Sunday: Hili dialogue

August 9, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Sunday, August 9, 2026, the Sabbath for goyische cats, and National Spirit of ’45 Day, meaning this:

National Spirit of ’45 Day honors the can-do attitude of an entire generation affected by the trials and hardships of World War II. Observed every year on second Sunday in August, communities around the country hold events and memorials. Each one honors those who have inspired us, sacrificed, and preserved our nation for future generations.

The image is best expressed in this poster, “We Can Do It!“, by J. Howard Miller, and although the poster is famous now, it wasn’t seen much during the war. (It is meant to show that women stepped into “men’s jobs” when the men went off to war.) As Wikipedia says, this image is “often mistakenly called “Rosie the Riveter“, which is a different depiction of a female war production worker.” See the “Rosie” link for the real images.

It’s also Book Lovers Day, International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, Melon Day, National Polka Day, and National Rice Pudding Day (this pudding, along with sticky toffee pudding, are the world’s two best species in the pudding genus).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the August 9 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The U.S. has stopped attacking Iran, but Iran is reported to have attacked a U.A.E. ship in the Strait of Hormuz just yesterday.

The United Arab Emirates said a ship affiliated with its national oil company came under an Iranian missile attack early Saturday while crossing the Strait of Hormuz, further muddying the outlook for a deal to open the strategic waterway.

The U.A.E. blamed the attack on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the paramilitary group tasked with protecting the regime and maintaining Tehran’s grip on the strait.

The attack comes as Iran’s top leaders weigh a draft agreement with Oman to set up new shipping lanes through the strait and gradually open it to traffic in exchange for concessions from the U.S. Iran is seeking sanctions waivers to sell its oil and an end to the U.S. blockade.

President Trump called off a wave of U.S. attacks last weekend citing progress in talks and has said a deal to reopen the strait was close. But mediators say it has stalled in recent days amid Iranian demands for financial relief and a U.S. insistence that shipping traffic not be impeded.

The Revolutionary Guard early in the war choked off traffic through the strait—the thoroughfare for a fifth of the world’s oil—and has kept it constrained with regular attacks on ships.

“For us, the Strait of Hormuz is not merely an economic waterway, but rather a key component of our geopolitical and strategic power,” the Revolutionary Guard’s spokesman said on state media Saturday.

The spokesman and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the agreement with Oman wouldn’t reopen the strait without concessions from the U.S.

Iran is vowing to bar U.S. Navy warships from passing through the strait as part of any agreement to reopen the waterway, pressing its goal of curtailing America’s decades-old military presence in the Persian Gulf.

U.S. officials have told mediators they won’t accept Iranian restrictions or tolls on Hormuz traffic.

Now Iran is just shooting itself in the foot, for they stand to gain nothing from such an attack. It does, however, show how persistent they are in their aim to gain some control (and money) from ships going through the Strait.  The statement by the Revolutionary Guard Spokesman above is accurate.  And if there’s a “ceasefire” that doesn’t take the Strait back to where it was before the war, Trump will have lost one of the big things he said he’d win.

*And, in a related move, Iran issued a long list of conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz (article archived here).

A top Iranian national security official delivered a sweeping set of demands on Saturday that he said the United States must meet before the Strait of Hormuz can reopen to maritime traffic, throwing the fate of the critical trade waterway into question.

Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, issued a statement carried by state media laying out multiple requirements for reopening the strait. He called for the United States to lift its naval blockade and sanctions on Iran, withdraw the U.S. military from around Iran, pay war reparations and release frozen Iranian assets, as well as end attacks on Iran’s allies in the region and threats against the country.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran’s demands. A previous cease-fire between Iran and the United States, agreed to in June, had said that sanctions would be fully lifted only in the event of a final deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program. And U.S. officials have said in the past that Iran could access its frozen funds only if it committed to giving up its highly enriched uranium first.

The statement from Mr. Zolghadr came as Iran and Oman have been negotiating an agreement on the future management of the Strait of Hormuz, which sits between the two countries. Iran effectively closed the strait in retaliation for being attacked by the United States and Israel in February.

Mr. Zolghadr’s list of demands upended expectations that a deal with Oman would soon allow commerce to flow through the strait once more and ease global energy prices. They will likely put pressure on President Trump to consider Iran’s conditions if he wants to lower consumer prices for Americans, which pose a risk for Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections.

These will not stand, at least according to Trump’s latest statements.  War reparations? Release of assets? And Iran still controlling transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump usually responds quickly and negatively to such nonsense, but his silence shows that he’s caught between a rock and a hard place. I expect some response today.

*The NYT reports that Iranians protestors are devastated because they believed Trump’s promise that their oppressive theocratic government would be toppled.  (article archived here). But Trump himself didn’t even believe what he promised:

In the weeks leading up to the U.S. war with Iran, President Trump cheered on the Iranian protesters rising up against their government, telling them that they should “save the names of the killers and abusers” and that he would come to their aid.

“HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” he promised.

But more than five months into the conflict, liberating the Iranian people has been one of the war’s most glaring unfulfilled objectives.

Iran has executed at least 26 people in connection with the January protests since Mr. Trump made his promise, with many more protesters potentially at risk, according to Amnesty International. U.S. officials believe Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is even more interested in pursuing a nuclear weapon than his father, who was killed in an airstrike on the opening day of the war.

And as Iranians remain locked in crisis, Mr. Trump is looking for a way out. Negotiators are working on a deal to restart shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively shut down, as Mr. Trump tries to extricate the United States from a conflict that has lasted far longer, and proved far more costly, than he anticipated.

In an interview this summer, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he never really believed that the uprising he encouraged would happen anyway because Iranian security forces would crush the demonstrators.

“I never thought, unless they could be completely armed, I never thought they’d have that kind of uprising, because these people are violent,” Mr. Trump told the conservative podcaster Hugh Hewitt.

But for Iranians who listened to Mr. Trump’s early promises, the sense of betrayal is real.

“I genuinely thought that help was on the way, but I was so wrong,” said Vahid, a 35-year-old from Tehran who works at a start-up company, echoing a sentiment expressed by numerous Iranians in interviews with The New York Times. All spoke on the condition that The Times identify them only by their first names, out of fear of reprisals from their government.

. . . The White House declined to answer questions about Mr. Trump’s promise to help liberate the Iranian people. Instead, officials cited Mr. Trump’s goal — which, as yet, is unmet — of ensuring that Iran never has a nuclear weapon, saying that objective would benefit the Iranian people as well.

Maybe a marginal benefit, but not nearly as much as helping with an uprising (remember yesterday I reported that a Kurdish rebellion was in the offing but was canceled after Fox News reported on it prematurely.  It’s sad that America doesn’t care much about ending a dictatorship once we’re in a war with it, and of course we can’t start wars solely to end dictatorships (that’s not why this one was started). But once we’re at war with a dictatorship whose people fervently wish for its end, yes, we should try to end it.

*Fabulist Jason Arday’s new book, Great and Unfortunate Things, is scheduled to come out this week (August 11), and it puts the publisher, Simon & Schuster, in a difficult position. The book likely depicts many things that aren’t true, but it may sell like hotcakes to those who want to see what Arday says about his life. As the Guardian reports, the book hasn’t been withdrawn:

Jason Arday, the former Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism and embellishment, claimed he was paid “1.4 million” for his forthcoming memoir detailing his extraordinary backstory.

Arday was dogged by a growing series of questions over his academic work and credentials before he resigned on Wednesday night, saying the “relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love”.

His resignation came after Cambridge announced it would launch an investigation following “new information” about his qualifications and career.

Despite allegations against Arday, Simon & Schuster said earlier this week it was planning to go ahead with the publication of his memoir on 11 August in the US and 27 August in the UK. Simon & Schuster US told the Guardian on Thursday night it was “proceeding with the publication of Great and Unfortunate Things by Jason Arday as planned”.

In a previous interview with the Guardian, Arday said Simon & Schuster had offered 1.4m for the book in a “pre-empt”, a type of deal in which a publisher is so keen on a book they put in a high offer to take it off the table before it can go to auction. Arday did not specify whether the 1.4m figure was in pound sterling or US dollars. Simon & Schuster did not respond to a request to comment on the sum.

One senior publisher said it was an utterly mad number, but that “madness sometimes happens”, so it was conceivable. They said a book such as Arday’s would normally be expected to sell about 5,000 copies, so with £2 of royalty per copy, that equates to an advance of £10,000, not 1.4 million dollars or pounds.

The Washington Free Beacon lists some edits the publisher made to defuse the storm they thought would come (and it did):

The wider public would not learn of the accusations against Arday, including those of pervasive plagiarism, until last month. But Simon & Schuster had been making telltale edits to his book since January.

The Free Beacon examined two pre-publication proofs of the book: a U.S. version dated Jan. 6, and the U.K. final edition, dated June 18. Comparing the two iterations reveals that Simon & Schuster made a series of changes, including altering verbatim quotes, that appear to have been an effort to protect his reputation—which is all the more valuable now that he stands accused of sweeping embellishments, dishonesty, and even academic fraud. One edit effectively acknowledges the possibility that he could lose his professorship.

The book, Great and Unfortunate Things, chronicles how, against all odds, a severely autistic, working-class British lad who didn’t learn to read until he was 18 earned a Ph.D. and reached the pinnacle of academia. The memoir was meant to be a literary victory lap after Arday, 41, in 2023 became the youngest black professor in Cambridge’s 800-year history.

Perhaps most notably, the book was edited to allow for the possibility that Arday would not be a “professor” indefinitely. In the earlier edition, he recalls marveling upon receiving his assistant professorship at Durham University in 2021: “I’m a professor. Whatever happens, that’s the salutation that I will carry with me for the rest of my days. That’s mad.” The later edition adds the word “professional” as a qualifier, saying he would carry the title “for the rest of my professional days.”

. . . Simon & Schuster’s edits also make it harder, perhaps deliberately, to corroborate or disprove Arday’s stories. The names of two publicists involved in his charitable efforts—and the names of certain professors and a disability officer—were replaced by pseudonyms, or the names were removed entirely.

The original:

What will be published:

It’s clear that Simon & Schuster knew that Arday had a problematic past and exaggerated his accomplishments. The Free Beacon ends this way:

Following the memoir’s mawkish conclusion, in which Arday gives advice to marginalized populations, the early edition tacks on a bio that touts Arday’s superlative academic bona fides. In its place, the updated draft simply includes a playlist of the pop songs he has sprinkled throughout the text as emotional anchor points.

. . . and a bit from theTimes of London article (archived link). yet another couple of speed bumps on his life’s road claimed by Arday:

Professor Jason Arday claimed in a book proposal for his memoir to have had testicular cancer and locked-in syndrome and to have almost died in a car accident when he was a teenager.

In the document pitching his autobiography, obtained by The Times, the Cambridge academic said he had been left in a coma by a car accident as a teenager.

According to his account, doctors at his bedside recommended that he be taken off life support “as an act of mercy”, but he was spared after his mother insisted that he was “going to do something with his life”.

Arday was able to report the episode because, he said, he had had locked-in syndrome, a rare neurological condition in which a person is physically paralysed but conscious.

The episode was omitted from the final version of his book, which will be released next week. The 45-page proposal has raised more questions about Arday’s life and professional achievements after he was accused of plagiarising his PhD thesis and exaggerating his athletic and fundraising feats.

I haven’t seen any real evidence for any of Arday’s medical claims—nor for his claims of late speaking (age 11) and late-developing literacy (age 18). It’s hard for me to believe that Simon and Schuster will still publish this book IF they suspected that his stories were made up. Did they omit these fables, or did Arday? We don’t know. But it’s clear the book is coming out: it’s still listed on Amazon (see screenshot below):

*Another from the NYT, reporting that although war has considerably diminished (“decimated,” as the MSM says incorrectly) Iran’s nuclear capabilities, it still has enough uranium to quickly produce as many as ten nuclear bombs (article archived here).

Chief among President Trump’s reasons for launching the war in Iran was preventing it from building a nuclear weapon. More than five months in, officials and experts say,the conflict may have slowed Iran’s nuclear program but not stopped it.

Because Iran has barred U.N. inspections of its most sensitive nuclear sites — a key part of any eventual peace deal — the precise fate of its highly enriched nuclear fuel is unknown. And despite strikes on three key nuclear sites in 2025 and 2026, Tehran appears to have retained a stockpile of enough near weapons-grade fuel to quickly develop as many as 10 nuclear bombs, according to U.N. inspectors.

. . .So far, the war has shown that Mr. Trump’s “‘maximum pressure’ policies and military misadventures did not, and cannot, destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity,” Daryl G. Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, wrote in a recent analysis.

“The capability is largely still there,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, author of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Iran Nuclear Monitor.

. . .James Acton, a physicist and Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said enough of Iran’s nuclear program still exists that, if left alone, “I would imagine they could produce a bomb in less than a year at this point, possibly substantially less than year.”

Ms. Geranmayeh stopped short of putting a timeline on Iran’s ability to rebuild. Still, “without monitoring, Iran could rapidly enrich its existing uranium stockpile to weapons-grade,” she wrote in her most recent analysis.

Iran will do anything, including lying about its actions and intentions, to keep its nuclear program going, for one of the regime’s big aims is to have a bomb they can use on Israel, or as a deterrent against being attacked. Even if they agree to something with Trump, he won’t be President forever, and if there are to be inspections, they should be done without warning, be thorough, and last forever. That’s a big ask.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej are in the dumps:

Hili: Life used to be better.
Andrzej: Yes, but we didn’t know it then.

In Polish:

Hili: Życie było kiedyś lepsze.
Ja: Tak, ale wtedy o tym nie wiedzieliśmy.

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

An image sent in by Jay Tanzman, showing “An anxious food truck.” It was taken in Saarbrücken, Germany:

From TherionArms:

From Dad Jokes:

From Masih. Apparently the Iranian man depicted below had a heart attack before he was going to be hanged, and they revived him just to hang him again. Masih has trouble getting through this without breaking up.

From Luana. I will read this Atlantic article, but I’m not going to read Arday’s memoir. Look at what’s in it (read the whole tweet):

From the Number Ten Cat, who posted this yesterday on International Cat Day:

From Malcolm. The English translation is, “A so-called Rehcatz,” with “Rehkatz” meaning “fawn” in German.

One from my feed—a lovely reunion:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

And two from Dr. Cobb. His comment on this first one? “They ate the owner.”

The Tacoma Police Department estimates over 30 cats were free-roaming on board a deserted watercraft Thursday – with no sign of the owner.

— The Sacramento Bee (@sacbee.com) 2026-08-08T01:50:10Z

I’m not sure what this one means, but it would be peachy to come back as a duck:

— beetle moses (@beetlemoses.bsky.social) 2026-07-29T15:28:10.067Z

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