Have a comment on this page? Email the Odd Emperor!

Mott Al Monde?

The Odd Emperor received this strange missive from one of Mr. Mott's apparent fans. The Odd Emperor has this ...Odd feeling that he's communicated with this person.. in the past!

> Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by
> Monde (Almonde84@XYZ.com) on Monday, March 8, 2004 at 09:57:44
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> textfield: Hello Emperor,
>
>

Hey-there yourself!

> I have just finished reading your exchange with Michael Mott. I was surfing the amazing trendy new internet

Amazing? Trendy? I guess it still is for some people; )

> and I happened upon your website where I saw the name, Michael Mott. I was immediatly interested because I have read Michael Mott's book, Cauldrons, Caverns and Concealed Creatures. My opinions on the book will remain my own as I do not wish to get into a futile discussion about whether the information in the book is correct or not. I say this because it is a worthless exercise to debate any given subject with a participant that has little or no knowledge of the subject.
>

I'm always amazed when people begin a letter with stuff like "you're too much of an ignorant moron for me to have a conversation with" and believe that I'm just going to have an open mind about the rest of whatever he has to say. I KNOW that if I send this fellow an email that begins "Hi; you're a complete idiot" he would show me that he's actually an intelligent, thoughtful human being.

But since I'm just a cartoon, human emotions don't enter into it right?

Oh the Odd Emperor agrees completely. You might want to read up on the subject just a little in that case…I can wait.

Back at'ch ya!

> There are many levels of opinions but it is possible to split those levels into two distinct groups: Opinion formed from open minded research in order to develop a knowledgable platform from which debate can flow freely with exchange of ideas so as to clarify a subject, whatever it may be.
> Or: Opinion formed from presumptions about any subject the individual is not knowledgable about or willing to perform open minded research in order to develop a knowledgable platform blahblahblah.
>
>

Oh, which camp do you happen to be in? Surly you must be in... the first! But you seem to have formed an opinion about the Odd Emperor without any idea of where he is coming from or what his web page is all about. I'm afraid this puts you into the second ...tisk tisk...what a pity.

> I am inclined to quote you here if i may?
>
> **Really the point of all of this, Mr. Mott appears to have an inability to separate his ideas with himself, so much that anyone who confronts his ideas is in fact confronting him in a very real and personal way. This is exactly contrary to convention in scientific thought, ideas can (and are) trashed all the time. Science is an error correcting philosophy and if one simply runs around and validates every idea without question we would not have science or anything close to it. BTW, Mr. Mott or anyone is WELCOME to trash my ideas if they like… or if they can.**
>
>
....such true words...

> What i found surprising about the exchange between yourself and Michael Mott was the lack of informed information presented by you to refute the information in his book Cauldrons, Caverns and Concealed Creatures.
>
>
... Um actually it's "Caverns, Cauldrons and Concealed Creatures."

Wait just a cotton picken moment, I never even attempted to refute Mr. Motts book. Do you think I should?

This is doubly silly. I was commenting on elements of his web page, not his book. Mr. Mott's book is fertile ground for commentary and as Mr. Monde so quaintly puts it, refutation. The simple fact is that the Odd Emperor is not interested in doing some crazy page by page critique of this book. The book does not seem to be very significant even in the Fortian context, (judging from the "rave"reviews I've seen on it, exactly one from the editor of Fate magazine, and he wasn't exactly raving.)

Although; I did noticed a couple of "rave" reviews from Mr. Mott's buddies on Barns and Noble or Amazon (I forget which.) Including a review from the author himself. Can you guess which one it is? (I'm sure no one else will notice.)

> You are doing yourself no favours by trying to argue your point without first having knowledge of both sides of the argument and that means you should have read his book before entering the exchange with Michael Mott.
>

Excuse me, do you want fries with that?
Mr. Mott *began* the exchange about a comment on a web page that had been there for THREE YEARS! And you say I'm entering an exchange with him? (sheeze)

> By doing so you would have created a platform for yourself so as to debate the subject in an informed and appropriate manner. You may even be able to prove some of his points wrong with the use of information you have aquired through the open minded study and research of the subject and subjects related to it.
>
>

And I would have, If Mr Mott was game to such a thing. Did you see the bit about the The Eltanin antenna? They found out that it's an ordinary sponge a few inches tall...rats!

You do know that Mr. Mott had no interest in debating anything with me, its apparently not his style and I'm not the only person who has encountered this little trait.

One little side note; for some reason this author thinks that the Odd Emperor is obsessed with proving that Mr. Mott is a buffoon. Quite the contrary! I know that Mr. Mott is not a stupid man, the Odd Emperor simply disagrees with many of his conclusions as set fourth on his web page. Any debate therefore would be on *why* the Odd emperor thinks his conclusions are incorrect. Simply trashing him has never been the purpose of the Empire of the Odd, incidentally, any debate I enter into *is* an informed debate. Or the Odd Emperor will admit form the get-go that he does not know very much about the subject. Both Mr. Mott and this fellow seem to not get this or simply do not believe it.

As an extra aside; Mr. Mott's contention seems to be that anyone who does not agree with his conclusions is automatically an idiot, a buffoon, a moron etc. Wisdom in his mind (if one were to judge his conduct with the Odd Emperor) must be synonymous with agreement to his unique outlook of the world at large. This is certainly not a fertile ground for debate. In fact this kind of conduct is often called "crackpot", "closed minded" and "prejudicial". Not that I'm necessarily calling anyone those things, The Odd Emperor would like to let the reader judge for themselves if these descriptions have any merit or not.

> I am interested to know what your ideas actually are because in the exchange with Michael Mott you failed to present your ideas. In my eyes Michael Mott had a stronger case to back up the information that he DID present, precisely for that reason.
>
>

I didn't need to. Mr Mott did the talking for me. He never made a case for or against his book, he was too busy being rude to your's truly.

Did you bother to read any of the exchange or are you just making all this up?

Although this writer has a point, Mr. Mott did make a case that sponges are really huge alien antenna. This based on the strength of one blurry photo of uncertain origin. It’s OK, lots of “researchers” make the same kind of conclusions using blurry photos.

> I would find your website much more interesting if your ideas on the subjects you cover were ideas based on informed knowledge of the subjects. You do seem to lack a credible argument based on the little knowledge you have on the subjects that you cover and therefore your arguments are invalid.
>
> This is just an observation.
>
>

A very false one at that. If you look carefully on each page of the Empire of the Odd you may see a disclaimer that describes in part what the web site all about, your request is dully noted but in my not so humble opinion it would not complement the rest of the site. ...NEXT!

> You claim to know something of science. I wonder if you are knowledgable and informed about quantum mechanics and particle physics and other related fields of research. It really is a mind blower of a subject and I believe you would find the information absolutely fascinating.
>

This is kind of funny because I don't recall making much of a claim about anything. What the Odd Emperor knows about science is what he knows period. Once again; I prefer to let the reader judge for themselves and reframe from saying things like "I have spent the last X number of years researching such and such," mostly because that sort of claim means exactly nothing in the real world.

In the crackpot world though, that kind of assertion means everything.

Yes; I noted that Dr. Tipler is backing off from some of his more radical ideas of the last couple of decades.

Naturally I was referring to Dr. Frank Tipler of Tulane University. He wrote some really interesting stuff about the long range fate of the universe and other subjects.

What does this have to do with Mr. "Mond's" suggestion?

What does Mr. Mond's suggestion have to do with the price of rice in China?

> Maybe you could look into that as a subject to include on your website as it relates to the other subjects you cover. Have a look into the subject and see what opinions you can form from the information you aquire through open minded research of the field of quantum mechanics and other related topics.
>
>

Oh oh- Odd Emperor cruel rant coming up!

Will that be all? Do you want that in triplicate? Can I get you a cold drink? Does the Odd Emperor really look like Mr. Wizard to you?

Tell you what! Why don't you write me a short essay on the subject, say 5000 words or less. Put your high sounding intellect to work. I might even publish the thing for you if its to my liking. I bet you can't do it. It should be easy to one who (can) so carefully examine something (like my web page) and who comes to the most brilliant conclusion about it (completely wrong but who really cares about that .)

Or better yet, find one thing I have said on the Odd Empire page that is demonstrably false, a lie, libelous We can debate your point, see how this really works.

Otherwise, Thank you for your suggestions Mr. Al Monde. It is apparent to me that you really don’t know what the Empire of the Odd web page is all about. It is apparent to me that you don’t know what Mr. Mott is all about either. That’s quite all right really! Mr. Mott if I understand him well is not interested in telling you what HE is after; the Odd Emperor resembles him in at least this respect.

Bee good!
(VOX POPULI - VOX DEI)

> This is just a suggestion.
>
> Sincerely;
>
> Al Monde.

...An odd exchange to be sure. I got the feeling that Mr. Al Monde is some made up name, someone who purposely misspelled words and makes rather obvious mistakes. his email address is used very little around the Internet, just one guest book entry made less then a month ago. His word patterns seem... awfully familiar. I can't quite remember who writes like him...

I'm sure I'll remember who eventually!

- The Odd Emperor ; -))