"Most people just don’t have a human who wants to cuddle them twice a day and force them on walks."

But if you do, you might not need a dog to preserve your brain volume.

"The humane thing to do is not use an exterminator and save these little animals that are happy and want to live."

Said Frankie Floridia, president of Strong Island Animal Rescue League, quoted in "Rescuers saved 450 pet rats. Now they’re trying to get people to adopt them" (WaPo).

They were "pet rats" in the sense that they were the type of rats — domestic rats, "fancy rats" — that are bred to serve as pets, but these rats were no one's pets. They were just running around "in a now-condemned house in the New York City suburbs."

“They’re in the walls; they’re in the cabinets; they’re in the drawers; they’re in the couch,” Floridia said. “They were basically everywhere.”

Once captured, the rats are separated by gender to prevent further breeding. Females can give birth to eight to 18 pups every three to four weeks.

Separated by gender?! Who cares about gender, here? The problem is the rats are breeding like mad. It's a matter of hard-core sex.

We're told that it's hard to get people to adopt rats. First of all, people hate rats, but the hatred isn't justified against the fancy rat. We're told this type of rat is "usually smaller, more tame, more social and easier to handle" than those rats people loathe. Second, "they must be adopted in pairs or more, as they are social animals." You might think that you can be a lone rat's dear friend, but "Humans cannot mimic the kind of social interaction they need from another rat."

Ha ha. You might have thought human-style friendship would satisfy the rat, but you would need to "mimic" a rat, and the rat experts already know you will fail at that. That seems fair. I, a non-expert, would say that you are huge, you are unpleasantly hairless, and you are not tame, social, and easy to handle. What does a rat want with you? You should adopt a rat, because the rat is "social," but then your sociability toward the rat is not even the right kind. The rat needs another rat. And these rats were used to 449 other rats.

But these rats will be adopted. They've got a whole long article in The Washington Post about their need. And WaPo tells us "The rat rescue community is by far the kindest." That's quoting Erica Kutzing, vice president and co-founder of Strong Island Animal Rescue League, who has kindly ideas about that kindness:

"I think it is attributed to the fact that rats are the underdogs, and they can almost be a representation of the forgotten people; the people who don’t always fit in. People resonate with rats because they are kind of seen as an outcast.... We are not going to stop until we find placement for everyone. We don’t have any other choice."

Rats are the underdogs, but they probably do make a pretty good pet, perhaps better than the underdog dogs kindly people adopt as rescue pets. And yet, I think you'll look better to other people if you express your overflowing kindness toward a dog. You, with a rat... it will be more...

With a friend to call my own, I'll never be alone, and you my friend will see, you've got a friend in me....

Sunrise — 7:01, 7:26.

Temperature: 15 below zero!

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

"This was not a date, but a meeting to see if they could be successful co-parents — two adults with no expectations of maintaining a relationship..."

"... outside the shared raising of a child (or two or three). 'A co-parent doesn’t need to be my romantic partner,' said Ms. Reid, who would like to have a child before she turns 36. She added that she spent the dinner looking for stability and shared values with the stranger rather than flirty chemistry. 'They need to be a great teammate.' Interest in platonic co-parenting is growing, with specialty apps experiencing substantial growth over the last few years. Modamily, the app Ms. Reid is using, connects people looking to start a family through dating, sperm donation or platonic co-parenting. In 2020, the app reported having 30,000 users registered to the platform. By 2025, that number was 100,000...."

From "In Search of a Platonic Co-Parent/Platforms that match partners in procreation are experiencing a post-pandemic uptick" (NYT)(gift link).

Person shot.

 

Both The Washington Post and The New York Times say that a "person" has been shot. Is there some question whether this was a woman or a man? If not, it's oddly dehumanizing.

From WaPo: "Federal agents shot another person in Minnesota on Saturday morning, Gov. Tim Walz said in a social media post. Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the incident, and Walz provided few details. It was not immediately clear which federal agency was involved, and the condition of the apparent victim was unknown."

Checking Walz's X post, I see it doesn't even say "person," just "another horrific shooting" (along with the demand, "The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now").

Taste the delicious penguin bait.

Embrace the penguin. pic.twitter.com/kKlzwd3Rx7

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 23, 2026

"If ideological consistency can’t explain the enduring loyalty of Trump’s base, what does?"

I'm reading "The Four Types of Trump Supporter/The president’s political power depends on his ability to play different roles for different parts of his coalition," by Daniel Yudkin and Stephen Hawkins" (The Atlantic)(gift link).

1. "MAGA Hardliners" — 29% — "mostly composed of white Gen Xers and Baby Boomers," "animated by the belief... in America’s existential struggle between good and evil."

2. "Anti-Woke Conservatives" — 21% — "a more secular and affluent group of voters deeply frustrated by what they perceive as the takeover of schools, culture, and institutions by the progressive left."

3. "Mainline Republicans" — 30% —  "a more racially diverse group of middle-of-the-road conservatives who prioritize border security, a strong economy, and cultural stability."

4. "Reluctant Right" — 20% — "ambivalent" people who thought Trump "seemed 'less bad' than the alternative." (I'm laughing at "the alternative" — the name Kamala doesn't even appear in the article.)

Those are the 4 types of Trump supporters, we're told. Then there are 4 roles that Trump plays:

"The Discombobulator. I’m not allowed to talk about it. They never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off."

"We came in, they pressed buttons and nothing worked. They were all set for us.”

Said Trump, quoted in "Trump reveals to The Post secret ‘discombobulator’ weapon was crucial to Venezuelan raid on Maduro" (NY Post).

Trump commented on the weapon when asked about reports this week that the Biden administration “Havana Syndrome.” Not much is known about the weapon, but those reports followed on-the-ground accounts from Venezuela describing how Maduro’s gunmen were brought to their knees, “bleeding through the nose” and vomiting blood. One member of the deposed strongman’s team of guards recounted afterward that “suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation. The next thing we saw were drones, a lot of drones, flying over our positions. We didn’t know how to react.... At one point, they launched something; I don’t know how to describe it. It was like a very intense sound wave. Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside... We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move. We couldn’t even stand up after that sonic weapon — or whatever it was."

We made it to the sunrise vantage point at 7:26, with the temperature at minus 15° (the windless wind chill also minus 15°).

Meade got his video:

That was 6 minutes after the official sunrise time, but the sun did not pop, and we made it back to the car and over to Whole Foods, where we were the first customers, slipping in as the door was unlocked.

With a trunk full of things I feel RFK Jr. would approve of, we headed back home, eastward, and — at 8:26 — experienced a double sunrise:

Spotify had decided that the "daylist" for me this morning was "cowboy country western swing saturday early morning" and at that precise moment, this was the song:

"Texas in My Soul."

Bloviate.

From a biography of Warren G. Harding:

That was sent to me by my son Chris, who is quite far along toward his goal of reading a biography of every U.S. President. 

In the 22-year history of this blog, I've never used the word "bloviate." Twice, though, I've quoted someone else:

1. My November 1, 2019 post, "An impeachment trial would help Joe Biden — because Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Cory Booker would all face the obligation to do their job as Senator," quoted NY Magazine writer Ed Kilgore, who wrote:  "[An impeachment trial] could be a boon to non-senators — particularly Joe Biden, who can bloviate to his heart’s desire about the lessons he learned on impeachment and all the issues involving Trump during his 44 years as a member or presiding officer of the Upper Chamber...." 

2. On October 7, 2004, the first year of this blog, I quoted Al Franken, who was boasting about his radio show on the radio network Air America: "We do a different kind of show. I'm not the mirror image of Rush Limbaugh. I do a totally different kind of show. I don't bloviate for three hours and pull stuff out of my butt and mislead and lie. We're very scrupulous about our facts. I'm proud of that." (I do go on to quip about whether Franken "did in fact bloviate," so count that as my using the word if you must, but I'm really still essentially quoting him.)

In both of those instances, the user of "bloviate" is insulting someone else. President Harding, the popularizer of the word, used it about himself, self-deprecatingly. 

***

Here's the biography — commission earned — "Warren G. Harding: The American Presidents Series: The 29th President, 1921-1923." Warning: It's by John Dean. Chris says: "It’s part of a series of very short books that I use when the options are very limited." He's relied on that series to read about William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, and Benjamin Harrison.

We got out for the sunrise when it was 18 below 0 with a "feels like" of 35 below.

7:09:

7:29:

I hope you're keeping warm... at least most of the time. I recommend getting out and challenging yourself to feel the cold. It's thrilling.

But watch out for exploding trees!

"New York City Could Get a Foot of Snow. Mamdani Knows It’s a Test."

The NYT puts its finger on why this foot of snow is such a big deal. It's hitting political hot spots.

Subheadline: "Plenty of New York City mayors have faced blowback over their handling of blizzards. In several appearances this week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has sought to show he is prepared."

I guess his opponents are hoping for a snow nightmare.

As for Mamdani, he's getting out in front of Snowmageddon and endeavoring to seem lovable:

Stay warm, stay safe New York. pic.twitter.com/aFbDsOkzLn

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) January 18, 2026

What, really, does Donald Trump have to do with Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain"?

I'm prepared for this. I read "The Magic Mountain"... 50 years ago. And right now I'm reading "It’s Time to Talk About Donald Trump’s Logorrhea/How many polite ways are there to ask whether the President of the United States is losing it?" by Susan B. Glasser, in The New Yorker). '

So let's see:

[I]n rambling on so much, Trump reveals just about everything one could ever want to know about him—his lack of discipline, his ignorance, his vanity, insecurity, and crudeness, and a mean streak that knows no limits. “It is remarkable how a man cannot summarize his thoughts in even the most general sort of way without betraying himself completely,” Thomas Mann wrote a century ago, in his novel “The Magic Mountain,” set in a sanitarium perched above the Swiss mountain town of Davos, where Trump spent the better part of this week proving to the stunned attendees of the annual World Economic Forum the continuing relevance of Mann’s observation....

[W]hen Trump reached the fulsome self-praise section of his speech, he explained that he was such an incredible peacemaker that he had even managed to end wars in places where he had not known they were happening. Imagine admitting this about yourself. Another quote from “The Magic Mountain” sprang to mind: “I know I am talking nonsense, but I’d rather go rambling on. . . .”

1. It's not rambling. It's the weave. There's no acknowledgement that Trump himself has explained what he is doing. He calls it the weave. He's in control of it. You just don't like the elaborate tangles of verbiage. 

2. And yet you push "The Magic Mountain" at me! Why isn't Trump terse and to the point? Why isn't Thomas Mann!!!?

3. You don't want to follow the complex feats of language that require you to keep track of numerous threads to visualize the luminous tapestry.

4. Many a reader has gotten fed up with "The Magic Mountain," and she knows it, but I doubt that Susan B. Glasser would regard Thomas Mann as some kind of nut. I picture her denouncing the reader for not digging in, paying attention, trusting the author, and taking the time to understand. 

5. It's not as though Glasser drew upon deep literary experience to come up with material from "The Magic Mountain." It's the famous book set in the location where Trump spoke. To quote it is like quoting your last fortune cookie or scrap of litter right at your feet.

6. What does Glasser really know of "The Magic Mountain"? She's got 2 quotes, and if you go to Goodreads, you'll find both quotes within the top 6 quotes from the book. They are #5 and #6.

7. ##1-4: "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil"/"It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death"/"Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul"/"There are so many different kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst." I'm tempted to ask Grok to write a pro-Trump essay using those 4 quotes.

"At a mushroom hot pot restaurant there, the server set a timer for 15 minutes and warned us, 'Don't eat it until the timer goes off or you might see little people."

"It seems like very common knowledge in the culture there."

The quote is from Colin Domnauer, "a doctoral candidate in biology at the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah, who is studying L. asiatica," quoted in "'They saw them on their dishes when eating': The mushroom making people hallucinate dozens of tiny humans" (BBC).

Every year, doctors at a hospital in the Yunnan Province of China brace themselves for an influx of people with an unusual complaint. The patients come with a strikingly odd symptom: visions of pint-sized, elf-like figures – marching under doors, crawling up walls and clinging to furniture.... 

In a 1991 paper, two researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences described cases of people in Yunnan Province who had eaten a certain mushroom and experienced "lilliputian hallucinations" – the psychiatric term for the perception of tiny human, animal or fantasy figures....

[O]ther known psychedelic compounds also usually produce idiosyncratic trips that vary not only from person to person but also from one experience to the next within the same individual. With L. asiatica, though, "the perception of little people is very reliably and repeatedly reported", Domnauer says. "I don't know of anything else that produces such consistent hallucinations."

Do rats see little rats? 

Are there other substances that produce such specific hallucinations?

Brisk.

Sunrise — 7:04, 7:11, 7:13, 7:28.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.