these days. Typically the story is how they are not getting done for federal employees, but now they are not getting done for immigrants applying for permanent resident status. According to the Washington Post, "the Bush administration will grant permanent residency to tens of thousands of legal U.S. immigrants without first completing required background checks against the FBI's investigative files." Not that this really matters as most of these people are already residing in the United States.

Meanwhile,online dating service True.com completes criminal background checks on its users. While most online dating sites agree that the checks are useless True.com's founder and chief executive, Herb Vest stated, "If we were to clean up, there's hordes of off-line singles who'd come online to find their soul mate." Herb, I think the hordes of off-line single felons will be disappointed to find the hordes of online single nerds.

Oh, I know... perhaps we should just give all immigrants a 1 month subscription to True.com.

In Germany, a woman who became pregnant after an online sex auction has sued to find out the names of the people she had sex with. "Six different men won Internet auctions to have sex with the woman in April and May last year. They were only known to her by their online names." I wonder if this a promotion that True.com ran...

In other news, in particular interest to those who use online dating sites "A federal appeals court has overturned a Texas statute outlawing sex toy sales." And, I was worried there for a while.

And in case you missed it, despite scoring a platinum performance by singing "My Heart Will Go On"* on American Idol Encore last night, I still have not been offered the chance to replace Jon Stewart.


*As if I would let anyone record me doing that! Yeah, right...