VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Dangerous Biden-Harris Vaccine Hypocrisy Will Cost Lives.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: When is it OK to spread anti-vax paranoia just weeks before taking the vaccine yourself?

Answer: When there’s an election to steal, of course.

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• Ring in the New Year the antifa way
• See the London man arrested for hugging the willing
• Hello Biden, goodbye border controls

Bonus Sanity: Ohio Governor Mike DeWine actually signs “stand your ground” bill into law.

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND GOVERNMENT STATISTICS: As COVID admissions surge, states conflating patients hospitalized ‘due to’ and ‘with’ virus.

SO VERY WOKE: Alphabet Workers Union launches with hundreds of members demanding change.

Contractors and employees working at Google and other Alphabet-owned companies have banded together to form the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU). More than 50 Google contract employees voted to unionize last year in Pittsburgh, but the AWU now includes more than 200 dues-paying Google employees or contractors, and organizers say it is the first union open to all Alphabet employees in company history. The AWU is launching with support from the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and its Coalition to Organize Digital Employees (CODE) initiative, according to a statement organizers shared with VentureBeat.

Among guiding principles listed on the AWU website are social and economic justice and the prioritization of “society and the environment instead of maximizing profits at all costs. We can make money without doing evil.”

I’d settle for Google just acting as a neutral platform.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Can the Democrats Start 2021 With Another Stolen Election? “The Peach State was rife with ‘irregularities’ during the general election. My biggest fear is that there hasn’t been enough time to figure it what all of them were yet. And if there is a way to game the system and get a pro-abortion, cop-hater elected to the United States Senate from Georgia, the Democrats will have figured it out.”

RIP: Last Documented Civil War Widow Dies At 101.

CATCH AND RELAUNCH: SpaceX will try to ‘catch’ its Super Heavy rocket using the launch tower.

SpaceX might not rely on legs to land its next-generation booster rockets. Elon Musk has revealed that his company will try to “catch” the future Super Heavy booster using the launch tower arm, with the grid fins (used to help control the descent) shouldering the load. As TechCrunch explained, this process would effectively hook the rocket using the tower arm before it reaches the ground.

This would require very precise positioning, and there’s still a long way to go when Super Heavy flight testing might not start until a few months from now at the earliest. If successful, though, the catch method could save SpaceX from adding bulky legs to its rocket. A truly precise maneuvering system might even reduce turnaround time by letting SpaceX relaunch the rocket without having to move it from its landing position.

That could be crucial to SpaceX’s goals. Musk and company ultimately want a more reusable rocket system than the Falcon series, as that would help Starship launch on the rapid schedules desired for a range of missions, including trips to the Moon and Mars. A booster that doesn’t require much more than refueling could help accomplish that feat.

Needless to say, anything that reduces launch costs and turnaround time makes Moon and Mars colonies more viable.

NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE THE 21ST CENTURY I’D BEEN HOPING FOR: Quadriplegic Man, Using Two Robot Arms, Can Feed Himself Again.

READINESS: B-1s Can Make it to Finish Line, But Big Repairs Will Be Common Along the Way.

Since September 2019, the Air Force has pushed to reduce the B-1 fleet in order to keep a smaller number of the bombers fully potent and ready for action. In recent years, lack of spare parts and a long list of structural and systematic gripes have driven the fleet’s mission capable numbers to as low as just six aircraft ready for combat.

There will now be enough resources for B-1 repairs and structural modifications to “get us as long as we need for the B-1 to fly,” bomber Program Executive Officer Brig. Gen. John P. Newberry told Air Force Magazine in a December interview.

The B-1 was designed to fly between 8,000-10,000 hours, or about 30 years, depending on the rate of usage, but the fleet is 35 years old.

The B-21 can’t get here too soon.

HMM: U.S. Official: ‘Leak or Accident’ at Wuhan Lab Most Likely Source of COVID-19 Pandemic.

WELL, YES: The Media Is Lying About Trump’s Call with Georgia Secretary of State.

BEFORE DEFUNDING THEM, DEMORALIZE THEM: Campaign Director: Warnock ‘Absolutely’ Backs Defunding Police, ‘Most of Them Are Bad.’

‘DEMOLITION RANCH’ VIDEO: Tank vs. Gun Safes.

It’s “only” a Sherman, but still.

NOT THE BEE: Charmin-soft Portland mayor admits he’s been conquered by Antifa neckbeards and finally asks for federal help.

HIGHER EDUCATION IMPLOSION UPDATE: The New Strategy to Suppress Conservative Voices on Campus. “While my renowned speakers were not disinvited, their prospective invitations were blocked.”

MATT MARGOLIS: Here’s Proof the Pentagon Must Get Out of the ‘Climate Change’ Racket.

IT’S DIFFERENT NOW BECAUSE SHUT UP: Democrats object to counting Electoral College votes in 2000 and 2004.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Fitness instructor reopens Alberta studio: Staying at home, eating fast food is worse for health.

CATHERINE MORTENSEN: How Covid response has exposed America’s great divide.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: The Pandemic Narrative Mutates. “The coronavirus pandemic redistributed power and economic advantage on a vast scale. The advent of vaccines not only creates new political opportunities, it also renders the older ones, like those involving masking and lockdowns, obsolete. The narratives like ‘the virus must mutate.’”

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Granny-Killer Cuomo’s Latest COVID Failure.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: What do you call a dose of COVID vaccine with a short shelf-life requiredby Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sit on a shelf for too long?

Answer: The world’s most expensive placebo.

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• Nancy Pelosi would infect her colleagues to keep her gavel
• Meet the new year, same as the old year
• Viral video of polite Canadians politely siccing polite police on neighbors for celebrating New Year’s

Bonus Sanity: Tulsi Gabbard stands up to her party’s Lunatic Wing to protect women’s sports.

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

UPDATE: Link was missing. Fixed now — sorry!

MORE, PLEASE: 11 Republican Senators Will Object to Electoral College Certification.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Facebook And Twitter Are ‘Dangerous’ Even If You’ve Never Used Them.

Indeed, scientists have recently discovered that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can actually pose more serious threats to your wellbeing than previously thought—even if you’ve never used them.

In particular, the bits and pieces of information your friends, family and acquaintances share about you on social media, could equip AI-based algorithms or bots to effectively ‘clone’ your online persona.

In other words, there’s the real you—the one whose never used any social media platform, for example—and the cloned you: which is an online representation of your thoughts, behaviors and responses.

If that’s not scary enough, this cloned, behavioral profile (which the scientists call an ‘alter’) can be used by the social media platforms (or anyone else buying the data from them) to, for example, influence the online experience of the real you (the ‘ego’), elsewhere on the internet.

There’s something to be said in favor of reprogramming Facebook, Google, and Twitter’s algorithms with an ax.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Incoherent Granny Boxwine Reelected As House Speaker. “The fun got rolling on Sunday when the vote for Speaker of the House of Representatives. was held. The Party of Youth and Diversity demonstrated its bold vision for the future by sticking with the 80-year-old white lady.”

DON’T WORRY — JOE ASTERISK WILL FIX THAT: Trump’s New China Policy Earns Praise From Tibet And Fury From Communists.

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.