AND EVEN MORE CRITTERS
THE PERSON who MAKES the FIRST COMMENT WILL GET TWO CRITTERS
EVERY PERSON WHO COMMENTS WILL GET A CRITTER
RULES IN THE DIARY
WHEN YOU FIND SOMETHING in the DIARY that you LIKE
YOU CAN REPOST IT AS COMMENT in the DIARY
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PostingADiary
CritterHerding
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Ice may be more hazardous than snow this weekend. — NPR
Oh, wait. They don’t mean that kind of ICE but the other kind of ice. Doesn’t matter. It works either way.
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🚨"I'm seeing icicles form on people's eyelashes out here, on mustaches, on eyebrows, from just the condensation from their own breath freezing against their own face," - @jtcestkowski.bsky.social from Minneapolis ICE protests in MINUS 20 DEGREES (-38 wind chill). LIVE NOW ⬇️
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— Status Coup News (@statuscoupnews.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 9:15 AM
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I was on the ground during the LA occupation. I got tear-gassed the first day while handing out water.
Angeleno resistance succeeded despite being very fragmented. If we had been this organized, ICE wouldn’t have stood a chance.
This is the platonic ideal of solidarity. This is how we win.
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— Hunter Dunn (@hunterisntdunn.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 9:33 AM
The airport demonstration was said to be largely but not entirely religious leaders. Later reports (not shared) indicate that there were relatively peaceful arrests that took a very long time because there were so many people at the airport.
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61% of Americans say ICE has gone too far. Yay! But only 19% of Republicans think that. Boo!
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Speaking of actual ice (the cold kind — no, wait, that’s ambiguous too — the kind that’s frozen water) a major storm is coming this weekend. You’d have to be a peabrain to think this disproves climate change.
Donald Trump has erroneously cited an enormous winter storm that is set to deliver freezing temperatures and heavy snow to half of the US as supposed proof that the world is not heating up due to the burning of fossil fuels. (The Guardian)
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Meanwhile at DAVOS, Trump confused Iceland with Greenland, insulted Europe, and dragged NATO.
Keir Starmer has issued an unprecedented rebuke to Donald Trump for his “insulting and frankly appalling” remarks about British and other Nato troops in Afghanistan, and suggested he should apologise.
After a day of mounting outrage around the world over the US president’s claim that British and Nato troops who fought in Afghanistan avoided the frontlines, Starmer paid tribute to the 457 members of the armed services who lost their lives during the conflict.
“I will never forget their courage, their bravery and the sacrifice that they made for their country,” the prime minister said on Friday. “There are many also who were injured, some with life-changing injuries.
“And so I consider President Trump’s remarks to be insulting and frankly appalling, and I’m not surprised they caused such hurt to the loved ones of those who were killed or injured.” (The Guardian)
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A Danish veteran wrote this poignant letter to Rufus Gifford, the US Ambassador to Denmark:
Dear Rufus Gifford,
I’m not writing as a politician.
Not as an analyst.
I’m writing as a Danish Afghanistan and Iraq veteran.
And yes – this brings tears to my eyes.
When the U.S. today calls Denmark a poor ally, it feels like a slap in the face to those of us who were actually there.
After 9/11, Denmark did not hesitate.
We didn’t debate polls.
We didn’t calculate politics.
We put on our gear.
We said goodbye to our families.
We kissed our children goodnight and hoped we’d see them again.
We stood side by side with American soldiers.
We patrolled together.
We covered each other.
We bled together.
And we lost people.
Danish soldiers never came back home because we took the alliance seriously – not as words, but as a promise between soldiers.
So when Denmark is called disloyal, it doesn’t just hit a country.
It hits those of us who wore the uniform.
It hits the fallen.
It hits the families still paying the price.
We don’t expect thanks.
We don’t expect applause.
But we do expect honesty.
And respect for history.
Denmark was there when it mattered.
And we were not half-hearted.
A soldier never forgets who stood by his side.
Nations shouldn’t either. (NPR)
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It appears that Trump pulled the same trick with Greenland as with Ukraine. He claimed that he made a peace agreement, or a “framework” of one, without including Greenland in the discussion.
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Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Prime Minister of Greenland: First of all, nobody other than Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark have the mandate to make deals or agreements about Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark without us. That’s not going to happen.
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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) January 22, 2026 at 9:45 PM
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Although DAVOS is hardly the place, Trump once again ranted about the 2020 election.
The 2020 U.S. presidential election [was] rigged. It was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that. They found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did. That’s probably breaking news.
For once, I agree with Trump: This should be breaking news — just obviously not for the reason Trump is implying. Yet it is barely being treated by the legacy media as news at all.
Think about that. Not only is Trump repeating a lie about the conduct of the 2020 election, but he is also announcing — at an international conference — that his administration will soon prosecute his political opponents for having defeated him in an election. (Democracy Docket)
Mark Elias further points out that threatening one’s political opponents is not normal. We know that. But we hear so much crazy every day that we’re likely to suffer normal-fatigue and need the reminder.
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Healey: Whether it’s ballrooms, or masked agents, or attacks on Europe and Greenland…This is not normal. It’s not normal to have somebody who acts like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. On any given day, we don’t know what he’s going to do.
This shouldn’t be normalized. It’s not right.
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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) January 22, 2026 at 8:45 PM
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Trump also initiated the “Board of Peace,” in a move awkwardly timed just after he scolded the Norwegian government for not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize (the government does not award that prize) and blamed them for making him give up on peace and threaten Greenland (which is Danish not Norwegian.)
President Trump on Thursday signed the founding charter of his proposed Board of Peace at the World Economic Forum. He unveiled what he described as a new international mechanism to oversee postwar stabilization in Gaza and potentially other conflict zones, even as several U.S. allies publicly refused to join…
Trump had previously suggested the new body, which he would chair, could potentially replace the United Nations...
Under this charter, the Board of Peace would coordinate international assistance, support security arrangements, and help guide Gaza's post-conflict administration. The concept has been endorsed in principle by a United Nations Security Council resolution supporting a transitional framework for Gaza, though the board itself would operate outside formal U.N. structures...
Alongside leaders from the U.K., Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands — all of whom said they would not sign the charter in its current form — Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said his country would not sign out of concern for the precedent it set, as well as international law more broadly. (NPR)
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Republicans continue to back him up, in this case by refusing to limit his war powers in Venezuela.
House Republicans blocked a resolution in a tie vote on Thursday to limit the executive's war powers in Venezuela, a close call for President Trump and a GOP conference that has largely steered clear of rebuking him…
"I guess the best we can get from the current majority here is that there's never a good time for Congress to assert its war powers. It's either too soon or it's too late," [Jim] McGovern [D-MA] argued. "Well, I don't think it's too late because we're still dealing with the consequences of this unauthorized, unlawful military strike." (NPR)
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Trump’s threats of war threaten our economy.
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Denmark isn’t the only country with second thoughts about investing in US bonds.
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India’s holdings of US Treasury bonds have fallen to a 5-year low as the nation pushes to support its currency and diversify its reserves.
People “are looking to diversify away from US assets, and I would kind of describe it as quiet-quitting of US bonds" www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
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— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 7:56 AM
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War itself is spendy.
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NEW: Trump is floating a $1.5 trillion war budget.
$1.5 trillion could fund Medicaid, the child tax credit, SNAP, the Department of Education, national highway repair, the NIH, school breakfast & lunch, FEMA, the FAA, the EPA, and federal overdose prevention COMBINED.
War costs us a better world.
— Institute for Policy Studies (@ips-dc.org) January 22, 2026 at 1:25 PM
Which brings us back to Nazi Germany. Not only did Hitler invade Russia in winter, but he also made the mistake of waging war on two fronts. If Trump started a war in all the places that he has suggested that he would, how many fronts would that be? Trump Always Chickens Out though. And that’s a darn good thing.
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The wheels of justice grind slowly but they get there eventually.
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Abigail Shry, who pleaded guilty to making racist and violent threat against DC federal judge Tanya Chutkan, has been ordered to report to prison by Feb 17.
Shry made the threat in the hours after Chutkan was assigned Trump’s election conspiracy criminal case in August 2023
— Scott MacFarlane (@macfarlanenews.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 10:53 AM
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John Hancock (1737-1793) - The first person to sign the Declaration of Independence.
William Morgan (1870-1942) - PE instructor who invented the "mintonette" (the volleyball).
Eugene Sullivan (1872-1962) - Inventor of PYREX® Glass.
Wally Parks (1913-2007) - Founder of the National Hot Rod Association.
David Douglas Duncan (1916-2018) - One of the first photographers to take pictures of combat.
Gertrude B. Elion (1918-1999) - Drug researcher who developed leukemia and herpes drug treatments.
Walter Frederick Morrison (1920-2010) - Invented of the Frisbee. He started out selling “Flyin’ Cake Pans.” Then he designed the “Whirlo-way.” He sold a later design, the “Pluto Platter” (which he advertised with this photo) to Whamo, coincidentally on this day in 1957. They renamed it “Frisbee” after learning that’s what some college students called it. (Wikipedia.) Morrison’s last wish was that his ashes be molded into Frisbees to be distributed among his family members as keepsakes. (Factbase)
Anita Pointer (1948-2022) - Singer of the pop group the Pointer Sisters.
Mariska Hargitay (1964-Still Living) - Actress in the long-running t.v. series Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
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Today in...
1789 - Georgetown College was founded and opens its doors.
1849 - Elizabeth Blackwell became the first female doctor in the U.S.
1941 - Charles Lindbergh testified before Congress recommending the U.S. negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
1961 - The Supreme Court ruled cities and states have the right to censor films.
1964 - The 24th Amendment prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections was ratified.
1983 - A cerebral palsy telethon raised $14.7 million.
1986 - The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first members. The inductees included Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.
When Chuck Berry was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, an all-star band, including John Fogerty, Billy Joel, Jerry Lee Lewis, Keith Richards, Neil Young and Steve Winwood, charged through a raucous "Roll Over Beethoven" with de facto bandleader Chuck Berry guiding the show. (Description on the following youtube.)
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It’s National Security Technician Day!
Security technicians are on the front lines protecting our nation's critical infrastructure. Without them, our nation's ports, transit systems, K-12 schools, government facilities, and utilities would fail to operate properly. Today, we want to honor all security technicians to show our appreciation for the hard work they do for us as they keep our digital life safe.
What is a security technician? A security technician is a trained individual who installs, maintains, and repairs a wide variety of security systems. A security technician can easily work in a variety of settings, including residential or commercial settings. (National Day Calendar)
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It’s National Handwriting Day!
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And it’s National Pie Day! This is the day to celebrate all kinds of pie, but most especially rhubarb, since it’s also National Rhubarb Pie Day.
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It’s International Sticky Toffee Pudding Day!
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In Iceland, it’s Thorrablot, a midwinter festival celebrating community. (Warning: the part about traditional foods is quite interesting but may not be suitable for watching while you’re eating.)
Tomorrow is National Peanut Butter Day.
