Welcome to CaturSaturday, January 17, and Popeye the Sailor Man Day. Here is the first strip to feature the spinach-addicted sailor, which appeared on this day in 1929. That was ten years after artist Elzie Crisler created the “Thimble Theater” strip which originally lacked Popeye but was about the Oyl family (including Olive Oyl). But here’s the first strip that featured Popeye, who of course took over the feature. Click to enlarge.
It’s also Ben Franklin Day (he was born on this day in 1706), National Hot Buttered Rum Day, and National Hot Heads Chili Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the January 17 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Although the protests in Iran seem to have quieted down for the moment, the NYT explains how protestors circumvented the regime’s internet and cellphone blackout: “Inside the Fight to keep Iran online.” (Archived here.)
Iran’s communications blackout last week seemed complete. Internet and cellular networks had been shut down by the authorities. Online banking, shopping and text messaging services stopped working. Information about the growing protests was scarce.
Yet a ragtag network of activists, developers and engineers pierced Iran’s digital barricades. Using thousands of Starlink satellite internet systems that they had quietly smuggled into the country, they got online and spread images of troops firing into the streets and families searching for bodies.
Their actions, described by digital rights researchers and others, forced Iran’s government to respond. The authorities deployed military-grade electronic weaponry designed to disrupt the GPS signals that Starlink equipment needs to function, a step that activists and civil society groups said was rarely taken outside battlefields like those in Ukraine.
The cracks exposed in Iran’s internet shutdown were no accident. Since 2022, activists and civil society groups have worked on sneaking Starlink terminals into the country, aided by a U.S. government sanctions exemption for Starlink and American companies to offer communication tools in Iran. About 50,000 of the terminals are now in Iran, according to digital activists, in defiance of an Iranian law passed last year that bans the systems, and rules prohibiting unlicensed services.
“You need to plan to have that infrastructure in place,” said Fereidoon Bashar, the executive director of ASL19, a digital rights group focused on Iran. “This is because of years of planning and work among different groups.”
The hidden networks of Starlinks — and the Iranian government’s aggressive response against them — shows how national digital blackouts are becoming harder for authorities to enforce. Governments have long used internet disruptions to suppress dissent in countries like India, Myanmar and Uganda. But the spread of tools like satellite internet have complicated the shutdowns and created a cat-and-mouse hunt against new technologies.
Starlink, provided by Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, beams an internet connection from satellites to terminals on Earth, bypassing any land-based censorship infrastructure. That has helped the service play an outsize role in Iran’s protests, helping demonstrators organize and communicate with the outside world.
Starlink is still available only to a sliver of the Iranian population, and information about the protests, which have left an estimated 3,000 dead, remains limited.
Well, give credit to Trump and Musk for making this possible, though Musk didn’t create Starlink to bypass dictatorial Internet blackouts. But the administration did exempt Starlink from sanctions on Iran, and that was surely done to allow the Iranian people to communicate with the rest of the world.
*In an unseemly gesture designed to curry Trump’s favor, Nobel Peace Laureate María Corina Machado gave her medal to our “President”. (Page is archived here.)
Machado’s meeting with Trump was an effort to regain influence over Venezuela’s future as the threat of U.S. military action continues to hang over the new leadership in Caracas — and as Trump has demanded Venezuela open its oil fields to U.S. companies. Machado was her nation’s democratic leader-in-waiting until Trump backed the existing vice president, who has indicated willingness to bend to U.S. demands.
Machado “is a wonderful woman who has been through so much,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after the meeting. “María presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.”
Machado’s effort to win the president’s sympathies through handing off her prize sparked a sharp reaction from the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which has said that a prize cannot be re-awarded to another person.
Machado said the Venezuelan people were giving Trump the medal “as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom.”
Since the Jan. 3 raid that captured Maduro and brought him to a New York courtroom, Trump has questioned whether Machado has the clout to assume a leadership role in her country. Instead, he has thrown his weight behind Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president but has indicated she is willing to put a U.S.-friendly spin on her leadership while keeping the existing regime in place.
Machado entered the West Wing around noon and left after 2½ hours to go to meetings with Congress. Her meeting with Trump took place without cameras — a rarity for a president who typically publicizes such encounters. The low-profile visit may have signaled Trump’s preference for strengthening ties with the current Venezuelan leadership rather than elevating Machado.
OY!
President Donald J. Trump meets with María Corina Machado of Venezuela in the Oval Office, during which she presented the President with her Nobel Peace Prize in recognition and honor.🕊️ pic.twitter.com/v7pYHjVNVO
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 16, 2026
No, the Venezuelan people did not give Trump the medal; Machado did, and I have to say that this gesture looks more than a little like groveling. Even if Machado is trying to persuade Trump to let her run for President, it doesn’t look like Trump’s in the mood to promote the democratic elections that Venezuela and Machado favor. Trump’s backing Delcy Rodriguez, a Maduro-ite, as interim President of Venezuela is not good optics for a country that’s supposed to promote freedom. Trump should not have taken that medal, either. That’s the closest he’s going to get to getting a Nobel Peace Prize. Where is any peace he has forged?
*As always, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s news-and-snark column in The Free Press; this week’s version is called “TGIF: ICE on ice” (it refers to an ICE agent slipping on ice in Minnesota).
→ Abolish the police, except in Iran: As protests for freedom continue in Iran, the ayatollah’s brutal regime is responding by gunning down thousands of protesters. Are there marches here to stand in solidarity? No. Is our freedom all entwined? Again no. So how is the American progressive establishment treating this? Well, they’re either saying it’s fake or they’re saying it’s great. The chair of the DNC says America is just as repressive: “If comparing the U.S. to Iran makes you angry, ask why,” says Ken Martin. Leftist influencer Hasan Piker defended himself against critics: “You liked a Khamenei tweet when he is responsible for killing so many people? Listen, sometimes you can find poetry in the strangest places.” And sometimes you find terror apologia exactly where you expect. Scores of Scottish independence social media accounts went dark after Iran instituted an internet blackout. Meaning, when Iran shut down the Iranian internet, suddenly a lot of anti-government protest accounts in other places went dark too. Odd. And then the chef’s kiss is this treatise from Progressive International. In short: Police are meanies, except in Iran, where they are very very good. Here’s Progressive International:
In the imperial countries, the police function as the domestic arm of the empire. They suppress dissent, criminalize resistance, and enforce accumulation through violence particularly against Black, Indigenous, and other Peoples of Color. . . . In Iran, the Law Enforcement Command exists within a radically different context: a state born of popular revolution, subjected to decades of sanctions, assassinations, sabotage, and overt military threats. Crucially, it faces sustained attempts at regime change operations and color revolution tactics aimed at disarming the state internally by delegitimizing its capacity to maintain order.
They have such newfound respect for maintaining order. Hot. They’re all for abolishing the police until the police is named Ayatollah, and then it’s like, “Come beat me, Ayatollah.”
Hasan Piker is a moron. More:
→ Americans largely do not believe the ICE shooting was justified: A few stats from a new Quinnipiac University Poll:
- 57 percent of voters disapprove of the way ICE is enforcing immigration laws
- 53 percent think the shooting of Renee Good was not justified, while only 35 percent think it was justified
When I think about what the Trump administration is doing with these ICE raids, the only explanation that makes sense is that fear and panic and viral videos are the goal—since it’ll ostensibly discourage immigration and make life so stressful for existing immigrants that they’ll self-deport. Though I don’t think this video of an ICE agent slipping on ice was one of the ideas laid out in the ICE social marketing sync. Almost worse than the fall itself is the unfortunately perfect symmetry of him getting taken out by ice. Anyway, I do think all the noise and chaos is part of their plan (am I QAnon now?). For a window into ICE officer recruitment, you have to read this hilarious Slate story: “You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof.”
And did you know that in California, for example, being an immigrant is, by law, an argument for a more lenient sentence? Here’s this: “The prosecution, in the interests of justice, and in furtherance of the findings and declarations of Section 1016.2, shall consider the avoidance of adverse immigration consequences in the plea negotiation process as one factor in an effort to reach a just resolution.”
I just. . . there has to be a middle ground between terrorizing immigrants and no jail if criminal is an immigrant. There must be. . . something in between those two outcomes. Call me a kook but I still dream a dream.
→ News of the Jews: . . . Late last week, a crowd gathered outside a Queens synagogue and chanted: “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here.” Zohran Mamdani initially stayed silent, then said in a statement that the language was “wrong” and has “no place in New York City.” I’m sure. He was probably busy fighting for a bidet to be installed in the mayoral abode, an “aspirational hope,” he’s said, which feels suspiciously European even if I technically agree with him. “We’ll see if we can get it done,” he declared with gusto, and the strength of his ancestors at his back. Maybe he got the idea while washing up in Steve Spielberg’s bathroom, after their private dinner at the director’s NYC apartment this week. If one of the “cool Jews” talks to him, maybe we can fix this mess, Spielberg was probably thinking. And the UAE has reportedly cut back government-funded scholarships for their young people to attend UK universities, citing fears that students could be radicalized by Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamists on British campuses. That’s for real. They don’t want their youth joining hotheaded religious sects and so they keep them away from London. It’s perfect. Saudi Arabia is more lowkey than Shoreditch.
*One of my nightmares is that Greenland becomes America’s 51st state. Not that I dislike Greenland—I just want it to remain as it is, a quasi-independent entity that’s really part of Denmark. As a commenter pointed out earlier, we used to have seven bases there (I landed at one when I was a child, refueling on the way to Greece), and we probably could get more bases if they were really needed. But they don’t seem to be, and at any rate saber-rattling about the US taking it over Greenland insane. Now Trump is threatening extra tariffs on countries that oppose his initiative to absorb Greenland. Shoot me now!
President Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries that oppose his efforts to take control of Greenland.
“I may do that for Greenland, too. I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland because we need Greenland for national security. So I may do that,” the president said at the White House on Friday, adding, “that will end up being the story.”
Speaking during a healthcare event, Trump asserted the threat of tariffs against countries such as France and Germany had previously helped him address high prices for prescription drugs. That approach could help him gain control of Greenland, he said.
Trump has said the U.S. must own the semiautonomous Danish territory of about 75,000 people, which is located immediately northeast of Canada, for America’s national security. The president has said in recent days that if the U.S. doesn’t control Greenland, China or Russia will. The White House hasn’t ruled out using force to take the territory.
Denmark and Greenland have said that the island isn’t available and that its people don’t want to be part of the U.S.
Trump’s repeated efforts to annex Greenland have sparked a rare public row with some of his Republican allies in Congress, who have sharply rebuked the plan and said it would violate a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally’s sovereignty and undermine U.S. trust with its European partners.
Several European countries have sent small numbers of troops to Greenland this week, as part of a mission to deter U.S. interest in the island.
A bipartisan Congressional delegation visited Copenhagen for discussions with senior Danish officials and lawmakers on Friday, offering messages of reassurance that the legislative branch opposed Trump’s wish to annex Greenland.
“This is one more example of unhelpful rhetoric. We don’t need Greenland for national security,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D., Calif), who is on the Congressional delegation in Copenhagen.
If we need Greenland for extra security, we can politely ask them if we can build a few extra bases there. (No, Russian and Chinese ships are not swarming around the country.). We do not have to buy or attack the damn place! Just what we need, a war between the U.S. and NATO.
*Kevin Williamson at The Dispatch starts his piece on ICE and Renée Good with a provocative statement:
Do you know what might have saved Renee Good’s life? A necktie.
Bear with me.
Good’s death was the result of a lack of professionalism on the part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Whatever silly shenanigans Good may have been up to before the shooting, the video of the incident makes it clear that it was the federal agents, not Good, who escalated the situation to the point at which it became dangerous. Good may have been guilty of a traffic violation or two, possibly even a misdemeanor, but she did not set about trying to ram ICE agents, in spite of the obvious lies told by Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in the case.
What did happen: ICE agents approached Good’s car bellowing obscenities and giving her contradictory orders, one telling her to clear the street and the other demanding she “get out of the f—–g car,” with one of them calling her a “f—–g bitch” after she had been shot in the head. Good seems to have been complying with one of those demands and not the other, for reasons that are not difficult to imagine. The contradictory demands and the obscenities are prima facie evidence of a lack of ordinary professionalism on the part of the ICE agents, which comes as no surprise: ICE has abandoned any pretense of high standards when it comes to recruiting, its most recent classes of officers having been recruiting from the bottom of the same barrel from which we extract Transportation Security Administration creeps and thieves and corrupt Customs and Border Protection agents.
The ridiculous mall-commando get-ups in which ICE agents are costumed are an affront to republican manners: The masks—which should be forbidden, categorically, to all American law enforcement—symbolically violate the fundamental promise of public accountability for public servants. The tactical vests and plate carriers and helmets and the rest of that imbecilic fantasy dress-up gear is almost always inappropriate, and it is comical in light of the fact that this particular ICE squad apparently did not have the tactical acumen to deal with the challenging environment of an ordinary Midwestern city in a relatively mild January and kept getting their vehicles stuck in the snow—but I suppose snow is not what one is planning for when one is dressed for Fallujah.
Allow me to address the ladies and gentlemen at ICE in what apparently is their mother tongue: Take off the masks and put on a f—–g tie.
I’ll say this much for Donald Trump: He may be badly dressed—it is amazing that he can make a Brioni suit look so cheap—but he almost always is badly dressed like a badly dressed adult. Also typically dressed as a responsible adult: the American police officer in his traditional uniform.
That is worth thinking on.
There are reams and reams of psychological studies confirming that how we are dressed has an effect, sometimes subtle and sometimes profound, on how we think and behave. We tell our law enforcement agents that they are “at war,” that they are part of a “war on drugs” or a “war on crime” or whatever, and incompetent hacks such as Kristi Noem—whose own weird and pathetic dress-up fetish has been much remarked-upon—tell them lies about how the people with whom they are interacting are “domestic terrorists” or agents of a possibly fictitious global cartel. And then we dress them up like the world’s most slovenly stormtroopers.
And then we are surprised when they act like the world’s most slovenly stormtroopers.
We need to knock off the paramilitary crap when it comes to law enforcement—not only for aesthetic reasons but for political and moral reasons. Dress a guy up like a cowboy and he’ll start acting like he’s in Yellowstone. Dress a public servant up like he’s at war rather than at work and war is what you’re going to get.
The point is not that Good would have done anything different had the agents had ties, but that they would have behaved more professionally. Well, given their poor training and status as barrel-scrapings, I don’t think so. I won’t say anything about pigs and lipstick, but ICE really does need to ditch the masks. And the administration needs to stop telling us what happened until there is a good and objective investigation.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is trying to protect Andrzej:
Hili: What are those papers?
Andrzej: My journal from 37 years ago.
Hili: Don’t show it to anyone, or you’ll offend people again.
In Polish:
Hili: Co to za papiery?
Ja: Mój dziennik sprzed 37 lat.
Hili: Nie pokazuj go nikomu, bo znowu ludzi obrazisz.
*******************
From CinEmma:
From Stacy:
From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:
One from Masih. For some reason (why?) Twitter won’t let me embed it, but click on the screenshot to see a voice message Masih got from Tehran, arguing that the number of dead protestors is much higher ;than 12,000:
From Luana; Manitoba’s counting the antisemitic slaughter at Australia’s Bondi beach as ” Islamophobia” is incomprehensible. “Lives lost to [Islamophobic] hate on Bondi Beach?” Did the murdered Jews deserve their fate because they were Islamophobes? Am I missing something?
The massacre of Jews at Bondi Beach is being commemorated as an example of Islamophobia at the Manitoba Legislature? pic.twitter.com/YkcRNBMAPA
— Jaime Kirzner-Roberts (@jaimekr) January 15, 2026
Titania has issued one of her rare (and, as usual, sarcastic) tweets:
Please stop sharing this footage of the protesters in Iran.
We should not be publicly shaming those who are suffering from internalised Islamophobia. pic.twitter.com/JJ5OJVzH03
— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) January 11, 2026
Comedian David Baddiel helps Larry go inside:
My friends in the UK can see me on Channel 4 tonight at 8pm on David Baddiel: Cat Man – @Baddiel had a chat with my pal @justin_ng. Enjoy!pic.twitter.com/tRCBgKkAbN
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) January 16, 2026
One from my feed; a skinny kid becomes a hero:
This 14-year-old kid offered himself as a volunteer since he was skinny enough to fit. With a pulley system, he went down 49.2ft and successfully rescued the baby. 🙌😭
This skinny kid didn’t need to dress up like Spider-Man to become a superhero! 🥹🫶pic.twitter.com/V5AUTbuqz4
— Restoring Your Faith in Humanity (@HumanityChad) January 15, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This French Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived at Auschwitz. She had just turned 11. https://t.co/NnnQxQyAgE
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) January 17, 2026
Two from Herr Professor Doktor Cobb. First, a pack of a dozen wolves—in the Netherlands!
Beautiful and incredible scenes from the centre of the Netherlands, a country with 1.5 times the density of people in the UK. A pack of 11 wolves roaming through the snow!
— Ollie Wearn (@olliewearn.bsky.social) 2026-01-16T12:11:54.086Z
A thread of two invasive cats which are actually staffed by other people:
Identify yourself
— No Score Draws ✍🏻⚽ (@noscoredraws.com) 2025-06-15T18:30:06.899Z
YOU DON’T LIVE HERE
— No Score Draws ✍🏻⚽ (@noscoredraws.com) 2025-06-22T06:59:59.456Z
A BIRTHDAY THOUGHT:
I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (17 Jan 1706-1790)
The argument for the masks on agents (and I’m not commenting either way)… is that with facial ID software, freely available and incredible, agents have been ID’s and doxed by activists and have been the targets of retribution (houses, families, etc).
D.A.
NYC/FL