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"Open Access" or Covert Propaganda? In his book, "State of Fear", author Michael Crichton appended an opinion entitled "Why Politicized Science is Dangerous," and cautioned against, "a social program masquerading as a scientific one", citing the widespread eugenics movement in the early part of the last century. (http://www.michaelcrichton.net/fear/fear_main.shtml) "A second example of politicized science is quite different in character," warned Crichton. "It exemplifies the hazard of government ideology controlling the work of science, and of uncritical media promoting false concepts." Just as eugenics drew praise and support from politicians, academicians, and media in its time, so too has the manufactured crisis of global warming today. (Emphasis added)
Another egregious example can be found in the Environmental Protection Agency that, over the past decade, has made grants to more than 2,200 nonprofit groups. An Associated Press article by Rita Beamish in December 2005 noted that those grants often went to groups "that lobby and sometimes sue the agency." Multiply this by all manner of government agencies concerned with energy, education, health care and other issues, and by countless advocacy organizations and individuals receiving billions in taxpayer funding. What emerges is research that often reflects the outcome of whatever cause or theory government bureaucrats are advancing. Some of this research is published in peer-reviewed scientific and academic journals, and while some good science is achieved, there is no way of knowing how much government-funded research exists to advance various social and political agendas. Amid these problems, we now have a new piece of legislation called the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (S. 2695), which was introduced last May. The bill would mandate that, "federal agencies develop public access policies relating to research conducted by employees of that agency or from funds administered by that agency." The Act would further require original research papers that, "have been accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals and result from research supported, in whole or in part, from funding by the federal government" be available to anyone with access to the Internet. We paid for it, so why shouldn’t We the People have access to it? The problem is that We the People don’t get to decide what gets researched and what doesn’t. Furthermore, We the People rarely have the scientific training and knowledge to grasp the implications of such research. That’s why serious journals, at considerable expense, publish peer-reviewed studies for their peers rather than Joe Sixpack. Moreover, hardly a day goes by when a headline screams from the pages of some newspaper that some study has concluded that the Earth is doomed or everything you breathe, eat or drink will kill you. The public has been bombarded for years with bad reporting about bad scientific research, a trend "open access" would only compound. This innocent sounding bill might better be called "The Advancement of Junk Science Act of 2006." All the government-funded studies, whether having merit or redolent with hidden agendas, would be available to become a platform by which various social agendas would be advanced. Nothing truly impedes anyone from access to published research studies; it’s available for those who want to read it. "Open access", however, is an invitation for more clueless journalism and covert advocacy. This bill literally forces publishers of medical, scientific and scholarly journals, which invest hundreds of millions of dollars each year in their publications, to give away their work. There is something inherently wrong in that. The Open Access bill is, in this respect, an unconstitutional "taking" of intellectual property by the federal government. So, what starts out appearing to be a reasonable mandate based on federal funding turns out to be bad news for everyone; from those doing the research to those publishing the research. Ultimately the unskilled consumers of "open access" could also be at risk inasmuch as they are unaware of whether the material they’re reading has any real merit. Another way to further debase the process that supports questionable science is to create "alternative journals." It should come as little surprise that liberal financier George Soros, through his Open Society Institute, is a big fan of "open access" and alternative journals. In 2002, Soros gave $3 million dollars to the Budapest Open Access Initiative, one of whose objectives is to "assist in the establishment of alternative journals that are committed to offering free and unrestricted online access to published articles." Open access to bogus research could result in the easy dissemination of the social control agenda behind global warming and other "theories." A government that commits boneheaded mistakes every day should not be in the business of requiring what research should be openly available while it competes against private research that may well be of far superior merit. An email, letter or call to your Senator might be a good idea before S. 2695 becomes law. For very good reasons, medical, scientific, and scholarly journals are intended to be read by those in the communities they serve, not the general public. This system has worked for a very long time to winnow out ultimately bad or junk science and should be left alone to continue that process. Vote Like Your Life Depended on It… The political pundits all tell us that Americans have grown weary of the bloodshed in Iraq and the loss of our troops sent to topple Saddam Hussein and to help the Iraqis establish a working, secular democracy. They say the Democrat Party will win and, true to their promise, will begin to "redeploy" our troops from there and Afghanistan. The Republicans and the Bush Administration urge us to stay the course in its efforts to transform the Middle East and defuse the Islamic threat to the United States and the West. One thing Americans know for sure is that we are no longer safe from attack in our homeland. We learned that on 9-11, but that awful day recedes now in our collective memory. The experts tell us America will be attacked again. So, on Election Day vote as if your life depended on it, because it does. The reason is almost too obvious, but it is human nature to deny it. The deliberate murder of millions of people in the name of Islam is not just hard to grasp, but too horrible to contemplate. Let it be said, however, Islam is in love with death. At the core of this warrior cult is the suicide bomber who takes his own life in order to kill others. Just briefly consider Islam in the latter part of the last century and what it promises as this new one begins.
The tally of the war dead in Lebanon was the result of a deliberate provocation against the Israelis who had withdrawn their forces from there in 2000. Its brief "Cedar Revolution" died at the hands of Hezbollah, a militant Islamic movement determined to control Lebanon and devoted to the destruction of Israel. On its southern border, Israel keeps a watchful eye on Hamas and Fatah, two Palestinian factions currently killing one another. In Afghanistan, the Soviet invasion cost many lives and the civil war that occurred in its aftermath may have cost a million more. Determined to impose Islamic law on that nation, the incipient democracy is at risk from a rejuvenated Taliban. They, in turn, have been ceded much of Pakistan by its current government, a military dictatorship. In the Sudan, the Moslem government there has sanctioned a war on Christians and others estimated to have cost 2.6 million to 3 million lives. Darfur has entered our lexicon as yet another definition of genocide. In Algeria, Jihadists waged a war of independence from France that cost between 500,000 and a million lives. Its civil war in the 1990s took another 100,000 lives. Jihadists in Indonesia are responsible for an estimated 400,000 killed with an additional 100,000 to 200,000 in East Timor. In Somalia, an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 died in its civil war and the Jihadists have returned to take control of that nation. In 1971, it is estimated that three million Bangladeshis died and ten million refugees fled to the safety of neighboring India to escape soldiers from West Pakistan. India has a long history of wars and attacks by Moslems, the most recent being a terror bombing in Mumbai. Moslem nations are charnel houses with names like Chechnya, Chad, Kosovo, Yemen. Then consider where death by Moslem hands has spread to places such as Beslan in Russia, Madrid in Spain, London in the United Kingdom, African nations, and of course our own nation. Moslems have killed other Moslems at weddings, at funerals, in market places. They have killed Israelis in discothèques, pizza parlors, and where they gathered to celebrate their holy days. They have killed American soldiers billeted in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. The Moslem rivers of blood flow wherever they live in great numbers because nothing in Islam encourages either tolerance or brotherhood despite its many claims. According to an Islamic encyclopedia, Islam is divided into 72 different sects and sub-sects, each with its own belief system. We know about the Shiites and the Sunnis, but there are many more sects and each believes they are the possessors of the real Islam. The Haddith, a collection of Islamic interpretations of the Koran, instructs Moslems to kill anyone suspected of creating disunity in Islam. Infidels—unbelievers—may be put to the sword for their refusal to accept Islam. There is no central authority for Islam. There is only the Ummah, the Moslem people. There are more than a billion of them. Europe has slowly awakened to the deadly threat within its bosom as France exploded into weeks of warfare between its Moslem population and all others. England recently thwarted the mass murder of international travelers plotted by Moslems following the murder of people on London’s buses and in subways. Spain saw hundreds slain on commuter trains. The Netherlands has been the scene of murder committed in the name of Islam. On November 7, Americans will go to the polls to decide whether we want to remain engaged in the resistance to Islam in faraway places, as well as at home. We shall have to vote as if our lives and the lives of our children depended on it, because it will. Have you purchased your copy of "Real Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy"? Alan Caruba’s new book is available from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, and can be purchased here from the National Anxiety Center. |
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This politicizing of science can be found in the way the United States government spends billions to fund various research programs. One example is the $40 billion spent by the U.S. Global Change Research Program since 1990. For that kind of money one would think something conclusive has been ascertained about "global warming", but if its recent report is any indication, the answer is no. (
There probably will never be a full accounting for the millions of Iraqis murdered under the regime of Saddam Hussein, but in the course of the Iraq war against Iran it is estimated that more than a million died and the war against Kuwait cost thousands more. This year, by the end of May, the bodies of 6,000 people had filled Baghdad’s main mortuary as sectarian violence raged out of control. It continues unabated.