Tuesday: Hili dialogue

August 4, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, August 4, 2026, and National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. The cookie as we know it arose in the 1930s; according to Wikipedia:

The most common account of the creation of the chocolate chip cookie credits the American chef Ruth Graves Wakefield in the 1930s, though such accounts agree that chocolate had appeared in cookies earlier. Such earlier cookies contained chocolate in grated and melted forms, lacking the discrete pieces of chocolate that define chocolate chip varieties. These early cookies evolved from jumbles, a cookie popular in the late 1800s that was made by dropping unshaped dough onto a sheet pan. Bakers flavored jumbles with what was at hand, sometimes including chocolate. By the 1870s, chocolate jumbles emerged as a distinct form rather than a simple variation, helped by the price of chocolate dropping. The ingredient ratios in these cookies closely resembled those of modern chocolate chip cookies, and through the 1880s and 1890s, chocolate jumbles were very popular in America.

. . . .Ruth Wakefield created her recipe for chocolate chip cookies in the 1930s, although sources differ on the specific year. With her husband Kenneth, Wakefield owned and ran the Toll House Inn, a hotel and restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts, that was well-known in the region. Several accounts exist of how Wakefield created her recipe for chocolate chip cookies, with older versions describing an accidental invention and more modern versions arguing that Wakefield created it intentionally.

In the most popular version of an accidental creation, Wakefield is said to have been preparing a cookie studded with nuts but realised she had run out, either due to poor stock management or Depression shortages. On the spot, Wakefield substituted the nuts for chocolate, chopping a bar of chocolate into pieces. In other versions, the chocolate was added to provide cocoa butter when the Toll House Inn was out of butter, in a frugal effort to use up excess stock, or in the hope that the chocolate would melt during baking when there was not the time to melt it ahead of time. One ex-employee, dissenting from the narrative popular among her colleagues that it was created during a nut shortage, describes vibrations from a mixer causing chocolate to drop into cookie dough, with the ex-employee crediting her father with convincing Wakefield to bake the cookies regardless.

The Toll House Inn is gone, having burned down in 1984, and it was not rebuilt. But Wakefield’s recipe still appears on each package of Nestlé Toll House Morsels. Here’s a video about how to make them, with the narrator asserting that the story above is bogus.

Speaking of cookies, my friend Michelle, who made lovely cat cookies for me at CSICon in Las Vegas about two years ago (see some photos here) has started a cookie business in California and I wanted to give her a boost by giving her details, which I tweaked a bit.

f you’re looking for a truly exceptional way to celebrate your next occasion, I highly recommend Malibu Cookies by my friend Michelle Appelbaum.

These are premium sugar cookies made with quality ingredients, topped with fondant, and beautifully decorated with edible printing for any event—weddings, corporate gifts, holidays, or just because.

What sets them apart is the attention to detail and the joy they bring. Perfect for gifting or sharing at your next celebration. Nationwide shipping available.
Check them out at www.malibucookies.com and tell Michelle I sent you.

Here are two of her cookies made for companies, but really, she can make anything, and it’s all edible. And you can have them sent via UPS:

It’s also Assistance Dog Day and National White Wine Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the August 4 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The U.S. peace talks with Iran supposed to have occurred yesterday didn’t take place, and Iran denied there were any plans to have them. They also said that the Strait of Hormuz will never return to its “everyone-free” state that existed before the war.  Trump is fuming and cursing at Iran.

Less than 24 hours after voicing optimism a deal was close to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump swung back to lashing out against the Iranian regime, casting doubt on its ability to strike a meaningful deal to end the war.

“Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday morning. “They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg,’ talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman.’”

It was a harsh assessment of the diplomacy that only a day earlier Trump appeared confident would prevail. He told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening that “there’s a deal on Hormuz and then there will be a deal on the nuclear,” and suggested negotiations with Iran on the latter would commence on Monday afternoon.

Iran quickly denied it was negotiating with the United States, and said instead it was in talks with Oman to establish a safe, “temporary” route for vessels through the critical waterway.

Trump alluded to those claims in his post, saying Iran was offering “their usual blather in saying, the Strait of Hormuz will be operated powerfully by them, when it is already completely controlled by the United States Navy.”

He said the US blockade of Iranian ports would continue “unless a Deal, or Total Surrender, is accomplished.”

“Whether Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking of a solution to a problem that they have caused, for decades. It is very simple, IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!” he wrote.

Well, we shall see. .  .

*A big Senate primary is being held today in Michigan, pitting a “progressive” and antisemite against a moderate Democrat (there’s also a story at the Free Press). The NYT characterizes the whole Demoratic-party mess like this in its morning newsletter:

Democrats are focused on Israel. There are plenty of other big, thorny issues at play this primary season — health care, taxes, immigration. But for many voters, the candidates seem to come in two flavors: Israel supporters and Israel detractors.

So far, the supporters are getting crushed. Voters in Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey and New York have rejected them in favor of progressive candidates who have called the Gaza war a genocide and campaigned on stanching U.S. military aid to Israel. Each rebuke seems to deepen the sense that the party is drifting leftward.

But these tests have taken place mostly in deep-blue districts. So tomorrow, when Democratic voters in Michigan — a swing state that went for Donald Trump in 2024 — pick their candidate in a do-or-die Senate race, the entire party will be watching.

On t0 Michigan. From the NYT:

Democrats’ nastiest, most expensive Senate primary will culminate on Tuesday in Michigan, a pivotal midterm battleground where an insurgent progressive is looking to defeat an establishment-backed moderate in a contest serving as a referendum on the party’s future.

The race between Representative Haley Stevens and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official, is charged by tensions over Israel, how to fight President Trump and the G.O.P., and what makes a candidate electable. The result will factor into the fight for Senate control in November, and may have ramifications that extend to the next presidential contest.

While polls conducted the last month have shown uncertainty in the competition, several recent public surveys showed Dr. El-Sayed leading, and he is increasingly seen by Democrats as the favorite as voters prepare to make their picks. In the final stretch, the candidates are speaking about each other in sharply critical terms. Their supporters can be even more severe.

The FP reminds us that black voters also are captured by these “progressives”:

This race has been a closely watched test case for how black voters take to a new kind of Democrat like El-Sayed: under 50, never before in office, and offering a vision of socialism lite. Though not an official member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), El-Sayed shares their grievances against billionaires, data centers, the rising cost of living, and Israel. He’s promising Medicare for All, fair wages, and getting “corporate and special interest money out of politics”—even though he’s accepted more than a million dollars from a collection of anti-Israel PACs, including American Priorities.

Since the DSA’s emergence as a bona fide political force, the Democratic establishment has taken solace in the belief that minorities—particularly black voters—wouldn’t fall for its lofty promises. For years, moderate Democrats have seen black voters as a steadying force in the party and a bulwark against radical candidates touting unpopular ideas. In the 2020 presidential primary, black voters in South Carolina dashed Bernie Sanders’s presidential hopes. In the run-up to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s historic win last November, former governor Andrew Cuomo often campaigned on the message that his opponent’s agenda fell flat with black New Yorkers. In the end, Mamdani trounced the former governor in most demographics—except for black voters over 65 years old.

About a third of Democrats and Democrat-leaning Americans now identify as democratic socialists, according to a CNN poll conducted late last month. And Michigan, a purple state won by President Donald Trump in 2024, will show just how far this wave has penetrated beyond urban bubbles.

. . . Michigan is among the most competitive states in the country. The state has changed hands in the last three presidential elections, from Trump to Biden to Trump, all by razor-thin margins. When Trump took the state in 2024, he improved nearly two points upon his tally from the previous presidential election. But the loyalty Davis feels toward the Democratic Party is no longer universal among black voters. Trump’s support among black voters nearly doubled between 2020 and 2024, climbing from 8 percent to 15 percent support. The next test is whether the GOP can hang on to these voters in the midterms—a feat that’s looking harder to pull off, given recent data showing that black voters might have a stronger pull to the insurgent wing of the Democratic Party than expected.

When I asked Grok to tell me some of El-Sayed’s anti-Israel statements, it regurgitated the following (with references):

  • Calling Israel a “rogue state” that committed genocide and practices apartheid: In a July 2026 CNN interview with Manu Raju (“Inside Politics Sunday”), when asked whether the Israeli government should be designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S., El-Sayed replied, “It’s certainly a rogue state.” He continued: “I mean, they did a genocide… What about doing a genocide is not evil in your book? At baseline they do apartheid.”
  • Equating the Israeli government with Hamas as “evil”: Reporting on his comments (including from the same CNN appearance and related coverage) notes that he described the Israeli government as just as “evil” as Hamas.
  • Rejecting or reframing questions about Israel’s “right to exist,” and prioritizing the question of U.S. tax dollars: He has repeatedly declined to answer standard “Does Israel have a right to exist (as a Jewish state)?” questions on their own terms.

Ceiling Cat help the moderate Democrats! If this guy wins, he’ll be bringing his antisemitism to the Senate.

*Speaking of thye previous item, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), now riding the Red Ball Express to Wokesville, has once again eschewed academic neutrality by endoring a political candidate. And wouldn’t you know it—it’s  the antisemitic Democratic Senatorial candidate Abdul Al-Sayed from Michigan.

This year the American Association of University Professors is endorsing a candidate in Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary, in what the group’s president says is the first instance leaders could find of the national-level AAUP making an endorsement. It’s another sign that AAUP has become a political organization, at a time of hyperpoliticization of higher ed more broadly.

Todd Wolfson said Michigan arms of the AAUP asked the national organization to consider the endorsement. AAUP polled Michigan members, finding roughly 80 percent of those voting favored making an endorsement, and about 97 percent specifically favored Abdul El-Sayed, Wolfson said. The AAUP’s national council then signed off. Wolfson signaled there likely will be more endorsements ahead of the midterm elections.

In a news release, AAUP has trumpeted its “First-Ever National Political Endorsement” going to El-Sayed, a past AAUP member who’s on the ballot in Tuesday’s primary. The organization is also hosting a virtual rally today. The release called El-Sayed “a fierce champion for debt-free and tuition-free higher education” who “will be an invaluable ally for academic freedom and higher education as a public good in Washington.”

“He has vowed to stand up to the Trump Administration’s ideological assault on the sector and defend the rights of students and faculty to speak out on political issues, question authority, and engage in peaceful protest without fear of retribution,” the release said.

The move continues the AAUP’s evolution from its beginnings as a professional association that wrote seminal definitions of academic freedom and tenure to also becoming a left-leaning faculty union, now affiliated with the much larger American Federation of Teachers. Some faculty have said this change in the 111-year-old group has eroded its historic importance as a politically neutral defender of academic freedom. But Wolfson told Inside Higher Ed Wednesday that engaging in “politics proper” is needed nowadays to defend academic freedom and other traditional faculty rights.

“Higher ed is under threat,” Wolfson said. “And the threats are coming from the government.”

The AAUP has also rescinded its previous refusal to endorse academic boycotts, and although the I-word wasn’t uttered, everybody knows at whom the boycott was aimed. It’s further defended DEI statements for hiring and promoting professors, and criticized those who say that viewpoint diversity is essential for a university. The organization has long ago parted from its original goals. It pains me to have to report this wokification of one organization after another, but that’s what’s happening.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal explains why Israel won’t “move forward” on Gaza, meaning why won’t it stop assassinating Hamas officials.

It’s Monday, August 3, and “these are the results of eight months of negotiations aimed at demilitarizing Gaza. Why continue the targeted killings now and give them an excuse to back out?” The senior American official seems genuinely surprised by Israel’s recent strikes on Hamas targets. By his account, Israel had agreed to the terms—including a halt to the targeted assassinations—so that Hamas would be bound to the next step: handing over its weapons.

. . .If the plan holds and Hamas surrenders its arms as the peace board insists it will, this is the best shot at lasting quiet for Israel’s south that Israel is ever likely to get. Killing three more Hamas officials is thinking small when the disarmament of Hamas is on the table.

Israel has three problems.

The first is the fine print. The deal mandates the surrender of heavy weapons and the disabling of tunnels, but it leaves “personal” arms to be regulated under “Palestinian law”—which Israel is convinced means, in practice, a blanket waiver: Hamas keeps its rifles with a technocrat-approved stamp. The agreement stipulates that all weapons held by the Hamas-run police pass to the U.S.-backed technocratic committee, though that could simply be a matter of paperwork in changing their affiliation.\

. . . The second is the withdrawal. Per the BBC, the plan requires Israel to pull back to the yellow line within 24 hours of accepting it—surrendering around 20 percent of the strip it currently holds. Israel’s preferred sequence is the reverse: disarmament first, withdrawal second. Give up ground before that, and you give up leverage over Hamas.

The third, and the one underwriting the other two: Israel does not trust Hamas.

. . . Then there is the less technical concern. Israel is under 90 days from an election, and radical, potentially dangerous steps for peace are somehow even less palatable now than before. This election is a game of inches, and inches surrendered in Gaza translate easily into inches surrendered in the Knesset. Ironically, it is the left that is waiting for Netanyahu to slip on one of the fronts—so it can attack him from the right.

Segal believe that Israel should hold off the assassinations and fighting (though of course I think that Hamas should disarm, too):

. . .Nobody believes words—they believe actions—and justifying dramatic moves for peace comes easier against a backdrop of progress. That progress is impossible if Israel keeps working against the deal, and the working-against, the source argues, is what costs Israel its credibility in the region. Gaza, he adds, is where the sharpest shift in global antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment began. Neither will turn until the picture coming out of Gaza does.

My take: Israel should not be the reason this plan fails. As long as Israel’s actions remain reversible, they should proceed. Though the odds of anything moving in election season are slim.

*The AP’s “Odd News” describes a Canadian city stunk up for two decades by abandoned tanks of rotting fish sauce. Now, after years of a pervasive stench, the city will stink no more!

The townspeople of St. Mary’s can breathe a sigh of relief. They are finally getting rid of the foul smell of rotten fish that has for years — when the wind blows their way — wafted over their tiny community in Canada ‘s easternmost province.

And the culprit for the unpleasant odor that has vexed the picturesque town of about 300 people in Newfoundland and Labrador?

About 110 tanks that were left behind — each holding 3,000 gallons of fermented fish sauce — when the Atlantic Seafood Sauce Company was abandoned more than 20 years ago.

The place was left to ruin: windows got broken, the roof blew off, a January storm knocked out a wall. The sauce kept on fermenting as the bacteria did their job — and the townspeople could smell it.

St. Mary’s volunteer mayor, Steve Ryan, says it’s hard to describe just how bad the smell was.

“The worst rotted fish you ever smelled in your lifetime, times 100,” he told The Associated Press by phone on Wednesday.

. . .Over the next few months, workers will drain the vats of left-behind fluid and mix it with peat moss, which will absorb the liquid, he said.

Trucks with giant hoses will then suck up the material and transport it to a pit that has been dug out over three weeks and lined with high-density polyethylene used in landfills. At the end, the pit will be covered with topsoil.

Glenn Sharp, owner of Sharp Management, the company overseeing the task, called it a “unique job.”

[Ryan] hopes that when it’s all over, the memory of the foul smell will fade.

“We’re such a small town and we were left on our own,” he said. “For so many years nobody had our backs.”

But we “kept fighting and fighting,” he added, “because we knew we were right in what we were fighting for.”

Here’s a video!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili not only sees a mosquito, but knows its scientific name:

Hili: Culex pipiens.
Andrzej: Where?
Hili: It’s sitting on a leaf, absorbed in thought.

In Polish:

Hili: Culex pipiens.
Ja: Gdzie?
Hili: Siedzi zamyślony na liściu.

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

From Stacy:

From TherionArms:

From Kitty Litterposting:

From Masih; two more young Iranians executed:

The Number Ten Cat makes fun of Trump:

From Maarten, who is appalled by not just the deeds of Cambridge sociology professor Jason Arday, but by the academics (including his own University) defending him. More on Arday later today:

Apparently Jo Rowling got some social-media “presents” on her birthday (two days ag0:

Two from my feed. This first one amazes me, but surely the chimp knew the guy with the food:

Yes, they’re d*gs, but they’re also hilarious:

From Malcolm: I’ve always maintained this (sound up):

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

12 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Dogs and stairs aren’t a good mix, it takes awhile. My puppy is… getting there but a friend and his wife have to live on the ground floor of their 2 story house as their HUGE dog can’t do stairs! (not a bright dog but I don’t tell them that).:-)

    There will be no peace in Gaza. In the past week the IDF has done a stellar job of whacking quite a few Oct 7 criminals.
    Excellent. To the ends of the earth and the end of time. In the M.E. this is the only strategy Islamists understand. Secular westerners don’t “get” this.

    There was a fake account of IDF blowing up historic Beauford Fort, Sth Lebanon. It was false: they were blowing up the MANY tunnels.

    Onwards Israeli heroes.

    D.A.
    NYC
    for puppy hijinks, more of my rants and articles:
    https://x.com/DavidandersonJd

    Reply

    1. When we first got our puppy, we lived in an apartment building and she would happily get in and out of the elevator, but would freak out about the few steps at the front of the building.

      A few months later we bought a two-storey house and, while she would enthusiastically bound upstairs to the bedrooms, she would cry at the top of the stairs at the prospect of getting back down. I had to sit beside her and show her how to take one stair at a time. It took a few days but she eventually mastered it.

      Now we’re in a three-level townhouse and she bounds up and down the stairs like a pro.

      Reply

  2. À propos nothing in particular, my pen-pal in a federal prison just shared this with me”

    “The rule “i” before “e” except after “c” has been disproven by science.”

    Reply

    1. A rather weird result, IMHO.

      (been a long, interesting day, involving a visit from the gas company and a stench that will take days to dissipate. I can’t brain more than this)

      Reply

  3. I am rather depressed about the prospects of El-Sayed winning in our primary here in Michigan. But based on the many commercials I’ve seen, his has been a smarter and more appealing campaign than that of the moderate Haley Stevens. Appealing to the eyes of the more impressionable democratic voters, I mean. I see Stevens’ main failure was to be largely hands-off about the perfidy of El-Sayed and the nuttiness of the DSA platform. That is a clear mistake.
    But going forward, with El-Sayed against the Republican candidate (all crazy Trumpers), I can at least expect that whoever it is they will effectively spell out the highly negative aspects of the DSA-associated and anti-Semitic democratic candidate. And they don’t even have to lie or exaggerate! So with that, I can hope that the toxic nature of the DSA will at last be made clear, weakening their prospects in a more distant future.

    Reply

  4. Those poor d*gs! But, how would one design stairs for dogs? Probably a ramp covered with carpet would be best.

    As for the fish smell. Apparently it took years to figure out the obvious solution: dilute the goo and the smell will go away.

    U.S. politicians, activists, and “influencers” have succeeded spectacularly in tying all their favorite slogans to Israel. Settler-colonialist, apartheid, genocidal, racist, terrorist, ethno-nationalist, toxic, ”Zio,” Nazi, war criminal, and settler-violent ethnostate all come to mind with little reflection. Israel is truly the Jew among nations.

    Reply

  5. As far as I can make out, the US is helping Japan because Japan holds a huge amount of US treasury bonds (more than any other country). The US is afraid that Japan will start selling them to cover its deficit.

    Correct me if I’m wrong.

    Reply

    1. FK – Allow me to correct you my friend.

      Neither Japan nor China are doing the nuclear option of dumping the pieces of paper (US debt) we’ve been paying for consumer electronics and cars with for pretty much all our lives, respectively.

      It’d be a disaster for them and us.

      Japan (friends, and their reputation) won’t, and China can’t b/c it’d tank their currency.

      The Japanese debt is OUTRAGEOUS, s/t like 250%. But -like Argentina in the opposite direction, Japan can avoid the laws of financial physics other countries have to live by. Except us, b/c we are the global reserve currency (thank goodness!)

      I don’t think they’re panicking, certainly not with that in mind.
      Many other levers they can pull before that disasterous one.

      all the best,

      D.A.
      NYC

      Reply

  7. Regarding the AAUP: just because a majority of your members favors the organization making an endorsement doesn’t mean you have to do it. So this survey tells me:
    1. The leadership wanted to make the endorsement, perhaps at the request of either the MI Democratic party, or perhaps by El-Sayeds people, or maybe just so they looked good to their in-group, so they
    2. Polled their members to make it look like it was a membership-driven, grass-roots decision. They had to know what the result would be if they asked the question.
    3. Then they make the claim that they, as leaders, didn’t decide to do it, the members did.

    Note that the AAUP also condemned discipline against Jew-hating protesters in 2024.

    Reply

  9. I had a doubtful pleasure of working in an organic greenhouse. It used fermented fish sauce as fertilizer. Imagine a tank for 200 tons of crap, with an aeration system running, in an attempt to oxidize it enough to stop smelling quite as bad. The neighbours, I was told, have complained, so the owner was looking for ways to keep the smell down – somehow.

    Reply

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *