America's “Fifth Column”

By Rich Kozlovich

In 1936 Emilio Mola, a Nationalist general during the 1936-39 Spanish Civil war referred to a fifth column at his disposal when it was clear there were only four columns of troops marching on Madrid.  What did it mean?  These were supporters who would undermine the enemy from within the city.  A population who had loyalties they hid from the group.  Individuals who supported efforts against the group they claimed to be a part of.  We would probably call them terrorists today, but most certainly traitors.

Until Trump was elected, and SCOTUS overturned Chevron with the Loper Bright decision, it became the duty of society to obediently ignore obvious, ignore what they could see going on before them, and provable realities.  Inculcated deep within the collective psyche of America we were expected to accepting every bit of horsepucky which the so-called experts, the media, leftist politicians, consultants, activists, and academicians heaped upon us. 

Now it's our duty and responsibility to stand up against things which are unproven or improvable.   To end support of things that are not true, while having the courage to stand up for those things which are true.

Academia is constant groveling before that “sacred cow”, known as government grant money, which has corrupted the universities, and we now know the media has been funded by the bureaucrats to support their continued tyranny over America. 

 

Think about this.  What if the only grant money available was for the purpose of proving there was no such thing as anthropogenic climate change?  I'll tell you what would happen, there'd be a dramatic shift in gears and the information coming out of these self same universities would change overnight.  On August 4th, 2006 an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal by Shirley S. Wang, reporting on a study that researched the potential of bias in science when it is tied to funding.  The finding? 

 

“Studies show that even small gifts create feelings of obligation, and that those feelings can influence subsequent decisions, so why do many researchers feel they're immune to conflicts of interest?” “Just as we fool ourselves into thinking we're more ethical, kind and generous than we are, so scientists can be blind to the very real possibility that their work is inappropriately influenced by financial ties. These psychological processes usually operate so subtly that people aren't aware that such ties can bias their judgment.”

 

Based on the tone of her article she was attacking the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, and her points were well made.  However, what about research that is tied to a regulatory agency such as EPA?  Are these researchers any less affected by this same kind of bias? 

The activists have no problem finding problems to whine about.  That's easy, especially when these problems are usually speculative.  You know the kind I am talking about.  So much of their whining is filled with Weasel-words and Phrases.

This could happen or that could happen or maybe something could possibly cause something, someday, somewhere by someone doing anything or something or maybe no one doing nothing or anything anywhere.   

Wow, get your mind around that!  Whining about speculative problems is one thing, fixing real problems is another.  We must remember that every action triggers the law of unintended consequences.  Some consequences are positive and some are negative.  Sometimes both.  

What happens when the fixes they impose on society leads to unintended negative or even vile consequences?  Usually people die.  Yet they go on their merry way as if this is normal or worse yet, acceptable.  DDT is a case in point.  Tens of millions have died unnecessarily over the last 52 years since the ban on DDT and yet they still fight to maintain this ban.  These are adherents of a neo-pagan secular religion.  "Ecotheologians, demanding 'death' on a crowded planet."

“Fifth Columnists” are heroes when they win.  If they lose, they are traitors, either way they undermine society and civilization while proclaiming to the world they are bringing enlightenment, promising utopia, but consistently delivering dystopia.  

We need to start shedding ourselves of these so-called in the media, academia, scientific advisors, government consultants, and bureaucrats, who don’t know whose side they are on.  Then again, maybe these “Fifth Columnists” really do know what side they’re on, and it's not the side of humanity.

 

Observations from the Back Row

By Rich Kozlovich (Originally published 3/17/11)

It is finally clear to me after this week’s efforts in meeting with the representatives, senators or their aides that something has been missing all along. I didn’t pick up on it before (although I have a vague memory that the National Pest Management's Executive Vice President of Legislative Affairs, Bob Rosenberg, may have mentioned this in passing and I just didn't get it) that this bed bug issue is a back burner issue for them. They aren’t being inundated by calls from their constituents about bed bugs. I don’t think that society sees this as a government issue. 

Each time this is brought up they sincerely seem mystified. They all seem to ask this question, “Yes, I have been hearing about this, what is the story?” Initially I didn’t place too much stock in the way this was asked until this week. I realize now that they have been hearing about this in the news, not from their constituents; or at the very least, not enough to make any impact. Why? Because we are failing the public!

As an industry we have pretty much been satisfied to just “fix” the problem with what tools are available. The problem we now have is that those tools aren’t readily available any longer. It is the Chernobyl paradigm. As I recall the incident, the Chernobyl plant situation wasn’t really an accident in the sense of how we view what constitutes an accident. It was done deliberately, but with unintended consequences! They apparently were removing safety factors in the plant in order to see how far they could go before it was too late. Mostly I understand the need to experiment in this manner, but they ended up going too far and found out they had gone past the point of no return.

This is exactly the situation we are in with the EPA. They keep removing products that work for unscientific and invalid reasons. Why then isn’t the public in an uproar? Because they don’t’ get it! We, as an industry haven’t brow beaten the manufacturers, the distributors, press, the universities or the researchers to start making public statements to the fact that this whole situation is a regulatory problem created by the most dangerous agency in the government to the health and well being of the American people; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  And we haven't even demanded this from our own media deliverers, nor have we devoted the money, time or talent to do so!

Dr. Jay Lehr, one of the original scientists who helped create the EPA and its foundation pieces of legislation oobserves;

Yes, science is following the government money, and it’s a problem in all industries. We’ve totally distorted science, not all of it, but certainly at the university level. They know they have to say what the government wants to hear in the grant proposal process in order to get their money. U.S. EPA rules the roost, and if they’re not out to prove or say bad things about chemicals of all kinds, they won’t likely get the money. This is all driven by the environmental advocacy groups that control U.S. EPA today. It’s a horrible thing, and what it has done to science mostly at the academic level is bad. But U.S. EPA’s goal is to remove every useful chemical from the environment. They are driven by environmental advocacy groups, who are basically Socialists wanting to destroy capitalism and progress and make us a weaker nation. It’s hard to understand their motivation but they are an unhappy bunch. Over time, I’m somewhat confident and hope that the new Congressional administration coming in will right the ship somewhat.

Why aren’t we broadcasting this to the world? Because we as an industry have failed to row against the tide with vigor!  If we are right we must not waver, we must not compromise, we must not capitulate, we must stay the course, because eventually the tide will turn and we will be in the lead. 

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When is it time for a scientist to call out peers over questionable research?

Ingfei Chen | Genetic Literacy Project | August 30, 2018

Recently, I received an email from a wildlife researcher — I’ll use the pseudonym Scientist A — who wanted to anonymously seek advice on a professional quandary. This researcher believes that two colleagues are presenting data on a controversial wildlife species in a misleading way. The dataset now spans roughly four decades, but when the method for counting the critters changed in the 1990s, the population census leapt by an unprecedented amount.

While Scientist A says the switch in survey methodology created the illusion of a spike in the animal’s population growth, the colleagues — whom we’ll refer to as Scientists B and C — portrayed the increase as a biological reality.

Scientist A further notes that although their older research reports clearly mentioned the shift to the newer census method, the more recent studies by Scientists B and C haven’t acknowledged it.

That includes a new report this year that ignored other published work pointing out the importance of the change in methods. As a result, Scientist A is now pondering whether the right move is to write another commentary and continue discussing the issue publicly in the literature — or demand retraction of recent papers by Scientists B and C. “Is this a case for scientific debate,” Scientist A wondered in the email message, “or a case of misconduct?”..........To Read More.....