Lying with facts

On LENR Forum, SSC has been writing deceptive after deceptive post, sometimes with clear error, but other times reporting facts that SSC would reasonably know, if he were careful, would mislead.

(Fact, presented out of context, can be highly misleading. Rossi often used this in his legal arguments in Miami. Partial truth can be perjury, distinct  from “the whole truth.”)

Here is one from just an hour ago:

SSC wrote:

Shane D. wrote:

I am pretty impressed with TD’s comments Abd so kindly provided. He sounds sincere, and truly committed to the humanitarian first, money second aspect in his search for a working LENR tech. Definitely at odds with the unflattering picture IH haters here painted. By their depiction, the “greedy bastard” should have pulled his money out of LENR by now, and gone back to real estate. Instead, he is continuing on with his LENR quest. Good on him!

You base your judgment on the words that Darden said, while his detractors are based on the facts.

He is lying; if he believes what he wrote, he is being without caution in repeating the deceptive claims of others, so he can earn the reward of those who lie.

Darden can tell all the fables he wants, he can say that his first thought when he wakes up every morning is to save the world and he can even tell you that money does not matter to him. But are you really willing to believe him? Did you read the Cherokee – Zeneca case?

I certainly have. I have researched it in detail. First of all, as is common in the Cherokee libels, there is no discrimination between Darden and Cherokee Investment Partners and the various LLCs that are created for specific projects.

I will not be checking every fact alleged by SSC, but most of this appears factual; however, it simply does not show what he is claiming. What, in fact, is he claiming, exactly? He is presenting facts about this case as if they reflect on Darden’s sincerity. How?

The property known as Zeneca site consisted of bay-front 86 acre between Marina Bay and Point Isabel in Richmond (CA). Cherokee proposed to continue the remediation and clean –up plan begun by Zeneca and to develop a mini-city in the site (biotech park, housing, retail spaces). In 2003 the City and the Richmond Redevelopment Agency supported the remediation and redevelopment plan of Cherokee. Cherokee began to redevelop the Lot 1 , remodeling the building, finishing landscaping and parking lot.

“AstraZeneca—the giant London-based pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturer—was held liable both for the Stauffer site and for contamination at RFS that had come from the Stauffer plant. ”

“The extended area of contamination including a section that was the responsibility of the University of California, but another that was from the old Stauffer chemical processing site, with contamination dating from many years earlier. The Stauffer site was sold on Dec. 31, 2002 to Cherokee-Simeon Ventures LLC, a consortium formed by Simeon Properties—the university’s would-be partner at the fiield station—and Cherokee Investment Partners, a firm which specializes in funding projects developed on restored contaminated sites. ” [source]

Between July and November 2004 the California Department of Toxic Substances Control made an investigation on use levels of 68 acre property , on criteria for housing on the property , on method used for the clean –up and asked for more tests on soil and groundwater across the entire site.

At the end of its investigation, the Department of Toxic Substances Control released the results that showed an high levels of dangerous substances in soil and in groundwater, included in northern Lot 1 (where the redevelopment had already advanced ).

This matches what I recall having read on this. How far the “redevelopment” had advanced is not clear to me.

In September 2006 the California Department of Toxic Substances Control issued a remediation order mandating the remediation of the property. Cherokee was obliged to pay for remediation a portion of the property, capping a portion of the property and monitoring and investigating the property.

There was an order covering the responsible parties, which is all involved owners. “Cherokee” does not mean “Cherokee Investment Partners,” the defendant in Rossi v. Darden, but that specific LLC, the partnership.

On October 23, 2013 Cherokee filed its petition for Chapter 11 protection (bankruptcy) in Delaware Federal Court.

I covered these issues in I’m okay if my enemy is bad which is the kind of thinking involved here. First of all, there are two kinds of bankruptcy, Chapter 7, which is a dissolution, effectively, and Chapter 11, which is a reorganization in the face of debt. From that coverage:

“EnviroFinance [the company suing them] said that Cherokee Simeon failed to honor its loan obligations due to a flurry of interferences.

“Shortly after the loan was made, things started to fall apart for [Cherokee Simeon], EnviroFinance said. “A citizens’ group prodded the Department of Toxic Substances Control to take supervision of the property, and the remediation effort appears to have been more extensive than [Cherokee Simeon] expected. In addition, the real estate market fell apart and [Cherokee Simeon’s] financial condition worsened.”

As a result, Cherokee Simeon could not progress on the rehabilitation project, the firm said.

So, bottom line, a remediation project went south. It happens. Each of the LLCs is independent, that is by design. Each has its own investors. Cherokee Investment Partners runs a number of funds, and if I’m correct, one of these funds might be an investor in the LLC. They might put in perhaps $25 million. If the project fails, they can lose that investment, like the other investors. That is what happens with LLCs. The investors are not on the hook for debts beyond their investment, and that is an essential part of corporate business, that’s why it these are called “limited liability companies.” You can invest in them; you can lose your investment, if it fails, but not all the rest of what you own.

I appears that the bankruptcy petition was later withdrawn, so referring to it as if it stands, as if it was completed, is highly deceptive.

Do you think that this attitude deserves an applause?

What attitude? When this was brought up on Rossi’s blog, which is part of how this libel was spread, it was also claimed that Cherokee “made taxpayer money disappear.” That was based on a Cherokee project that obtains awards of tax credits (not “taxpayer money”) for environmental remediation projects. Sifferkoll obviously did not understand those awards, and imagined that many millions of tax dollars had been given to Cherokee. In some cases a brownfield project may obtain grants. Most of these projects apparently succeed. But they can fail, it’s in the nature of the business. All the investors know that, that they can lose their entire investment.

And this is just one of the many cases reported by [Sifferkoll]

Indeed. Definitely “pants on fire.”

A link was given that was broken. I don’t want to create more incoming links for Sifferkoll’s blog, but if one wants to find it, it should be easy from the title of the post that SSC uses: Are Tom Darden and Cherokee Simply “Fake” Environmentalists in Business Only to Make Tax Payer Money Disappear?

There is a really simple answer to that question.

No.

I predict that, instead, Sifferkoll disappears, because libel is criminal in Sweden.

Those are facts, documented and available on the internet, not Darden’s small talks.

The language is so … Rossi-like. Dewey called SSC “Rossc.” Maybe. There were facts above. But the facts reported did not impeach Darden. At all.

The Sifferkoll story is full of major errors. He seems to think that a Chapter 11 bankruptcy is a walk-away. He is aware of that filing but not of the withdrawal, and Chapter 11 maintains an intention to pay, and bankruptcy, in any case, dedicates the assets of a company to paying debts.

He seems to think that the brownfield project LLCs don’t spend money on remediation, they just “make it disappear.” He thinks that “tax payer” money is involved (based on the tax credit activity). And he is full of highly personal vituperation. And SSC is following and supporting all this.

That’s the kind of person who is now “defending” Rossi?

Author: Abd ulRahman Lomax

See http://coldfusioncommunity.net/biography-abd-ul-rahman-lomax/

2 thoughts on “Lying with facts”

  1. One of the difficult lessons to learn on the net is not to feed the trolls. They state their mixtures of lies and innuendo with such an appearance of actually believing it that it seems a shame to not correct them. Once started on that it’s also pretty difficult to back out from correcting their reply – all done with the noble cause of stopping others on the net being convinced. Even though I don’t comment on LF, when I read it I skip over comments by Ele/SSC and a few others. This would of course lay me open to the charge of partisanship – I’ve chosen a side. Actually I did that a long time back – I want to hear truth and not distortions and lies. Once someone has told me a lie, where I know it’s a lie and I know that they know it’s a lie, I’ll never trust anything they tell me. It could of course be a form of insanity they have, but it’s still lost that necessary trust.

    The remaining Rossi defenders really must be aware that Rossi has lied through his teeth about his data and has controlled what his “third party” testers saw and could measure so that the published reports have basically been lies as well. Doral was not an amazing success showing COP of 80 or more over around a year as some people still maintain, and it’s obvious that Rossi himself didn’t expect to get any massive amount of heat out of it since he didn’t prepare any way of dissipating it. He only came up with a half-assed plan for a heat-exchanger very late on when it became obvious that his original claim of “that was the customer’s problem” wasn’t going to wash after it was found out that he was indeed the customer. One of Dewey’s posts (sorry, no link) implied that although the IR survey was not admissible evidence in this trial it was in fact available.

    Rossi has got off lightly. Though the chance may be very slight now that any of his claims were based on good measurements or truth, I suspect that IH don’t see the gain in putting him away and some slight chance of a gain if they don’t. What is left of Planet Rossi really needs to consider their future path. If they’re paid by (or family/friends of) Rossi then they have a reason to keep defending him. For the others, it’s more a matter of evaluating the evidence with the knowledge that Rossi was lying and fudging the data that was “leaked”, and deciding whether despite that they can still believe Rossi had the answer not only once but several different ways (and yet still hasn’t got any real 3rd-party confirmations).

    SSC annoys me. Life’s too short to argue with people like that – it swallows time and you won’t get anywhere at all.

  2. SSC, Ele represent a determined and articulate propaganda for Rossi – and their posts are deceitful. For me, there is little interest in contradicting them since I’ve done it before and they ignore this and repeat the same propaganda. I have better things to do with my time than repeat myself, and I have no sense now that either of these posters will pay attention to posts commenting on their views.

    That means LF will become boring: so it is.

    While I feel strongly that Rossi is deceitful, and my own rather unusual moral system rates that as very very bad, I don’t see repetition as helpful even if not doing it means a a particular forum will seem biased. I can’t myself repeat truth against determined falsity so much without losing my sense of enjoyment – and posting on internet forums really should never be done unless one can enjoy the process!

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