[californiadisasters] Admin Read: This Is Not An Echo Chamber

Achtung Volk!

This group is a clearinghouse for information relating to the past disaster history of, disaster current events within, and future hazard threats to the State of California otherwise known as the State of Disaster.

Due to the collaborative efforts of our members and mods here we do an effective job at this as evidenced by the fact we have over 1,530 members with low membership turnover.

We do not advocate political ideologies or religious philosophies on this list.

However, do we advocate facts and reason and enlightenment while fully respecting that many folks approach facts and reason and enlightenment very differently from one another and reach entirely different conclusions which is normal and just fine with us.

We do not attack views for being different than our own, in no small measure because the ownership and moderating team here don't all hold the same views either including the ones I'm about to enunciate here which for the record are my own and not necessarily those of the moderating team.

We do challenge and rightly condemn words and actions that promote scientific ignorance and disaster unpreparedness and fail to honestly address issues of  group and personal survival because that is what this is all really about.

The two dominant extreme polar opposites in the futile and infantile Culture Wars are equally guilty of sins that threaten our collective and individual survival and the long-term health of our Republic and by extension, our civilization.

We need to address Global Warming because it is a scientific fact. The pseudo-intellectual anti-science of the Right boggles the mind in its frantic self-delusion and denial of the obvious. The Christian Right from whence I came has oft been the loudest font of disinformation on this which is curious given the Scriptural mandate from God to protect the Earth and tend it like a responsible gardener... nothing in Scripture about providing cover for Big Oil or playing the Devil's Advocate against Al Gore just because he's not a Conservative.

We need to think and act beyond fossil fuels, not merely for the sake of concern about carbon but also we've been stuck on that for a century now and we need to be moving onto something more advanced which in the case of energy is harnessing the power of the very building blocks of which our universe is created. Quite amazingly the Left which has a stranglehold over the Ivory Halls of Academia are also the very same folks leading the charge against moving onto full-throttle harnessing of nuclear energy and propulsion. This is based upon a fear of what might go wrong and not of what might go right as the late John. F. Kennedy and those Classic Liberal visionaries like him once did. Otherwise, we would have never gone to the Moon based upon fears of what might go wrong.

I generally frown upon discussions of politics here and when I allow it or do it myself it is in a non-partisan way that relates to disaster issues here in California.

Watching MSNBC (I force myself to watch it and Faux News whenever I can because it's important to keep your friends close and your enemies closer) the other night and the cacophony of stupidity there in regards to atomic energy really honked me off. Combined with all the other ignorance and lack of perspective of late during this Japanese disaster crisis I have encountered I felt I finally had to say some things that might assist in some tiny way in raising the level of knowledge and perspective in the world in my small little way.

Hence my comments today which were NOT intended to raise a ruckus or be offensive but were intended to get you all to think for yourselves and not in a group collective conscience sort of way that political ideologues on both sides of the Culture Wars prefer.

I hope most of you are big enough people to not get huffy just because you and I may not see things exactly alike, something that I'm not even trying to accomplish nor should I even try as that is not my purpose upon this Earth.

Unfortunately, the one poster earlier today that seemed to take umbrage at my comments has left in a huff. She was not attacked nor was her inferred political ideology in any ad hominem sort of way, but mere specific factually-based criticisms rooted in reality were made. Her lack of a rebuttal attempt tells me she had none at all which means she prefers to occupy the emotionally safe and intellectually-comfortable confines of an ideologically self-validating and self-affirming echo chamber.

We don't do that stuff here so she was in the wrong place to begin with.

I hope I have adequately articulated the intent of my prior comments today.

Feel free to contact me off-list if you require any further explanation or elaboration and don't worry; I don't bite. ;-)

Kim Patrick Noyes
List-owner



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