Internet Freedom
Internet Freedom enters the final draft of the GOP platform.
The Daily Caller reports that Internet Freedom language has been added to the final draft of the Republican Party platform, which still awaits final approval from party authorities.
The relevant passage in the platform reads: “We will remove regulatory barriers that protect outdated technologies and business plans from innovation and competition, while preventing legacy regulation from interfering with new technologies such as mobile delivery of voice and video data as they become crucial components of the Internet ecosystem. We will resist any effort to shift control away from the successful multi-stakeholder approach of Internet governance and toward governance by international or other intergovernmental organizations. We will ensure that personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach and that individuals retain the right to control the use of their data by third parties.”
The Daily Caller notes that this language is modeled on Ron and Rand Paul’s “Technology Revolution” manifesto from their Campaign for Liberty, which declares: “As a matter of principle, we oppose any attempt by government to tax, regulate, monitor, or control the Internet, and we oppose the Internet collectivists who collaborate with the government against Internet freedom.”
As I mentioned when first reporting on the “The Technology Revolution,” it delivered a sharp rebuke to Net Neutrality, a package of government controls designed to regulate the sale and use of Internet bandwidth – an effort bound to produce the elevated prices and reduced quality typical of all price controls. The GOP platform language is also nicely incompatible with Net Neutrality, and echoes the Campaign for Liberty’s assertion that “technology is evolving faster than government’s ability to regulate it.”
Dating
Katy Perry and John Mayer ‘dating’.
Katy Perry and John Mayers were spotted on what looked very much like a date on Thursday night.
The pair had dinner at Pace restaurant in Los Angeles before moving onto favourite celebrity haunt the Chateau Marmont Hotel.
They were first spotted together at Soho House on July 19th where eagle-eyed sources reported that they were “affectionate and cuddling”.
On Thursday, the ‘Hot ‘n’ Cold’ hitmaker met up with the long-haired love machine just hours after landing from Brazil where she’s been promoting her autobiographical film, ‘Part of Me 3D’.
“I’m a woman that who likes to be courted. Strongly. Never say never, I guess you’d say. I’ll let love take the lead on that,” the Mirror quoted her as telling the September issue of US Ele magazine. (ANI)
Women Online
B.C. women online hunt for spiritual purity
“Confessions of a 29-year-old virgin.” That’s the title of the emotionally revealing blog of four virgins from British Columbia’s Fraser Valley who are looking for some good men for marriage and “holy” sex.
The Abbotsford, B.C., women online “virgin diaries” have suddenly made them media stars. Their quest for guys led to a video about them appearing Wednesday on the popular show of Ellen DeGeneres, who proceeded to get in some virgin jokes.
The virginal British Columbians, all of whom are 29 or 30 and evangelical Christians, were also set to be videotaped Wednesday night for an upcoming appearance on HLN’s Dr. Drew Show.
And this Sunday evening three of the four young B.C. women online will be starring on a pilot program called The Virgin Diaries on the TLC network. The program includes video of the young women online dating eligible men, all of whom also happen to be virgins.
The extroverted B.C. women online, all members of a small church in Abbotsford called The River, began their blog four months ago because they were tired of being stereotyped as defective for being virgins (actually one confesses to being a “born-again” virgin who wants to start over). They are fighting back against a sex-saturated culture, and looking for guys, in the name of spiritual “purity.”
“We’re in a culture filled with sex, where sex sells. And it’s sold every day. And we believe it shouldn’t be sold,” said photographer Lisa Marziali, the online ringleader for the virgins. Marziali notes that sex is “God’s idea” and should be held for marriage.
Marziali and her friends want to be “cheerleaders” for virgins. They say it’s sometimes difficult to be among so many friends who are married.
The four young women online crusade for virginity before marriage goes against the grain of North American culture, where a poll released this week by online polling system SodaHead suggested 70 per cent of North Americans think cohabitation before marriage is a good thing.
Unlike religious right leaders in the U.S. who have turned sexual abstinence into a wedge issue against liberals, Marziali said her crew of virgins is not pushing their views on anyone.
“We just want to tell our stories.”
Marziali’s story, according to her online diary, is that she is one of four “great-looking” siblings. “I am 29, I have never had a boyfriend. I have shared one kiss in 29 years. Yes, I’m a virgin and no, I don’t plan on being the old, grumpy, crazy spinster that never ends up married.”
Tamara Larson’s story is that she currently works with street people. She was an aspiring basketball player who crashed. It led to “self-hatred, striving excessively, cutting, bulimia and abusive men.” Tamara is the one who says she’s a “born-again virgin,” who believes sex should be “pure, holy and good.”
Danielle Michaud as a youngster endured frequent foster homes and “the shadow of abuse.” She is now a nurse who loves Jesus Christ and who has had one serious relationship, “which taught me a lot.”
The last member of the virgin quartet, Amy Schmidt, is in Uganda working for a church mission program. The daughter of Fraser Valley pastors says she is “just a young woman on a quest to find what true love, true beauty, and true intimacy really are.”
Even though Marziali is finding this week’s flurry of media attention “exciting,” she said she was unaware until the last month that many U.S. evangelical churches have advocated sexual abstinence outside marriage for more than a decade.
It’s led to hot political controversies in the U.S, over whether sex education programs in public schools should promote only abstinence, while censoring information about birth control.
But the goals of Canada’s increasingly famous four virgins are much more intimate.
“We’re beautiful, confident, successful women” who are open to serious approaches by men, Marziali said.
For her part, Marziali is looking for a man whom she’s already nicknamed “The Rock Star.” She wants him to be “strong in character, a leader and have Jesus as his centre.”
Marziali insists she and her sexually inexperienced friends are not romantic dreamers seeking the ideal, non-existent “perfect” man.
“No. No. We’re just looking for a guy who has a heart after God, and who is man enough to pursue us.”
A lot of young Canadian men, especially in B.C., are insecure about making the first moves, Marziali believes. So she and her virgin friends are getting out the message they’re ready and willing.
“We are here,” she said. “We are waiting to give our hearts away. We want to be pursued.”