Sunday: Hili dialogue

Welcome to the Sabbath that is made for cats, not cats for the Sabbath: it’s Sunday, January 18, 2026 and National Winnie The Pooh day, commemorating the birthday of A. A. Milne in 1882.  Christopher Robin Milne‘s stuffed toys that served as inspiration for the books still exist, as you see below. Note Eeyore, my favorite character and personal spirit animal (I put in the arrow).  Pooh Bear is there, along with Eeyore, Kanga and Tigger.  You can see them at the New York Public Library, an odd place for them to wind up.

It’s also National Gourmet Coffee Day, National Peking Duck Day, Thesaurus Day, World Religion Day and World Snow Day, though no snow is predicted for Chicago.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the January 18 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*A federal judge has told the Trump administration to control the behavior of immigration agents in Minnesota, not permitting them to retaliate against people protesting peacefully.

A federal judge in Minnesota imposed restrictions on the actions of immigration agents toward protesters in the state on Friday, a decision that comes after weeks of mounting tension between demonstrators and federal officers.

Judge Kate M. Menendez ordered agents not to retaliate against people “engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity,” and not to use pepper spray or other “crowd dispersal tools” in retaliation for protected speech. The judge also said agents could not stop or detain protesters in vehicles who were not “forcibly obstructing or interfering with” agents.

The ruling, which granted a preliminary injunction, stems from a lawsuit brought by activists who said agents had violated their rights. The suit was filed before an immigration agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.

Ms. Good, 37, had partially blocked a roadway where agents were working and did not follow commands to get out of her S.U.V. As she began to drive, an agent near the front of her car opened fire.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement responding to the injunction that “D.H.S. is taking appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers and the public from dangerous rioters.”

She said agents had faced assaults, had fireworks launched at them and had the tires of their vehicles slashed. She added that despite “grave threats,” agents had “followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public and federal property.”

Ms. McLaughlin did not say whether the department planned to appeal the ruling.

The judge also said, ““the court’s injunction does nothing to prevent defendants from continuing to enforce immigration laws.”  All this seems perfectly proper. What I don’t know, having not been on the scene, is how often protestors do violate the law or obstruct agents from doing their job, which I don’t think is a rare event.  The poster below, which urges protestors to violate the law in several ways, is said to have been put out by the group Minnesota Ice Watch. I can’t vouch for its reality, nor am I excusing the ICE agent who killed Renée Good, and there are posters, like one put out by the Minnesota ACLU, that do apprise people of their rights without urging them to act illegally. Still, I suspect that at least a moiety of the protestors hope to incite violence by doing things like obstructing the vehicles of law enforcement or helping suspects escape arrest.  So long as these things don’t happen, though, there’s no excuse for firing tear gas or flashbang devices, much less firing guns.

*But there’s retaliation, a speciality of Trump: the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the conduct of the state’s governor and the mayor of Minneapolis.

The Trump administration has opened a criminal investigation into elected Democrats in Minnesota, according to a senior law enforcement official familiar with the matter, a major escalation in the fight between the federal government and local officials over the aggressive immigration crackdown underway in the city.

The investigation would focus on allegations that Gov. Tim Walz and Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, had conspired to impede thousands of federal agents who have been sent to the city since last month. Last week, one of those agents killed a 37-year-old woman, Renee Good.

It remained unclear what investigative steps have been taken. The senior law enforcement official said subpoenas had yet to be issued, but could be in the days to come. Both Mr. Walz and Mr. Frey responded with combative statements on Friday night, denouncing what they said was a weaponized use of law enforcement power and promising to stand firm in the face of the administration’s efforts.

“Weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents is a dangerous, authoritarian tactic,” Mr. Walz said in a statement released by his office, which said it had not yet received notice of an investigation. “The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her.”

Mr. Frey described the investigation as an “obvious attempt to intimidate” him, but vowed it would not work.

“America depends on leaders that use integrity and the rule of the law as the guideposts for governance,” he said. “Neither our city nor our country will succumb to this fear. We stand rock solid.”

. . . the growing public protests in Minneapolis have angered President Trump, who has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and send the military into the city. In a social media post on Thursday, Mr. Trump called the protesters in Minnesota “professional agitators,” but offered no evidence to support his claims against what by most accounts are ordinary citizens.

On Friday, however, Mr. Trump appeared to back away from his threat.

“I don’t think I need it right now,” he told reporters, referring to the Insurrection Act.

I suspect this will come to nothing; I don’t even know what laws Walz and Frey are supposed to have violated. Conspiring to impede the action of federal officers? Yes, that could be a violation, but I suspect this is another example of Trump’s bluster and will come to nothing. After all, it’s an investigation, and charges haven’t been filed.

*This is bad news: the acting President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, seems likely to get full American support to continue on in the job.

During President Trump’s first term, Delcy Rodríguez was a pariah.

The administration sanctioned Rodríguez, then vice president to autocrat Nicolás Maduro, citing corruption and mismanagement that left the country’s economy in tatters. She oversaw the intelligence agency that rounded up and tortured dissidents. And she blamed U.S. sanctions, not the regime’s socialist rule, for hunger and shortages of medicine.

Note that Rodriguez “oversaw the intelligence agency that rounded up and tortured dissidents. And she blamed U.S. sanctions, not the regime’s socialist rule, for hunger and shortages of medicine.”  Just running that intelligence agency is sufficient to bar her from running the country, but somehow Trump is in her thrall.  I have no idea why; she seems the worst possible replacement for Maduro, especially when compared to Edmundo González or María Corina Machado. González actually won an election against Maduro, and should be the acting President (there’s the nagging question of the country’s military, though). And Machado, in a sad attempt to court Trump, gave him her Nobel Peace Prize Medal (18-karat gold!).  Now Trump can say he has a Nobel Prize (figuratively but not literally) while the country continues to be governed by the remnants of the previous dictatorship.

*The Mariott Hotel chain has broken its pledge to customers to use only eggs from uncaged chickens, and people aren’t letting Mariott off the hook.

In 2013, Marriott announced that it would transition to cage-free eggs at all of its properties worldwide. It renewed the pledge in 2018, vowing to meet the goal by the end of 2025. But as the deadline approached, activists began to question whether the company would keep its word. Then they began to protest, with demonstrations as far-flung as Thailand, India and Brazil.

Marriott released an update in May that said that the company was “working closely” on its cage-free-egg sourcing efforts and was “pleased with the progress that has been made,” but that it had not achieved its goal. In fact, it was not even close. The company, which has a portfolio of more than 9,300 properties and 30 brands in 144 countries and territories, alluded to challenges posed by avian flu and the global supply chain.

Activists were not satisfied.

Organizations and grassroots groups started ramping up awareness campaigns. They staged more protests in the United States and abroad. They built a website that featured grotesque artificial-intelligence-generated images of Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano surrounded by bloody feathers and dead chickens.

They flooded the comments sections of Marriott social media pages. They sent mailers accusing the brand of perpetuating animal abuse. They disrupted Marriott executives’ speaking events.

Marriott wasn’t the only company to make such a pledge; there was a wave of corporate cage-free promises in the 2010s. It’s also not the only major company facing activist pushback, but it is one of the most visible.

Marriott declined interview requests and said it did not have more information to share beyond a recent statement that reported that 47 percent of egg purchases in its franchised hotels in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean and Latin America were cage-free by the end of 2024. The statement said 92 percent of egg purchases for Marriott-managed properties in the U.S. were cage-free.

You don’t want to go to that website if you don’t want to see the abuse suffered by battery chickens. And I’ve seen video of male chicks being ground up alive, for, after all, only hens lay eggs.  I have to admit that I don’t check on my eggs, though I have bought free-range chicken eggs, but I should check more closely, and admit that I’m hypocritical in this respect.

*A DOG has beat five Hollywood stars for an acting award!

“I feel incredibly lucky that I was able to make a movie where I essentially just got to play with my dog,” Leonberg, 38, told The Washington Post.

One scene in the film shows Indy getting caught in a snare. On his back, Indy vigorously shakes his body to try to escape.

In reality, Indy was enjoying a blissful moment while shooting, wiggling during a belly rub from Leonberg.

The Astra Film Awards have been going since 2018, and I have to say that I’m not impressed with their selections. But giving a dg an acting award raises a serious philosophical question: how can a dg deserve such an ward if it’s not acting.  It’s all AI and tummy-tickling!  I can imagine how the five losers felt when they were beaten out by a mutt.  But kudos to the mutt; I hope he got some treats alongside the plaque.

But I digress. Here’s a trailer for the movie, which I won’t see, even though it got a high 90% critics’ rating and an 81% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Other caninophiles will want to see it, but I”m afraid of getting fleas.

And here’s Sharon Stone at the Astra Film Awards dissing the people at her table who questioned who she was. Note her saying, “Fuck you.”

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili sounds (and looks) a bit confused (I’ve made this photo by Twitter avatar):

Hili: Do you realize what you’re doing?
Andrzej: I’m never entirely sure about that.

In Polish:

Hili: Czy zdajesz sobie sprawę z tego co robisz?
Ja: Tego nigdy nie jestem tak do końca pewien.

*******************

I absolutely love this video: another meme, made by a hilarious Israeli woman, of how Greta’s neglecting Iran:

This is brilliant.. A message to Greta..

Best bit: “You know the country with the sandwiches” 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/yIm8gN2lDy

— 𝔸η𝐓 (@AntSpeaks) January 16, 2026

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

From Give Me a Sign:

From Masih, we hear Iran’s chief prosecutor saying that they’re not withholding punishment of protestors. It was that idea that made Trump stay his hand. Someone should show him this video:

Regime in Iran responds to president @realDonaldTrump with threat of execution 800 protesters.
Ali Salehi, Tehran’s chief prosecutor, dismissed comments by Donald Trump regarding a reported halt to executions, saying Iran’s response would be “firm, deterrent, and swift.”
Islamic… pic.twitter.com/0jwUyIq0vt

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 17, 2026

From Luana, exemplifying the problems of integrating some migrants in Amsterdam. The Daily Fail provides some verification.

125 migrants were put in housing with 125 Dutch students, in hopes of integrating them faster. Instead Dutch kids got raped and beaten.

One girl, said: “He wanted to learn Dutch, to get an education. I wanted to help him.”

He raped her the first chance he got.

This is how… pic.twitter.com/uE0HUSQZhv

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) January 17, 2026

From Simon: live and learn.  Hamsun gave his Nobel Prize to Goebbels!  And I’ve read Hamsun. I can’t embed the tweet, but click on it if you want to go to the post:

The Number Ten cat shows a conspecific individual gamboling in the snow:

Happy #Caturdaypic.twitter.com/n4BjhEeRQX

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) January 17, 2026

One from my feed; a clever mural:

Very creativepic.twitter.com/rGN8ZcC0M5

— Interesting things (@awkwardgoogle) January 17, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Polish girl, born in 1928, was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp along with her mother in December 1942 as part of the repression against Polish citizens. Just a few months later, on February 18, 1943, Czesława was murdered at the age of 14 with a phenol injection… pic.twitter.com/uoTEIMB60S

— Archaeo – Histories (@archeohistories) January 17, 2026

. . . and two from Dr. Cobb. He calls the first one, “One of the greatest pieces to camera of all time.” Great timing!

I got ya bro

— ⓘ Kaiwhiu ⓘ (@aotearoa-nz.bsky.social) 2026-01-07T09:29:20.132Z

And of this Dr. Cobb says,  “A thread on the possibility of life on Europa which now looks less likely 🙁 “

New paper alert!tl;dr: the seafloor of Europa is probably tectonically inert, meaning little to no active fracturing that could expose fresh rock to seawater.Without such water–rock reactions the prospect for there being life within Europa just took a big hit.A thread:

— Paul Byrne (@theplanetaryguy.bsky.social) 2026-01-06T17:55:13.348Z