If it's a day that ends in "y", Neo's being a douche.

So what's happening over at Blogging Tory Neo Conservative's Dead Minority Bar and Grill? Oh ...



Really? That actually sounds kinda stupid, not to mention totally unenforceable. If only there was someone to research claims like that, to determine their actual accuracy. Oh, look:

To explore whether the claim is true, we went back to Sunstein's 2002 book, Republic.com. In it, Sunstein discusses the drawbacks of limitless choices on the Internet that allow people to seek out only like-minded people and opinions that merely fortify their own views, creating an echo chamber that Sunstein argued is bad for democracy. [Ed: Paging Stephen Taylor; Stephen Taylor to the white Blogging Tory hermetically-sealed bubble courtesy phone.] In the book, Sunstein talks about the idea of the government requiring sites to link to opposing views.

In a later edition of the book released in 2007, Republic.com 2.0, Sunstein tempers that position, advocating instead for the creation of public spaces on the Internet where people with differing viewpoints could share their ideas with one another.

But in a video interview on the Web site Bloggerheads.tv on Feb. 29, 2008, Sunstein actually goes a little bit farther than that, calling it a "bad idea" he should never have ventured.

Asked to explain some of the differences between the first book, what Sunstein called "the initial inadequate edition," and its successor, Sunstein said, "To me, the most important (difference) is that the first Republic.com was full of some bad policy recommendations and I was able to get rid of those. So I feel the book has been corrected." ...

Yes, Sunstein acknowledges this was an idea he once threw out there -- albeit, in his words, "tentatively." But he now thinks it's a bad idea. So the chain e-mail/article is correct that Sunstein once suggested it. But contrary to the headline, it's a position he no longer holds, as he has since said strongly and repeatedly. Once true. No longer. That leaves us at Half True.

And yet, the Neo-flavoured shrieking and panty-rending will continue. It always does. He's such a Twatsy that way.