STEVE RANDY WALDMAN: The 1996 Law That Ruined the Internet. “Why I changed my mind about Section 230.”

The real problem with Section 230, which I used to strongly support, is the kind of internet it has enabled. The law lets large sites benefit from network effects (I’m on Facebook because my friends are on Facebook) while shifting the costs of scale, like shoddy moderation and homogenized communities, to users and society at large. That’s a bad deal. Congress should revise Section 230—just not for the reasons the president and his supporters have identified.

Um, those are the reasons the president and his supporters have identified.

BUBBLE: Bitcoin Blasts Past $34K for First Time, Less Than 24 Hours After Blowing Through $30K.

Bitcoin’s rise could also be explained by worries over the dollar while Congress spends more trillions we don’t have at a time when much of the economy is effectively shuttered.

Of course, it could also be a bubble.

NOT THE ONION: Democrat Ends Prayer With ‘Amen. … and A-Woman.’

MAYBE. IF THEY’D START CUTTING TAXES AND REGULATIONS (PARTICULARLY ON HOMEBUILDING): Can California stop Big Tech from decamping for cheaper places?

As the tech industry becomes more virtual and services-based, the companies’ workforces have less of a need to all be in one place. While these companies create vast wealth for a relatively small group of people, this is not a formula for broad-based economic prosperity.

In contrast to the old Silicon Valley, the Bay Area has become “a region of segregated innovation,” as described by CityLab, where the upper class waxes, the middle class wanes, and the poor live in poverty that is unshakable.

Neofeudalism suits California’s neofeudal lords just fine.

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH FAREED ZAKARIA IS A VOICE OF SANITY: CNN’s Zakaria: ‘Dirty Little Secret’—Trump Was Tough on Russia!

“I think in general, there isn’t going to be as much difference as people imagine. The Biden folks are pretty tough on Russia, Iran, North Korea. You know, the dirty little secret about the Trump administration was that while Donald Trump had clearly had a kind of soft spot for Putin, the Trump Administration was pretty tough on the Russians. They armed Ukraine, they armed the Poles. They extended NATO operations and exercises in ways that even the Obama Administration had not done. They maintained the sanctions. So I don’t think it will be that different.”  

Wait a second! It was a “dirty little secret” that Trump was tough on Russia? WHY?? Who kept it a secret and for what purpose??

And the obvious answer is that the liberal media/Democrats were intent on pushing Russia Russia Russia. Admitting that President Trump was in fact tough on Russia would undermine that line of attack. And so they buried it: kept it a “dirty little secret.”

What other things will the liberal media give President Trump credit for if and when he is off the scene? In addition to the stunning success of Operation Warp Speed, making multiple safe-and-effective coronavirus vaccines in record time, there is also Trump’s triumph in the Middle East. If a Democrat president had engineered agreements between Israel and a number of Arab countries in the area as did Trump, the MSM would have been breathlessly trumpeting it as the greatest foreign policy achievement since who knows when! And the drumbeat for a Nobel Peace Prize would have been deafening.

Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and their silence makes perfect sense.

ON SUNDAYS I DO A PROMO POST FOR INDIE WRITERS. BECAUSE A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE DOING VERY GOOD WORK OUT THERE, BUT BEING DISCOVERED IS HARD:  Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike and Book Promo.

Oh, yeah, and three of the regular readers do a little thing where they put up a prompt for writing vignettes. More than one novel has originated in these challenges.  Though I confess today politics seem to have overwhelmed the fun vignette challenges.

THAT, TOO: Nancy Pelosi Is a Diversity Gender Term Hypocrite.

REMINDER: Democrats Have Objected to Electoral Vote Certification For the Last 3 GOP Presidents.

COMPARE 2021 CLEAVER OPENING PRAYER WITH 1774 FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS: Unfortunately, there is no video, but here’s the full text. It’s also in Victory Girls post Sarah linked (Love the vintage photos and artwork). And if you are really into this kind of thing, here’s the House Chaplin’s prayer archive. Somebody ought to do a study.

AND IN THE FOREFRONT OF SOLVING CRISIS THAT DON’T EXIST!  UK Company Develops Climate Change Masks for Cows.

LOOK, I KNOW IT’S EARLY, BUT THIS MIGHT BE A STRONG CONTENDER FOR MOST DISTURBING MENTAL IMAGE OF 2021:  Michael Mann gives himself a tongue bath.

CONSIDER THAT IN THE SOVIET UNION, ANYONE WHO DISAGREED WITH COMMUNISM WAS CONSIDERED MENTALLY ILL AND IN NEED OF TREATMENT. THEN READ THIS AGAIN:  Proposed NY bill would grant Gov. Cuomo the power to forcibly detain any individual or group suspected of being a carrier of any contagious disease and require “treatment, preventative medication or vaccination.”

I mean, it’s bad enough we’ve given these profoundly ignorant and mentally blinkered (I’m looking at you, Polis) people the right to rule their fiefdoms like little kings, and dictate who can earn a living and who can’t, and who must see their life saving and business die. But this? This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you create death camps. And no, progressive beliefs don’t mean the authorities won’t do horrible things. On the contrary. It leads them to do horrible things, convinced they must be good, because after all they’re on the side of the arrow of history.

I think it’s time they took an arrow of history to the knee.

AND YET MORE MASKS FALL OFF:  Senator Toomey Abandons the Constitution.

I STILL SAY THIS WILL IN THE END HURT THE LEFT MORE THAN IT HURTS US. AND CONSIDERING HOW MUCH IT’S BEEN HURTING ME…  A CRISIS OF PERSPECTIVE: Pundits in Denial are Cratering Their Creditability.

CRUZ, OTOH, HAS ONLY CONTINUED TO INCREASE MY RESPECT FOR HIM:  Sunday Talks: Ted Cruz Discusses January 6th Challenge to 2020 Electoral Certification.

BEHOLD! THE MASKS CONTINUE FALLING:  Former House Speaker Paul Ryan Ridicules Electoral Challenge.

But turn about is fair play. Let’s ridicule Paul Ryan!

OKAY. THIS CREATURE, WHATEVER HE IS, NEEDS TO HAVE ALL AUTHORITY REMOVED. HOWEVER THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. BECAUSE THIS IS RIDICULOUS:  Cuomo threats against medical providers will make abysmal NY State vaccine rollout worse.

FOR FICTION?  Fired Florida Covid Data Tech Wins Forbes’ ‘Tech Person of the Year’ Award.

REPORTS, OR PSY OPS? I DON’T KNOW. BUT I DO HAVE SUSPICIONS:  One year ago: Official reports of China’s outbreak of “new pneumonia” surface.

YES, THERE IS A CHRISTIAN EXODUS TOO. AND A WEIRD BLURRING OF DENOMINATIONS. A LOT OF US WOULD RATHER PRAY WITH FRIENDS WHOSE BELIEFS WE FIND IN ERROR, OR MAYBE JUST WEIRD, INSTEAD OF SITTING THROUGH ANOTHER SERMON ON RESPECTING GAIA, OR BLM, OR–  The New Jewish Exodus.

Dear Church of the Woke. It’s not so much that we want you to let our peoples go. We want you to go elsewhere to practice your bizarre cult, and let people of belief be. In peace.

NO, SERIOUSLY. WE’VE GOT VIDEO:  Congressional Prayer Ends With Amen And A-Woman .

To all the people I used to think were the stupidest people in creation, to wit those who insisted on “Herstory” to be inclusive: I’m sorry. You’re still dumb as some species of moss that grows on the bottom of rocks, but there are people more linguistically crazy and uninformed than you. I’ll smack you with a philological dictionary last.

YEAH. IT SMELLS LIKE A RAT. A BOTOXED, COIFFED, GREY GOOSE DRINKING RAT:  There’s something peculiar about the vandalism at Pelosi’s house.