February 1, 2026

I THOUGHT THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: Something very unexpected is happening to Norway’s polar bears: Scientists are baffled by the results from new Arctic research.

Polar bears became the poster child for the peril of climate change for obvious reasons: They hunt seals from the ice, and as fossil fuels warm the planet, the ice where these bears live is melting.

For more than three decades, scientists have been warning that climate change could drive polar bear populations extinct. That message infiltrated the public psyche, perhaps more than any other about the scourge of global warming. . . .

Now, research in the journal Scientific Reports adds yet another wrinkle of hope for the species. The study, an analysis of hundreds of polar bears in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, found that declining sea ice is not causing polar bears to starve. They actually appeared healthier in the last two decades of the analysis, from 2000 to 2019. The overall population, meanwhile, is either stable or growing, according to Jon Aars, the study’s lead author and a scientist at the Norwegian Polar Institute.

“I was surprised,” Aars told Vox from Svalbard. “I would have predicted that body condition would decline. We see the opposite.”

Maybe fundraising-letter science is simplistic and incomplete.

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

January 31, 2026

THEN IT WAS COMMON-SENSE DEMOCRATIC POLICY. NOW IT’S FASCISM BECAUSE SHUT UP.

Posted at 10:20 pm by Glenn Reynolds

HMM. STAY TUNED.

Posted at 8:01 pm by Glenn Reynolds

YES. But most “journalists” are obedient regime stenographers.

Posted at 5:47 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OLD AND BUSTED: Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.

The New Coldness? Two Memphis leaders question whether snow was man-made.

A new debate on snow is heating up online with posts from two Memphis City Council members, one of whom claims she’s getting threats over the post.

Pearl Walker and Yolanda Cooper-Sutton shared social media posts this week questioning whether the snow that fell across the city was real, or possibly man-made. The topic is trending on TikTok.

The comments quickly took off online, drawing strong reaction as crews across Memphis were still dealing with icy roads, school closures, and cleanup from one of the city’s more significant winter storms in recent years.

I blame the Rothschilds.

Much more here:

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

WHO WANTS TO TELL HIM? In the early 20th century, we not only did not have pre-Reagan tax rates, until 1913 we had no federal income tax at all, and the original NYC subway lines, the BMT and the IRT, were built by private companies, and operated privately until 1940.

Posted at 5:16 pm by David Bernstein

THE DE-GLEICHSCHALTUNG* CONTINUES: Jury Awards Detransitioner $2 Million In Historic Medical-Malpractice Lawsuit:

A woman who received a double mastectomy at the age of 16 under the guise of transgender-related healthcare was just awarded $2 million in the first successful medical-malpractice lawsuit brought by a destransitioner.

Fox Varian sued her New York-based psychologist and plastic surgeon for facilitating her gender-transition double mastectomy in 2019, independent reporter Benjamin Ryan who attended Varian’s recent trial, said. Although a host of detransitioners have sued doctors who rush to “affirm” gender confusion with life-altering surgeries, Varian’s is the first known successful lawsuit.

Claire Deacon, Varian’s mother, was led by her daughter’s psychologist to believe that breast removal was the only way to heal Varian’s gender dysphoria, she told the jury. At first Deacon told Varian’s psychologist Kenneth Einhorn that top surgery was “never gonna happen” if she could help it.

“This man was just so emphatic, and pushing and pushing, that I felt like there was no good decision,” she said, according to an Epoch Times report. “I think it was a scare tactic: I don’t believe it was malice, I think he believed what he was saying … but he was very, very wrong.”

The idea of her 16-year-old daughter receiving a mastectomy made her “physically ill,” Deacon said. But Deacon was led to believe by Einhorn that Varian would be unhappy unless she was affirmed in her gender dysphoria. It was the “the hardest, most difficult, gut-wrenching” decision, Deacon told the jury.

Two million? Those are rookie numbers. Red states need to pump those numbers up much higher:

* As Ace warned in 2024, the establishment left will likely be breaking out the airbrushes on a Stalinist level: The Trans-Children Era is About to Be Memory-Holed and the Perpetrators Will Be Disavowing Involvement. Particularly since, as Rich Lowry wrote that November, “Trans Moralism Is Killing the Democrats.” “This is what happened on trans issues in the election. Donald Trump’s ‘she’s for they/them’ attack ad was the most effective and consequential political spot of this century.”

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

LIKE A “RESORT FEE” FOR A HOTEL YOU DON’T WANT TO STAY IN: Patients are being hit with this surprise fee just for seeing their doc. Patients are being hit with this surprise fee just for seeing their doc. “Facility fees are intended to help hospitals offset their high overhead costs, including overnight care, use of specialized equipment and other expenses that make them costly to run. But when hospitals acquire independent physician clinics that don’t face hospital-scale expenses, patients may still be hit with those charges even in outpatient settings.”

Posted at 1:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

D.C. MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER SEEN DRINKING, POSING FOR PHOTOS AT MAYORAL CONVENTION WITH CITY ON ICE:

Retiring D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser was seen drinking with fellow mayors at a hotel bar and snapping photos with fans inside the Marriott Marquis downtown on Thursday for this year’s U.S. Conference of Mayors as the streets and sidewalks of her city remain covered in snow and ice, according to a conference attendee.

“She had no care in the world,” the attendee said.

Approaching a week after the snowstorm ended, tons of streets and sidewalks in the nation’s capital remain unsalted, unplowed, and extremely icy, including on Pennsylvania Avenue. Where plows have made their rounds and K-12 schools have finally reopened, many sidewalks and cross walks remain blockaded by treacherous ice-packed snow banks.

Politicians, particularly mayors, tend to come under close scrutiny when bad weather hits and residents hold them responsible for the city’s response. Bowser, however, is not running for reelection.

Bowser’s decision to spend an evening this week drinking with fellow politicians as her city remains a sheet of ice is reminiscent the same political instincts she demonstrated over the summer, when she fled town to pick up her daughter in Martha’s Vineyard the same week President Donald Trump announced his federal takeover of the nation’s capital.

Still though, this is pretty minor league political decadence compared to DC legend Marion Barry:

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll