The Slog is delighted to welcome John Day MD (seen left with wife Jenny) as today's guest writer, serving up his usual astonishingly eclectic range of topics, some historical and some hysterical...on, as he puts it, "Life, the Universe and Everything". From the "Why?" of murder most foul in Dealey Plaza, we go to RFK Jr and ask "Why on Earth?" about President Biden's odd relationship with the Time continuum. Thence onto Russia, China, Ukraine, Poland and Palestine, the link between dumbing and bingeing, and close with a brief look at the data on the vaccine that wasn't a vaccine's failure when fighting the pandemic that never was. Enjoy.
Why JFK Was Deemed a Threat to National Security
June 10 was the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy's Peace Speech at American University. Reading or listening to the speech today, it is not difficult to see why the U.S. national-security establishment deemed Kennedy to be a grave threat to national security, just as it did with certain foreign leaders, such as Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, Congo leader Patrice Lumumba, Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz and, later, President Salvador Allende of Chile.....There was no possibility whatsoever of a peaceful resolution of the forever war between the United States and Russia, U.S. officials said. There could never be peaceful coexistence, they maintained. The war against the Russian Reds, U.S. national-security officials held, was a war to the death. That was why the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended to Kennedy that the United States initiate a surprise nuclear attack against the Russians, a recommendation that Kennedy indignantly rejected.
Having achieved a "breakthrough" after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy had decided that he was going to lead America in an entirely different direction from that of the national-security establishment. In his Peace Speech, Kennedy threw down the gauntlet against what had now become his enemy — the national-security establishment. Kennedy essentially declared an end to the Cold War racket and announced that henceforth Russia and the United States would live in peaceful coexistence. He declared an end to to the extreme anti-Russia hostility that the national-security establishment had inculcated in the American people, and he even praised the Soviet Union. The very next night — June 11 — Kennedy delivered a nation-wide speech expressing support for the civil-rights movement, which the national-security establishment was convinced was controlled by the Russian Reds. That's why the FBI wiretapped Martin Luther King and used blackmail with the aim of inducing him to commit suicide.
Kennedy then followed up his words with actions. Over the fierce opposition of the Pentagon and the CIA, he negotiated the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviets. He also ordered a pull-out of troops from Vietnam. He proposed a joint trip to the moon with the Russians, which would have meant sharing U.S. rocket technology with the Reds. On the day he was killed, he had an emissary having lunch with Fidel Castro with an intent to normalize relations with Cuba, which was anathema to the national-security establishment. What would have happened if Kennedy had lived? The national-security establishment would have immediately become irrelevant and immaterial. They would have been left twiddling their thumbs, with nothing to do. Remember, after all, that the supposed threat from the Russian Reds was why the federal government was converted to a national-security state in the first place. Peaceful coexistence with the communist world would have meant no more justification for a national-security state. The Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA would have been dismantled and America's founding system of a limited-government republic would have been restored.
Sixty years on, RFK Jr. Says He Must "Be Careful" The CIA Doesn't Assassinate Him. Typical RFKJ understatement, and he adds, "JFK learned very early on that the purpose of the CIA and the intelligence apparatus was to create a constant pipeline of new wars for them, for the military industrial complex," Kennedy noted, adding that JFK was adamant that "it's not the United States' jobs to dictate what kind of governments other countries have."
RFK Jr. continued, "in October of 1963 he heard that some of his Green Berets had been killed… and he said I want a total casualty list from Vietnam. His aide came to him and said 75 Americans have died, he said that's too many and he signed that day a national security directive ordering all troops out of Vietnam… the first thousand over the next month and then the rest by the beginning of 1965, and um and then a month later he was killed."
Tucker Carlson turns his acerbic eye first to his former employer - Fox News - and then to the "wannabe dictator" in The White House.
On Tuesday this week, shortly after former President Trump's arrest, Fox News ran two video feeds (of Biden and Trump) simultaneously with the following chyron: "wannabe dictator speaks at The White House after having his political rival arrested."
Not content with falling over last week and then pulling off a stunning impression of an African potentate, Biden went on to dumbfound an audience in Connecticut and observers everywhere when he closed a speech last Friday by declaring, "God save the queen, man." Perhaps he was distracted by the news that the House Oversight Chairman says there's evidence Of $20-$30 Million Of Illegal Payments To Bidens.
A high point of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum was Vladimir Putin on stage being asked, "Some people are talking about Russia perhaps using tactical nuclear weapons now to re-instill in the minds of people in the West what nuclear deterrence is all about. Will Russia use these weapons?"
"Putin's answer was an emphatic "No. We do not plan to use nuclear weapons in this conflict. As I have said, their use is theoretically possible only when the existence of our statehood is threatened. As for tactical weapons, I do not want to lower the threshold for use of any nuclear arms. For purposes of deterrence, there is no need to remind the West that we have a significantly bigger stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons than they do. This is, so to speak, our competitive advantage. We have made our statement by positioning nuclear weapons in Belarus. That is a clear message. We have no need to frighten the whole world."
From Russia via China to the Middle East, and a big step towardsthe negotiation of a sovereign State of Palestine, with Xi Jinping backing Palestine's entry into Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as Beijing offers to Mediate an Israeli-Palestinian Peace. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accomplished a great deal on his 4-day visit to Beijing, including a Chinese agreement to try to bring Palestine into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, if the other members agree. Chinese President Xi Jinping and he announced on Tuesday a strategic partnership. Some months ago Foreign Minister Qin Gang expressed an interest in having China host peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians to bring their 75-year-old conflict to a just and peaceful end. China recognized Palestine as an independent state in 1988 and is one of over 80 nations in the world to have done so... Xi ... and Abbas went on to announce a strategic partnership between China and Palestine, saying, "The Chinese side is keen to seize this opportunity to enhance in a comprehensive manner friendly cooperation with the Palestinian side in various fields." For his part, Abbas pledged to make Palestine part of China's One Belt and Road infrastructure project for Asia.
Heading back towards Russia via Ukraine, we are reminded once again of just how many scores there are to settle in the region. Poland covets western Ukraine – as Putin says,"The Poles have their own goals, they sleep and dream of seeing the return of western Ukraine, and, apparently, they are gradually moving towards this," the Russian leader told participants of the forum, noting that Poland has still not forgotten the genocide of its people by Ukrainian ultranationalists during World War II. Similarly, France's Le Pen reminds everyone that"Crimea has nothing to do with the conflict in Ukraine...Residents in Crimea decided to join Russia. This position was also shared by former French Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Valery Giscard d'Estaing, and I stand with them, too, that this issue has nothing to do with today's conflict in Ukraine," emphasized Le Pen, who was incumbent French leader Emmanuel Macron's main rival in the presidential election in 2017 as well as last year. According to the parliamentarian, "the conflict in Ukraine is related to the Minsk agreements, which do not concern Crimea."
Le Pen underlined that she views Crimea to be a part of Russia. "I have been saying this for 10 years already, and I have not changed my mind." She insists that "the Donbass issue should be central at talks to resolve the conflict in Ukraine."
Obesity & IQ: Fast food suppliers contribute to increases in BMI and decreases in IQ . The food-tastes of a lifetime are formed by 16 months of age. Around the world, obesity during childhood and adolescence is on the rise. Its causes are complex and multifaceted but environmental factors are often named as a major culprit, with the increased supply of fast food garnering particular press and policy attention in recent decades. Using Norwegian registry data, this column documents that the increased supply of fast food restaurants could be responsible for as much as 35% of the increase in BMI and 27% of the decline in cognitive ability observed across cohorts born during the 1980s. Policies reducing the obesogenic environment could thus be an effective way to reverse the trends observed in recent decades.....We do note, however, that cognitive ability is only affected by early life exposure at ages 0-12. In this case, we further find that the effect is halved in families where the father has at least an academic high school degree.
And finally, in case you thought getting more shots was a good idea... It's really not. Show your folks.A new preprint is out entitled: "Risk of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) among Those Up-to-Date and Not Up-to-Date on COVID-19 Vaccination"1 and it concludes from a multivariate analysis of 48,344 individuals (Employees of Cleveland Clinic) that 'those not "up-to-date" on COVID-19 vaccination had a lower risk of COVID-19 than those "up-to-date"'.
Little man has small fit
John Day stood up to the Viruvax bullies, which earned him an early retirement. I read his substack every day without fail, because he has this enviable knack of spotting all the good stuff I missed. This is partly down to his voracious reading habit, to some extent a network of open-minded thinkers, but mainly a nose for what will grip the reader. (The section about a link between falling IQ and rising obesity, for example, is a massive story in its own right).
This link is a suggested starting point for getting into the nugget-strewn gold mine that is his catalogue. As they say in Scotland, "Lang may his lum reek" which believe it or not is a compliment
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