Read it.

A Chinese young adult fiction writer has canceled the release of her highly anticipated debut novel after attacks from an online mob accusing her of lacing her fantasy book with “anti-blackness.”

Amélie Wen Zhao is a young up-and-coming author whose first novel, Blood Heir, was set to be released this summer.

Set in the fantasy “Cyrilian Empire” where slavery exists based on possession of magical powers rather than skin color, the book was meant to critique the “epidemic of indentured labor and human trafficking” in Asia today.

The fantasy work was slated to be released in June, but after a sudden deluge of criticism from reviewers and Twitter users, Zhao announced in a Wednesday statement “to the book community” that she would cancel the book altogether.

“I want to start by saying that I have the utmost respect for your voices, and I’m listening. I am grateful to those who have raised questions around representation, coding, and themes in my book,” Zhao wrote.

‘Please don’t hurt me! Please don’t hurt me!’

UPDATE: Learning to Love Big Brother

The Other McCain is not afraid to ask the easy questions.

Question: How many racist, homophobic menaces wander around the upscale Streeterville neighborhood of liberal Chicago at 2 a.m. carrying rope and bleach, yelling about “MAGA country?”

During a Polar Vortex.

Question: How many racist, homophobic menaces have ever heard of “Empire,” could recognize Jussie Smollett, or know or care anything about his sexuality?

David Reich pushes back against proglodyte hate-mongering.

As you know, in the fact-checking process I was sent more than 100 statements of which a very high proportion (more than half) were incorrect. For example, as I mentioned to you in my letter of January 7, 20 of 49 statements presented to me for review on January  2 were incorrect, and 27 of the 36 statements presented to me for review on January 5 were incorrect. The high rate of errors was concerning as it suggested that the narrative based on them might not be supported by a solid set of facts. While a substantial number of these incorrect statements were removed through your fact-checking process, some errors got through, and I am therefore now requesting formal corrections of the following 5 errors that meaningfully affect the article, so it is important to set the record straight on them. (I have also identified additional errors, but those are for the most part smaller, so I am not requesting corrections in those cases.)

Read it.

“Fox & Friends” shared footage of migrants moving closer to the U.S. southern border Thursday, reporting the latest caravan numbers nearly 3,000.

Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins was embedded on the scene in Mexico City and said the group of migrants plans to use buses provided by Mexico City’s government to reach the U.S.

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At the very least, it will agitate all of the people who really really need agitation.

At the very least, that will be entertaining.

Steve Sailer looks at political speciation.

For example, Lake Shasta in far northern California is the largest reservoir of the vast California aqueduct system. As the population of California grows and droughts seem more common, the idea of expanding the lake’s capacity by raising the 602? tall dam’s height by an additional 20 feet has been considered since the last century.

The Trump Administration is pretty positive about the plan, which has led to one salamander species suddenly being redefined as three salamander species. That might seem strange, but actually this kind of thing is a common occurrence whenever anybody wants to do anything with a dam, going back to the invention of the snail darter species in the 1970s.

Read it.

“Weathered.” “Despite the severe disruptions.” Really? What disruptions were those? Did they consider that a brief respite from a small portion of government heavy-handedness may have been irrelevant to job growth, or even a positive factor? Evidently not.

Read it.

I hope they demanded asylum.

Matthews Insists Mueller Has a ‘Mandate’ to Find Collusion Because That’s His Job!  Well, not exactly.

Susan Collins Is ‘Not Prepared’ To Endorse Trump For 2020  I doubt that Trump is prepared to endorse Collins at any time.

Sen Blumenthal Cites Corsi’s Unverified Claim As Evidence That Trump Campaign ‘Coordinated’ With WikiLeaks  Proof? We don’t need no stinkin’ proof!

NYT: Homophobic racist Trump supporters try to lynch gay black TV star in downtown Chicago  During a Polar Vortex. Sure, I believe that.

Jussie Smollett’s Trump Derangement Syndrome

Democrats Pick Unpopular Loser to Give Party Reply to Trump’s SOTU Speech

Black players from American football team refused to attend Trump’s fast-food banquet in protest at his ‘racism and divisive politics’

The death penalty is a brutal relic – Britain must seize today’s chance to make that clear to Donald Trump

Lemon, Cuomo Mock Trump For Tweet On Global ‘Waming’  Laugh while you can, monkey boys.

State of the Union: Women to deliver powerful feminist message to Trump by wearing white  Hey, we all wish we were white.

Frantic Climate Scientist Response to President Trump’s Latest Troll Tweet

Chris Christie Explains How Trump ‘Blew It’ With Government Shutdown  And everybody knows that Chris Christie is smarter at politics than Trump.

Morning Joe Wishin’ and Hopin’ for Nasty Congressional Republican Break from Trump

Maduro Says Trump Wants To Assassinate Him  I wouldn’t be surprised. Hell, I want to assassinate him.

Model Admits She Made Up Russian Collusion Story About Trump To Get Out Of Jail

Trump Didn’t ‘Cave’ on the Wall. He’s Advancing in Another Direction.  As he does.

CNN Segment Tries To Paint Border Crisis As Hollywood Fiction  They should be for it, then, right?

Trump orders ‘several thousand’ more troops to US-Mexico border, costing taxpayers over $600m  They had to include the amount so that you wouldn’t mistake this for an actual news piece.

Morning Joe Wonders ‘What Vladimir Putin Has On Trump’  In order to trigger all those Russian sanctions? Whatever it is, it isn’t very effective.

Nellie Ohr Researched Trump’s Kids For Fusion GPS

Is Donald Trump losing even more allies?  We hope we hope we hope….

‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ Fantasy: Trump Has Heart Attack and He’s Going to Hell

Venezuela crisis: Maduro accuses Trump of hiring Colombian mafia to assassinate him  That would be clever. I would vote for such a man.

Hollywood Quick to Blame Trump Supporters for Alleged Hate Crime Against Liberal Actor  Too good to check.

Co-Founder Of Satanic Temple Lives In Mortal Terror Of Pence  Much the best thing I’ve ever heard about Pence.

Daily Beast Endorses Satanic Temple Leader’s Smear of Trump, Pence  Democrats: Party of Satan. Pass it on.

Trump administration ‘wrecking ball’ approach to science threatens public health and environment, report warns  The assumption here, of course, is that if the government doesn’t pay for science then science will not get done.

Read it.

Hey, people vote there. Do they vote in Somalia? Not that I’ve ever heard.

I laugh out loud when Islam is called a ‘religion of peace’.

Read it.

I smell another Hate Hoax aborning.

UPDATE: I Didn’t See This One Coming

Read it.

I would encourage all Google employees not to engage in family formation. And for God’s sake avoid having children.

Read it.

Hey, the heat’s gotta go somewhere, right?

Read it.

In a new study published in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Cambridge have done just that. They have built a sheet of nickel with nanoscale pores that make it as strong as titanium but four to five times lighter.

The empty space of the pores, and the self-assembly process in which they’re made, make the porous metal akin to a natural material, such as wood.

And just as the porosity of wood grain serves the biological function of transporting energy, the empty space in the researchers’ “metallic wood” could be infused with other materials. Infusing the scaffolding with anode and cathode materials would enable this metallic wood to serve double duty: a plane wing or prosthetic leg that’s also a battery.

Read it.

Yeah — who in his right mind would want to dress like Justin Bieber?

UPDATE: Justin Bieber fans outraged at prices of singer’s new clothing line Drew House

Read it.

Attempting to squeeze their way in front of the glaring spotlight that is the Super Bowl this weekend will be numerous social justice protesters. The Nation magazine reports that in Atlanta this weekend, the points of protest will surround racial inequalities, voter suppression and income inequality in Georgia.

There will also be calls for boycotting the NFL for, as The Nation’s Dave Zirin says, brazen collusion against quarterback and anti-police-brutality campaigner Colin Kaepernick.

The discredited Southern Poverty Law Center, along with the Atlanta NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Georgia Alliance for Social Justice will protest. So will the Alliance for Black Lives, an organization that “fights the three evils of society: racism, poverty, and militarism.” This is becoming the norm.

Victor Davis Hanson is not optimistic.

The old Democratic party championed the working classes, wanted secure borders to protect middle-class union wage earners, and focused generous federal entitlement help on the citizen poor. Civil rights were defined as equality of opportunity for all.

That party is long dead. An updated Hubert Humphrey or even Bill Clinton would not recognize any of the present “Democrats.”

Even the old wing of elite liberals is mostly long gone, with its talk of legal immigration only, opposition to censorship, pro-Israel foreign policy, let-it-hang-out Sixties indulgence, and free speech.

It was superseded by grim progressives who are not so much interested in a square, new, or fair deal for the middle classes, as an entirely different deal that redefines everything from the Bill of Rights and the very way we elect presidents and senators to an embrace of identity politics as its first principle.

I don’t so much mind the country going to the dogs as I mind it going to the jackals.

Read it.

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) may shed more than $40 billion worth of power purchase agreements after the California utility was driven into bankruptcy by liabilities for sparking deadly wildfires, The Wall Street Journal reports.

PG&E wants the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco to rule whether the company must honor $42 billion worth of contracts with about 350 different energy suppliers, mostly solar and wind plants.

The court’s decision could have a major impact on California’s renewable energy industry and power makeup. Many green energy suppliers only do business with PG&E, California’s largest utility. Shedding those contracts would likely drive those companies under and cripple California’s ability to meet energy goals set by the state government.

Read it.

When I was a kid, everyone knew the unofficial motto of the U.S. Postal Service, which was inscribed on the principal New York City post office: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” I think it was true, once, too. But not any more: Wednesday mail delivery canceled:

The U.S. Postal Service announced late Tuesday afternoon that deliveries and other services in Minnesota and several other states will be suspended Wednesday in the wake of a deep freeze unmatched for nearly a quarter-century.

The National Weather Service is forecasting a high of minus-17 in the Twin Cities on Wednesday, with windchills tumbling to the minus-50s.

So I won’t get any mail tomorrow. I will, however, be in my office, like most private sector workers.

Read it.

Nike sparked outrage with the release of a new shoe bearing a logo that resembles Allah, which Muslims claim is a slight against Islam.

A Nike spokesman claimed that the logo on the Air Max 270 is merely a stylized version of the Air Max trademark. Saiqa Noreen, who launched an online petition demanding a recall of the shoe, contends that the logo is in fact the Arabic script for Allah and therefore an insult to Islam. The petition has garnered more than 10,000 signatures.

“It is outrageous and appalling of Nike to allow the name of God on a shoe. This is disrespectful and extremely offensive to Muslim’s and insulting to Islam,” Noreen wrote in the petition.

Just when you thought that the Grievance Machine had exhausted itself, it surprises you.

I doubt that anybody at Nike, except perhaps some affirmative-action hires who happen to be Muslim, would know how to write ‘Allah’s name’ if their life depended on it. These people are certifiably insane.

Read it.

President Donald Trump has often noted that America’s rich and powerful choose to live behind large walls for protection, much like the wall he is trying to build across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Nowhere has that thesis proven truer than in the posh neighborhoods of Los Angeles and Hollywood. The homes of the rich and famous, peppered throughout the area, are often gated and feature high walls that protect the homes from outsiders.

But what about the viscerally anti-Trump celebrities that reside in Hollywood and hate the idea of Trump’s border wall? Do these moguls, sports and film celebrities really live behind walls? The Daily Caller set out to find the truth in a series called “Walls Across America.”

UPDATE: Tucker Carlson Calls Out Celebrity Hypocrisy On Border Wall

Want to know which Democrats can actually beat Trump? We don’t have to guess.  Yeah, sure, we told you Hillary, and that was wrong, but forget that — this time we’re sure.

Patricia Arquette Explains Why She Thanked Mueller At SAG Awards: We Don’t Want ‘Russian Interference In Our Elections’  I’m curious as to what she think’s Mueller is doing to prevent that.

Proof That Media ‘Fact Checking’ Is First and Foremost Trump-Checking  ‘Media fact-checking’ doesn’t check on the Media’s facts, heaven forbid! It’s the Media’s job to check everybody else’s facts! That’s plain as the nose on your face.

Hannity Sends Message To ‘My Conservative Friends That Are Mad At’ Trump Over Shutdown

Trump aide John Bolton reveals notepad reading ‘5,000 troops to Colombia’, as US announces fresh Venezuela sanctions  Trump’s training Bolton to troll the ‘media’.

Trump fundamentally confuses climate change link with extreme cold weather: ‘Global Warming? Please come back fast, we need you!’  No, he’s making a joke, which this humor-impaired journalist failed to recognize.

Brennan brays again

Trump Responds To ‘Jaw-Dropping’ Tell-All Book By Former Staffer  ‘Who is this guy?’  Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Stephen Colbert Calls Trump The Very ‘Definition Of Insanity’ For Trying To Secure The Border  I must have missed hearing where Colbert got his medical degree. My bad.

Morning Joe Begrudgingly Admits Trump Can Be A ‘Likable Guy’  Aliens have kidnapped Joe Scarborough.

UN judge quits The Hague and condemns ‘shocking’ interference by Trump administration

WashPost’s Weigel Gets In Hot Water for Calling Trump Voters ‘Rubes’ in Podcast3

#NeverTrump Journo Leaves Twitter For 30 Days To Get A Hold Of Himself  And there’s a lot there to get ahold of.

Most Americans will ‘definitely not’ vote for Trump in 2020, new poll indicates A poll by the Washington Post and ABC News. Remember them? They were among the people who told us it would be Hillary in a landslide.

Stacey Abrams will deliver Democratic response to Trump’s State of the Union address  This loser is the best they can do?

Without Any Confirmation, MSNBC Promotes Claim Chicago Attackers Wore MAGA Hats

The Trump presidency is taking its toll…on the once fresh faces of CNN anchors

Read it.

Scientists from University College Cork (UCC) have discovered that pterosaurs had four kinds of feathers, shifting the origin of feathers back by 70 million years

I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

Read it.

Unfortunately, toxicity in radical communities is not a bug. It is a feature. The ideology and norms of radicalism have evolved to produce toxic, paranoid, depressed subjects. What follows is a picture of what happens in communities that are passionately, sincerely, radically woke, as seen from the perspective of an apostate.

Read it.

This is why I always tip in cash.

Read it.

I must confess to not having given all that much attention to my pelvic floor.

Perhaps that was a mistake.

Read it.

Fools and their money are soon parted.

Political leaders in a college town in central Texas won wide praise from former Vice President Al Gore and the larger Green Movement when they decided to go “100 percent renewable” seven years ago. Now, however, they are on the defensive over electricity costs that have their residents paying more than $1,000 per household in higher electricity charges over the last four years.

The combination of being a college town and within 30 miles of the blue pustule Austin apparently overcame their Republicanism.

In short order, Ross was elevated to celebrity status, appearing in scores of articles and videos, both at home and abroad. Al Gore made it a point to feature the Texas Republican mayor at renewable energy conferences as well. Ross was even featured in one of Gore’s documentaries.

Politicians have a hard time resisting fame at their constituents’ expense. I’m sure that comes as a surprise to you.

Yes, there are fools even in Texas.

Read it.

Washington, D.C. Antifa leader Joseph “Jose” Alcoff, also known as “Chepe,” was arrested and charged with multiple felonies in Philadelphia on Jan. 10 in connection to the Antifa mob attack against two Marines in November.

Alcoff faces 17 charges, including multiple counts of aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation, conspiracy and terroristic threats, and one count of robbery while inflicting serious bodily injury.

Sometimes the Brown Shirts lose.

Ace of Spades dishes the dirt.

Actually this was evident before, not that Arbiter of Truth and “The National Hall-Monitor” (as I think Instapundit calls it) CNN noticed.

But now an government ethics commission officially rules he took bribes gifts, and finds that there’s probable cause of a crime.

Possibly as a result, CNN has offered him a job as a ‘political commenter’.

“And I say to you: Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity; that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings.”

Read it.

One must have peace in order to pee.

Read it.

Congresswoman #BitterBeerFace has her eyes on your wallet and her fingers are itching.

Read it.

Well, that’s good to know. I was worried, there, for a minute.

Read it.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has infuriated colleagues by aligning with a progressive outside group that’s threatening to primary entrenched Democrats. Now some of those lawmakers are turning the tables on her and are discussing recruiting a primary challenger to run against the social media sensation.

At least one House Democrat has been privately urging members of the New York delegation to recruit a local politician from the Bronx or Queens to challenge Ocasio-Cortez.

From Congress to Saturday Night Live seems a very short step for some people….

More good news.

Traditionally, Appalachia is thought of as coal country. Coal created steady jobs, many of them dangerous, to the people who lived here and kept the heat and lights on for most of the country for generations.

But new production methods, such as hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling, have changed the regional energy picture and now allow extraction of vast amounts of natural gas from the region’s shale formations. Many sons and daughters of coal miners, and former miners themselves, are finding safer, well-paying energy jobs in the shale industry.

Read it.

If only they’d spent more money on keeping their infrastructure maintained instead of chasing green dreams.

And California becomes even more unaffordable. Well, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of socialists.

Read it.

As it was meant to do. Bolton is a fast learner from Trump.

Aficionados of Terry Pratchett’s DiskWorld will recognize the velvet touch of Lord Vetinari.

Read it.

Don’t think of it as selling out; think of it as buying in.

Never was an American politician more aptly named.

Read it.

Debby Witt, a kindred soul.

Read it.

But you have to bear in mind that Trump has accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING during his term in office.

Just remember that.

Absolutely nothing.

Read it.

Left? Lefter? Leftist? In the quest to see which candidate can be the most liberal, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for an “ultra-millionaire tax” to force the wealthy to fork over more to the government.

Her proposal is not a tax on income, but rather on individuals’ assets. If implemented, anyone with more than $50 million in assets (including property) would face a 2 percent annual wealth tax, higher if they have more than $1 billion in assets. Liberal media promoted and defended it, or turned to liberal economists who would.

I believe that this proposal justifies anybody with taxable wealth shooting Warren, as you would any other armed robber who attempted to steal from you.

Read it.

Uh, because that’s where the money is?

Welcome to hustle culture. It is obsessed with striving, relentlessly positive, devoid of humor, and — once you notice it — impossible to escape. “Rise and Grind” is both the theme of a Nike ad campaign and the title of a book by a “Shark Tank” shark. New media upstarts like the Hustle, which produces a popular business newsletter and conference series, and One37pm, a content company created by the patron saint of hustling, Gary Vaynerchuk, glorify ambition not as a means to an end, but as a lifestyle.

ZMan is delightfully dyspeptic today.

Empathy is essential to a high-trust society. It allows people to cooperate, rather than spend their time defending themselves from others in society. Empathy allows people to engage with others, trusting that the other side is acting in good faith and not trying to cheat the other party. It makes it possible to engage in things like charity and social improvement. When you can put yourself in the mind of a person outside your kin-group, share their feelings about things, cooperative society is possible.

It’s why liars and cheaters can never be tolerated. Their actions put the trust of society into question, which means their lack of empathy costs everyone. In some respects, the lack of empathy is worse than the crime itself. A man who kills another man in a dispute, but feels remorse, can be rehabilitated. A man who steals from another man and is unable to understand why it is wrong or celebrates his act, can never be rehabilitated and can never be a part of society. He can never be trusted, because he lacks empathy.

Serve thee the Lord all of thy days … and nights….

Read it.

Referring to the current system as “cruel” and “inhumane,” Harris argued that health care should no longer be thought of as a privilege but “it should be understood to be a right.”

“It is inhumane to make people go through a system where they cannot literally receive the benefit of what medical science can offer because some insurance company has decided it doesn’t meet their bottom line in terms of their profit motivation,” Harris said. “That is inhumane.”

Read it.

Cue outrage from the anti-vaxxers.

UPDATE: Anti-vaxxers linked to spread of measles outbreak in US

Read it.

I know how eagerly we all were waiting.

Joel Kotkin has the bad news.

If Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti runs for president, he will no doubt point to the high-rises that have transformed downtown L.A. into something of a hipster haven. He could also point to fevered dense development, both planned and already in process, spreading across the Los Angeles basin, particularly near transit stops, as well as an increasingly notable art scene.

Yet for all the changes in the city, have things improved for most Angelenos? Sadly, the answer is no. For all the speculative capital pouring into the city from China and elsewhere, the L.A. area suffers the highest levels of crowding, the greatest levels of poverty, the least affordable housing, the lowest homeownership rates and the second-largest concentration of homeless in the nation.

In many ways this reflects national trends, where, despite gentrification efforts, the number of poor districts in cities has continued to rise. And there are signs, in the most recent census numbers, that the “back to the city” trend has slowed considerably, including among millennials.

Read it.

Both sides can play the ‘resistance’ game.

(Do you ever ask yourself what The Guardian is guarding? I’d like to know.)