HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: More than half of college professors bite their tongues over cancel culture fears.

PULITZER PRIZES: The Grammy Awards of Journalism? “Whether the beat was race, refugees or the environment, the prescription was almost always the same: more expert administrators and many more grants and subsidies for selfless global truthtellers like them, along with doing more to suppress disinformation from the bad guys. Accordingly, the arts prizes went largely to poets, playwrights, et al peddling variations on the same theme. . . . If one takes the old plaques seriously, or the promotional hosannas I put together, recent awardees have tended toward the appalling. But if the prizes are mainly a moving target for status striving they’re doing about as well as ever. Regardless, it’s past time any residual regard for the Pulitzer Prizes evaporate. After a century plus they’re as captured and corrupt an institution as any—not that they don’t still recognize some legit reporting, but that they’re no longer grounded in a conception of the common good that most Americans of either party would recognize. Instead they’ve become shiny talismans of shopworn narratives from Davos and the Hamptons, such that you hardly have to read the awardees to know what line they’re selling.”

MOST OF MY SUCCESSES SEEM ALMOST ACCIDENTAL AND TO HAPPEN WHEN I LEAST EXPECT THEM:   The Problem of Learning From Great Men and Women.

Don’t misunderstand me. It’s not that I didn’t work for them. It’s just almost inevitably something I did out of the blue, having nothing to do with my plans and my ideas of how I’m going to succeed.

BUILD IT:  Better Mousetraps.

IF THE RESEARCHERS REALLY BELIEVED THIS THEY’D KEEP SHUT ABOUT IT:  Short, bitter people are ‘more likely to be psychopaths’: study.

NHJ DENIES XI VAN FLEET’S LIVED EXPERIENCE:   NYT journo, ‘1619 Project’ creator lectures survivor of China’s Cultural Revolution on oppression.

And sanity and history. But then again, it’s old hat for her to forget those.

AND THIS:  “The big lie of the diversity, equity, and inclusion industry is that we are a systemically racist country”.

THIS IS A PERSISTENT ILLUSION OF THE LEFT:  Biden at Black History Month Reception: ‘I May be a White Boy, but I’m Not Stupid. I Know Where the Power Is’.

WHAT CAN’T GO ON WON’T GO ON:  Diversity Workers Being Phased Out Amid Corporate Job Cuts.

IT’S ALL CORRUPTION AND FRAUD, ANYWAY:  San Francisco Reparations Committee Chairman: No ‘Math Formula’ Used to Calculate $5 Million Payout.

Paying reparations for slavery to people who were never slaves, from people who never owned slaves, in a state that never permitted slavery. Might be peak clown world.

BUT BUT BUT, THREE MORE WEEKS TO FLATTEN THE CURVE:   Gov. Newsom Finally Ending California’s COVID State of Emergency After Three Years.

THAT PROBABLY MEANS IT WAS AN INTENTIONAL RELEASE:  Yup: FBI Director Says Covid “Most Likely” Leaked From Wuhan Lab.

What, paranoid? Me? Yeah. Every word they say is a lie, including “the” and “a”.

IT’S NOT SELF-EXPRESSION, IT’S CONTROL: A Passion For Control.

I’VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR DECADES:  The Population Crash.

I’VE MAINTAINED THIS FOR MANY YEARS. THERE ARE THINGS YOU CAN’T VIOLATE:  The Hard “Nope”.

LORI LIGHTFOOT ELIMINATED IN CHICAGO MAYOR’S RACE.

UPDATE:

WHICH IS WHY HE NEVER GOT A PULITZER LIKE WALTER DURANTY, WHO PARROTED STALIN’S CLAIMS: Gareth Jones: The hero of the Holodomor and martyr for journalism. “Two years after his Ukraine adventures, Gareth Jones and a German journalist covered events in turbulent China. They were captured by bandits who released the German within two days but held on to Jones for sixteen more. Then on August 12, 1935—the day before his 30th birthday—Jones was shot to death. The evidence tying the murder to the Soviet secret police was overwhelming.”

SOUNDING LIKE A LOSER FOR THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: Thoughts on Today’s Supreme Court Student Loan Forgiveness Oral Arguments. “The justices seem to be clearly leaning against the Biden Administration on the merits. The procedural issue of standing is a closer call, though ultimately more likely than not to come out the same way.”

OPEN THREAD: Can’t blog a thrill.

21ST CENTURY TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT: How many satellites can we safely fit in Earth orbit?

CHANGE FOR GOOD: 13 EU countries join nuke energy pact and Japan says it’s glow time. Plus: “Well, my goodness! Even as I’m writing, Italy has joined the pact! That is a great move for Meloni’s government, but that girl is on her game when it comes to Italy’s safeguarding energy resources.”

MICHAEL WALSH: Monsters from the Id. “Somewhere in the Twilight Zone, little Anthony is enjoying the hell out of this.”

DON SURBER: How Elon Musk Survives. Essentially by making himself indispensable to the most powerful part of the Establishment. “By making the Pentagon reliant on him, he has a powerful ally against the FBI and other abusers of federal power.”

BRANNON DENNING AND I TALK ABOUT HOW THE SUPREME COURT RETCONNED HELLER IN THE BRUEN OPINION. The new opinion is certainly an improvement, but it is a new opinion and new doctrine.

Download it early and often — it’s good for us and our topic if we rise in the rankings. Thanks! (Bumped).

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who’s downloading it. I appreciate it a lot!

ANOTHER UPDATE: And thanks again! I really appreciate all of you.

S.O.S. FOR THE U.S. ELECTRIC GRID: PJM Interconnection sounds the latest alarm that fossil-fuel plants are shutting down without adequate replacement power. The political class yawns. They have generators, and they’re disconnected from reality and the notion of consequences anyway.

The warnings keep coming that the force-fed energy transition to renewable fuels is destabilizing the U.S. electric grid, but is anyone in government paying attention? Another S.O.S. came Friday in an ominous report from PJM Interconnection, one of the nation’s largest grid operators.

The PJM report forecasts power supply and demand through 2030 across the 13 eastern states in its territory covering 65 million people. Its top-line conclusion: Fossil-fuel power plants are retiring much faster than renewable sources are getting developed, which could lead to energy “imbalances.” That’s a delicate way of saying that you can expect shortages and blackouts.

PJM typically generates a surplus of power owing to its large fossil-fuel fleet, which it exports to neighboring grids in the Midwest and Northeast. When wind power plunged in the Midwest and central states late last week, PJM helped fill the gap between supply and demand and kept the lights on.

That’s why it’s especially worrisome that PJM is predicting a large decline in its power reserves as coal and natural-gas plants retire. The report forecasts that 40,000 megawatts (MW) of power generation—enough to light up 30 million households—are at risk of retiring by 2030, representing about 21% of PJM’s current generation capacity.

Most projected power-plant retirements are “policy-driven,” the report says. For example, the steep costs of complying with Environmental Protection Agency regulations, including a proposed “good neighbor rule” that is expected to be finalized next month, will force about 10,500 MW of fossil-fuel generation to shut down.

At the same time, utility-company ESG (environmental, social and governance) commitments are driving coal plants to close, the report notes. Illinois and New Jersey climate policies could reduce generation by 8,900 MW. Do these states plan to rely on their good neighbors for power?

If they were trying to undermine America, and working Americans’ quality of life, what would they be doing differently?