Mott's Blog

The Democratic Party consists of the old FDR coalition and the modern special issues groups on abortion, gay rights, antiwar (whatever one is pending), and other one-issue causes. The core constituencies have always been union workers, the elderly, minorities and urban so-called "elites." In recent times there has been a void as to a common issue or theme across these groups, accept for design of retaining or regaining power. Image from Rush Limbaugh (April 24, 2008). This election cycle has witnessed the unveiling of the fissures in the old FDR coalition. One group seems to have lost a place at the table altogether, the Democratic pro-free trade internationalist. Strong national defense advocates were quietly shuffled out the door over the last thirty years. Those that remain have learned ...

It is widely known by climatologists and ignored by the media that many of the surface temperature stations are now "corrupted" by being locatedin areas affected by "urban heat islands." The systems try to adjust for this and other effects, but it is a subjective exercise in the end. The objective measure would be to just lookat rural temperatures and if there was major warming, they would show it? Right? They don't...... Randy Mott

Before one of those famous Democratic fat cat private fund-raisers, when he was free to be myself (or so he thought), Barrack Obama continued to display why the major parties in normal elections don’t let a novice get this close to the Presidential nomination. In a pitched battle for blue collar, small town voters in Pennsylvania, Obama explained his take on the situation: "And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Reminiscent of his "typical white person" comment, these remarks illustrate the basic "disconnect" between the Obama campaign pitch and his real self. Attributing people who hold these views as solely the product of economic problems is a standard liberal line. That Obama would say so is no surprise, as is his refusal to recant the thrust of the remark. The amazing ...

While Barrack Obama went to Washington as a Senator, his wife and two daughters stayed in Chicago. Accordingly to the "fluffy" biographically piece on Michelle Obama, she claims to have attended Trinity Church "every Sunday": "After Barack was elected to the U.S. Senate, Barack and Michelle choose to keep their children in Chicago, where Michelle continued her career as well. "We made a good decision to stay in Chicago so that has kept our family stable," Michelle Obama told the Chicago Tribune. Every Sunday the family attends services at the Trinity United Church of Christ." http://www.squidoo.com/michelle-obama-pictures-biography While he may claim, incredibly so, that he never heard this stuff (Obama ver. 3.02), the facts seem to show that he is misrepresenting things at best: 1. His family attended and clearly if Wright's rant were shocking to them, he would have known. He also subjected his daughters to this racist nonsense. A healer? 2...

Several things are now clear from Obama's Phillie speech and the reaction to it. 1. Obama heard Wright's rants and was well aware of the extreme allegations of Wright's radical black theology. Obama's early statements that he had not heard these crazy theories and rants from Wright in his 20 years at the church were LIES. Obama's first instinct in the controversy was to lie about his own involvement. 2. Obama still tries to portray his own tolerance of the Wright's extremism as a decision based on balancing the good and the bad and part of some metaphysical process. The truth, which everyone knows, is that Obama is half-white and an Ivy-Leaguer and was entering politics in a black section of Chicago and needed "black bona fides." He sat and listen, gave money to the church, and supported it and Rev. Wright because doing so HELPED HIM POLITICALLY at the time. Now it doesn't, so he can say that he always disagreed with the extremist rants. 3. Obama...

Okay... he still wants to be the uniter...is that a surprise? Nice speech...good rhetoric. This is undoubtedly make his supporters happy. Senator Obama tries to "turn the corner" as we used to say in debate. But I don't think that the speech ends the controversy or gives him a bye on the situation he allowed to develop. When Obama needed black community bona fides in Chicago, he sought out this church and Rev. Wright to get them. When he needs to be acceptable to white voters, he rejects the views that he heard for twenty years [after of course, denying that he ever heard them]. Which is it? Was he lying when he said he never heard this type of viewpoint or is he lying when he says that he understood Rev. Wright's viewpoint while disagreeing with it? Two Obamas- one for the Chicago voters where he started out and one now for his national campaign. Several versions of the Rev. Wright controversy, all of which seem mutually exclusive. Add in Michelle Obama's speech...

A survey of the blogs' sphere and the news clips suggest that the Rev. Wright story has "legs" and is breaking into a full trot. Tracking polls show Obama slipping dramatically ...... The story is amplified by Michelle Obama's "never proud of America" comment and the Pledge of Allegiance and flag lapel pin stories. Throw in his own campaign foreign affairs advisor telling an interviewer that he is not ready to be commander and chief...... It really looks like the Democratic Party was done in by its own pedantic political correctness. They just refused to vet this guy because he was black. Affirmative action is not a very effective technique to select Presidential candidates. I predict that this stuff will spiral out of control at this point. Obama is a very brittle guy when hit with adversity. His responses on this issue get progressively worse and less credible as each new one contradicts the last one. This stuff is particularly poisonous for Obama, who ...

Probably too late for Hillary Clinton, but the Barrack Obama bubble appears to be bursting before it got very far off the ground. He now does worse than Hillary in general election head-to-head polls against McCain. McCain's projected margin over Obama in the somewhat misleading national polls is growing....it is misleading because it does not reflect even more profound state-by-state polls. Ultimately winning one state at a time is all that matters. Ask Al Gore. McCain is now ahead in polling in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Florida and is winning or in striking distance in many more "blue states" in head-to-head general election polls. What is happening? The public through the new media is finally getting to "vet" Barrack Obama. The other Democratic candidates have been gentile to a fault by U.S. election standards, both because they feared a racial connotation in any attack and because they were all competing for the very leftist Democratic primary voters....

Many of Senator McCain's positions have upset conservatives. His views of global warming are clearly on the wrong side for us. His campaign finance legislation infringed on what many of us considered to be First Amendment rights. His lack of a full appreciation of the problems of accepting a path toward legitimacy of illegal immigrants already here before fully securing the borders enraged many on the right. A lot of this tension is really a hang-over from George W. Bush, whom conservatives supported and often felt betrayed by. It is a fatal mistake to read the disapproval ratings of President Bush as a vindication of the policies of the Left, after all Congress now scores only a 22% approval rate under the new leadership. We on the right have idolized Ronald Reagan, whom many have pointed out had his own set of compromises and accomodations. We should measure our Presidents and leaders be the fights that they choose to wage and they results they achieve, that's how histor...

The conspiracy theorists repeat like a chant that allegation that the WTC buildings "fell at near free fall speed." This is taken to provide some sort of support for their theory that it had to be a controlled demolition. Leaving aside the issue that they never provide any engineering support for why this hypothesis explains controlled demolition [a unstated ridiculous supposition that multiple charges on each floor blew out the supporting structures timed to hundreds of a second], there is absoluely no evidence that the buildings free at "free fall speed." The numerous photographs and videos all show that debris from both WTC Towers was falling faster than the floors were collapsing. See above examples. The "free fall fallacy" has been debunked for years. See 911 Myths ; Debunking 9-11 Conspiracy Theories ; and Physics of 9-11 Events . Randy Mott

The variety of poorly thought-out conspiracies about the September 11, 2001 attacks continues to grow with time, on this the sixth anniversary. The common element to the theories is the allegation that the aircraft that hit the buildings could not have caused their collapse. Many argue that missiles were fired that did "the real damage." Others theorize about demolition charges. PHOTO: WTC South Tower starts to collapse at point of aircraft impact in anything but "symetrical" manner. The FACT is that nothing in any of the theories from these fringe groups can possibly account for the explosive force of the actual aircraft involved loaded with nearly full fuel tanks. The explosive force and kinetic energy of a loaded 757 with the fuel tanks full is more than any missile in the US arsenal, except nuclear: 43,000 liters 0r 387,000 kilograms of TNT (see below). A cruise missile (Tomahawk) only carries 1000 pounds of explosives and has no particular capa...

THE BILDERBERG CONSPIRACY: THE TOTALLY BOGUS THEORY OF AN INTERNATIONAL ELITE THAT RULES THE WORLD For some inexplicable reason, I have found myself drawn to the investigation and debunking of ridiculous conspiracy theories of late. The impetus for this development has been the invasion of the Internet by conspiracy theorists of all stripes. Adherents are invariably folks "out of the flow" of real events. You will not find substantive lawyers, bankers, or serious corporate managers among the conspiracy theorists. They will seldom have viable academic or professional credentials. But the Internet for all of its worth and inestimable value creates a democracy of cyber space, where every man or woman’s opinion can be posted with equal footing. If I have an explanation for doing this article, it is to try to objectively beat back a growing fringe of people who are poisoning the well of ideas with total and unmitigated trash. The Bilderberg theory holds that a gr...

ANOTHER CONSPIRACY THEORY FOR THE GUILIBLE AND THE DISAFFECTED When I first heard someone refer to plans for a new “North American Union” I was enormously surprised and then convinced that someone was not playing with a full deck. No politician in any of the North America countries had stepped up to suggest this idea and the notion that it was being done as a secret conspiracy was totally preposterous. Now, after investigating every assertion by the extremist web-sites that have fuelled this conspiracy theory, I am convinced that my initial reaction was too charitable to them. This is by leaps and bounds the dumbest conspiracy theory on the Internet. The fact that some folks would deliberately mislead the gullible is probably no surprise. But somehow I remain surprised that anyone could take the bait on this silly and groundless bit of paranoia. Several sources, mostly on the Internet, have concluded that there is a secret plan in the Bush Administration to merge the United States wit...