Mats Lewan buys condo in Cloud Cuckoo Land

Well, that headline is perhaps a bit dramatic. But, I’ll confess, I was shocked by seeing the following from someone whom I had treated as a friend, long into the past (back in my Wikipedia days), and with whom I had positive correspondence.

I had been considering writing a post about a Lewan blog entry that was mentioned in a comment here.

Rossi’s engineer: ‘I have seen things you people wouldn’t believe’ (November 25, 2015)

After an interesting interview, which reveals that Fabiani clearly believes that Rossi’s work is real — and that he has seen amazing things — Lewan gives this:

Since mid-February 2015, Rossi and his US industrial partner Industrial Heat are running a one-year commercial trial on a customer’s site with a heat plant producing 1 MW. The plant is made up of four 250kW modules, each based on E-Cat technology. Unless something unexpected happens, the trial, which is controlled by a major independent third party certification institute, should be concluded by February or March 2016, and the results should then be presented.

In the comments, Lewan explains a bit:

November 25, 2015 at 11:25
@Slad
Everyone I have talked to confirm that a major independent third party certification institute is involved in the control of the 1-year test and that this institute will also be able to confirm the results when they are presented. I have no further proof though.

Mats does not tell us — at all — who “everyone I have talked to” is, but we know he talked with Fabiani, who would know of the involvement of a “major independent third party certification institute,” and we know he talked to Levi, who might have known of such. And did he talk with Rossi?

Since there was no such institute involved, only Penon, we know that Lewan relied on unreliable sources. He does acknowledge having no “further proof,” but that’s weak. It implies that the evidence for what he wrote was strong. That’s not the only problem.

IH allowed the installation, but as a sale of power, and only secondarily as a trial, with the idea that if Rossi clearly demonstrated to IH that there was substantial power generated, they might voluntarily pay him $89 million on that basis. The Doral demonstration was not the “Guaranteed Performance Test” of the IH-Rossi-Ampenergo Agreement, because Ampenergo explicitly refused to sign the Second Amendment allowing the GPT to be postponed. Rossi covered up this fact in his Complaint, though it was obvious from the start that the Ampenergo signature was missing. The Rossi attempts, in his pleadings, to convert some kind of vague consent to a test into the specifics of a GPT, even though there were obvious elements of a GPT missing; and not only signatures, but matters of substance, such as the ability of IH to actually observe the “test” in detail. Rossi excluded IH experts, twice (in July and in December).

The whole thing stunk, from lies about the customer at the start, to what appears now to be a hastily-invented “heat exchanger” that nobody saw, and that would have been very visible. Yet Mats is still stuck in his glorious past, where he was the world’s foremost confidant of Andrea Rossi. He wonders about conflict of interest, but has a huge one, a subtle one. When people criticize Rossi, or threaten his interests and plan in some way, he cuts them off, and he had done this over and over, and Mats knows this behavior. If any of the Lugano team had questioned what Levi and Rossi were doing (and Rossi was apparently there the whole time, and the Swedish team, not, not what the Lugano Report implied), they’d have been history.

Mats has never cleaned up that mess. Believe me, if I find a major error here, even years later, I will at least annotate it. That is what a responsible journalist will do, if he or she can.

So then we have this sequence on E-Cat World:

Critique of the Smith Report from the JONP

Mats LewanSunday, April 9, 2017 9:54 AM [post time extracted from HTML]

I think there’s a list of advisors to IH somewhere. Anyone remember where it is?

Andreas Moraitis Mats Lewan • a day ago

214-23, p. 7.

That is here. It was actually a list of potential places for investment, and then included a list of advisors. None of this was a description of actual payments. Jed Rothwell is on the list of advisors, and has continually maintained that he has received no payments from IH, but this was used to, once again, accuse him of being paid by IH. He is known to have visited them in North Carolina, and that was then misinterpreted to indicate that he had visited the Plant in Florida (which he has always denied, and which would then make a certain IH response to interrogatories into perjury — unless Rossi arranged the visit, which seems a tad unlikely, given that Rossi excluded Rothwell from visiting him in Italy years before — and in spite of that, behind the scenes, Rothwell was a supporter of Rossi, arguing that people he trusted had seen the technology and it was real). Rothwell later reassessed that opinion, apparently after seeing data from Penon, which had all the obvious defects that have become public now, with the court filings.

Lewan is clearly not using the Rossi v. Darden resources here. They may be searched. The core page is the Docket page. Yes, it’s a huge amount of information. So resources are being created for analysis. That takes time. We just had a huge amount of data dumped on us. Much of it is redundant, but then, much is not.

The best organization is probably found in the Motions for Summary Judgment, where each party puts its best and strongest case forward. I was going to start with an analysis of the Rossi MSJ, but the exhibit references were such a mess (almost all incorrect), and it depended so strongly on a legal claim that has failed, the attempt to exclude all IPH claims based on an allegedly defective corporate deposition, that my opinion became that making it the core of a study would be a waste of time, so I started with RvD: Study of 203:IH Motion for Summary Judgment

This document also includes all the support paragraphs from DE 207. This is the case as it appears from the IH Motion. Anyone who actually wants to understand Rossi v. Darden would do well to study this. But it’s huge, still. I will be going through it, point by point and the first analysis will be looking for what is clearly established as fact, and what is not, what might remain legitimately controversial. At first impression, some of the IH claims are that, not as clear as required for Summary Judgment, they might require determination of fact by a fact-finder, i.e., a jury. However, there are many layers to this IH strategy, and the strongest aspects are likely to blow the Rossi case out of the water, leaving only the counterclaims active. At that point, settlement becomes far more likely.

Now, to come to what astounded me, though I’d certainly seen signs a year ago, that Mats was falling for a conspiracy theory, in spite of his warning to Sifferkoll.

Mats Lewana day ago

Anyone knows what the rules are for presenting evidence that hasn’t been brought up earlier, when the case goes up in court in June?

Josh G Mats Lewan • a day ago

Go ask Abd. Double dare you. (-;

Mats Lewan Josh G • a day ago

BTW do we know if Abd works for IH or not?

Once upon a time, Mats was a reporter and would have asked me that question directly. Now he asks with a “we” that is a narrow group of people. IH would obviously know if I work for them, and so would I, so, for starters, I’d be excluded from “we” or the question would be meaningless. This question was brought up many times, and Rossi himself accused me of being a paid puppet.

At one time, Mats was officially staff at LENR Forum. That disappeared. This blog is open for anyone to comment, and author privileges will be granted to real people, and Mats is real. Even if a bit deluded. This went on.

Josh G Mats Lewan • a day ago

Not sure but I don’t think we’ve seen any evidence to support it other than his quixotic behavior on IH’s behalf. But I stopped following things for quite awhile until the mid-March filings. So not sure.

SG Mats Lewan • 19 hours ago

I think he claimed that he has been paid to blog by somebody, but not IH.

I am attempting to respond there, the editor keeps locking up. But this would be it:

I suppose I should correct this. I have not been “paid to blog” by anybody. I was collecting documents and putting them in the filespace for the newvortex list, and an attorney, not connected with IH at all, offered to pay my PACER expenses. I have received a total of $50 so far, I may ask for more, and another person, also not connected with IH other than being long-term interested in LENR, has offered additional support, enough that I will probably be able to go to Miami to cover the trial if it happens. Enough to cover my travel, I may still need more to cover details like hotel.

I later started the blog when I was temporarily banned on LENR Forum, and then got serious about it when the newvortex archive became unusable (a yahoogroup problem) and LF banned me “permanently.” (Fun question: for what?)

One of the functions of the blog is to build analytical resources, as distinct from endless debate that goes nowhere, i.e., Blog Normal. This is intended long-term for general cold fusion issues, but is currently being used for Rossi v. Darden.

Mats would be most welcome as a participant, but he lost his status as a neutral analyst some time ago. He could recover, if he chooses to. It would take some work, and his excuse has been that he is too busy. It would be fun to guide him through the maze of documents in the case. One step at a time, which is rarely done. Mostly people start with conclusions (on more than one side — I hope that readers realize there are more than two “sides” here).

As to Mats’ question, others have answered reasonably, but not necessarily addressing the point clearly, and Mats himself summarizes it incorrectly:

Mats Lewan GiveADogABone • a day ago

In fact, I don’t interpret it as a blanket ban. Rather that most of the evidence is presented during discovery. But it doesn’t exclude some evidence to be presented in court, as long as it doesn’t contradict earlier depositions or testimonials, I guess.

It’s somewhat shocking that Mats will guess, but he declared previously that he did not have time to do actual research, the kind expected for a journalist.

The reality is that witnesses will be on the stand, and either side may ask them questions, and they may answer outside of what they said before. However, if what they say is new, an attorney may object. To introduce new evidence will require the permission of the Judge. It is not exactly a “blanket ban,” but failure to disclose evidence to the other parties can result in sanctions, all the way up to total dismissal of a party’s case.

“Contradiction” is not a characteristic of evidence, but of the assessment of evidence. Evidence could not be excluded based on contradiction. Rather, if there is contradiction in admissible evidence, there can be a question for a jury to resolve.

However, what may not be realized here is that the Motions for Summary Judgment do not necessarily disclose all the evidence. Rather, there is a huge volume of evidence — truly enormous — that was disclosed in discovery. As long as it was disclosed, it may be introduced at trial. What is disclosed in discovery is generally attested under penalty of perjury.

IH has adduced enough evidence, my present opinion — remember, I am in process of studying the materials — to obtain summary judgment on the core claim of Rossi, breach of contract re the $89 million, and if that claim is gone, so is the rest of his lawsuit. Because, then, there would be no trial on that claim, we can expect Rossi to go all-out in his Reply. We do have that Reply at this point, but I have not studied it. I will, comparing each point with the evidence we have.


Drama ensued. See the comments below. Someone apparently spoofed Mats Lewan, using his name and, most importantly, his real email address, so that the avatar displayed would be picked up from Gravatar, which we have enabled. The second post of this user started out more or less innocuously, but then the user edited it to add a gross sexual reference. Mats complained on LENR Forum, which is a bit odd, since I’m banned there and don’t necessarily see everything. However, THHuxleynew pointed out that post here. There are some aspects of possible interest in what ensued.

On LENR Forum, Mats Lewan wrote (creating a new topic)

ALERT:
Abd ulRahman Lomax yesterday posted a blog post at http://coldfusioncommunity.net…ndo-in-cloud-cuckoo-land/ commenting some of my actions and reports.
Under the blogpost there are comments made by Mats Lewan.

These comments are NOT made by me.
They are false and fraudulent, made up in short, and if Abd ulRahman Lomax reads this, I expect him to delete those comments immediately.

Apparently I read the second remark before it was edited to add the truly offensive remark. The rest of the material in those posts matched, at least to a degree, what Mats had posted elsewhere. Impersonation is still a major public offense, not to be tolerated. I might have some view that I might express in one context, but may not want to express it in other contexts, and that should be my right. But trolls may disagree.

THHuxleynew wrote:

Mats – perhaps you could post this on Abd’s site. It will immediately let you do this – I think. Then he would certainly get it, and also he could check IP etc… Furthermore the correction gets seen faster than if you wait for Abd.

THH was completely correct. Mats’ response was relatively unskillful. The basic harm — someone thinking that was him — could be most quickly addressed by Mats himself posting a comment exposing the impersonation, and confirming this by email from his known email address. Because Mats has not posted, his first comment would need to be approved, though it might be approved simply by using that same email address. (It was on his personal domain, and he obviously uses it wherever the gravatar shows up.)

Posting on LENR forum then drew more attention, exactly what trolls often want, and the obscene comment was then repeated there, and obviously was read by moderators who didn’t care.

Alan Smith wrote:

THHuxleynew wrote:

Mats – perhaps you could post this on Abd’s site.

I don’t expect that to happen in a hurry.

Classic Alan Smith, useless snark. Why not? I used to have direct email communication with Mats. Has Mats fallen into a Krivit hole? I will agree in one way, it is odd that Mats did not communicate directly with me. Maybe the fumes on Planet Rossi finally created too much mind-rot. It would also have been somewhat effective if Mats had responded to my comment on E-Cat World, in reply to his question there, since I get notification of responses.

THHuxleynew wrote:

Alan Smith wrote:

I don’t expect that to happen in a hurry.

I’ve done it for him. Though why he should not be able to do it himself is beyond me.

And indeed THH did post here, something actually useful. Alan Smith continues to emit smoke:

Able but unwilling I expect. I would be too.

Yes, Alan would be. Why? For the same reason that Alan Smith banned me from LF: he can’t stand my presence, he knows I can see what he does. So all this does come up:

AlainCo wrote:

Abd answered and leaked the IP of the fraudster

http://coldfusioncommunity.net…cuckoo-land/#comment-2382

[This link is a bit better, juicier. –Abd]

If there is disagreement with Abd, I estimate it is more about Doxxing/Transparency/Shaming vs Privacy than about tolerance to fraud.

Thanks, Alain. Zero tolerance here for fraudulent posting (which is not about disagreements, nor would it be about ordinary socking. Socking that impersonates another is generally illegal, and Mats had good reason to expect me to correct the situation. He wanted me to delete it. Because there were responses, I elected to not delete, but changed the user name to “(spoofed) Mats Lewan,” and used strike-out for the text, only actually deleting the obscenity. I think it is of interest that someone would spoof Lewan, and I think that it could be useful to find out who that would be.

And that is why I revealed the IP. I also have more data, obtained from the server logs. True administration at LENR Forum would very likely be able to identify the fraudster, at least with other accounts. However, what I found was that not only do moderators there not have access to IP information, neither do administrators; someone has server access, and that is probably Barty and the Owner. So if Barty wants to address this, he could. I’d happily correspond with him. I have also provided the information directly to Mats.

This is all standard stuff for WikiMedia Foundation administrators, and I was one. Privacy is respected, but the right to privacy is lost when one commits certain offenses. (Access to normally private IP information is confined to Checkusers and others with that level of privilege on WMF wikis, but any stand-alone blog owner, running on their own domain, has access to that information, it is in the raw server logs.)

LENR Calendar wrote:

THHuxleynew wrote:

I’ve done it for him. Though why he should not be able to do it himself is beyond me.

Abd wouldn’t be able to tell which user is the real one. Mats here has been verified.

Oh, I was able to tell. I already had been suspicious about the IP, but Lewan accessing the internet from student housing wasn’t impossible, so I didn’t reject the post on that basis. Yes. The LF Lewan account is long-standing, thus verified, which I immediately knew; however, at the first plausible allegation of spoofing, I’d have quarantined that post so that it could do no harm, pending resolution. I also have had direct email communication with Lewan, and verification would be trivial.

There is no rush, but perhaps, out of this, Lewan will start to help clean up the mess that he helped to create. I’d be happy to assist. One easy step at a time.

Author: Abd ulRahman Lomax

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

11 thoughts on “Mats Lewan buys condo in Cloud Cuckoo Land”

  1. I think we all should learn from this exchange. Certain types of phrases really have no place in scientific or mature conversation. Phrases such as used above, by both parties, provide no real value and almost always incite strong personal reactions! This can and should easily be avoided.

    The original phrase may have been a strong derogatory statement against Rossi. However, I believe I would have taken it very negatively if my name was used in the same sentence. This does not justify the response either, but is indicative of how these phrases can incite personal rage and thus remove any chance of the real message being heard.

    It certainly does not help the situation in any form! 🙁

    1. Thanks for sharing. I am 72 years old, a grandfather, very possibly another generation will appear soon, but I also live with a 15-year-old daughter, who is very, very socially connected and self-expressed, and “mind-fucked,” the expression I used, would be, in her circles, ordinary speech. This is a blog intended as a space useful to an adult human community that needs frank and open discussion. I’ll stand with that usage as descriptive. It is not a sexual expression, though the spoofer turned back with something explicitly sexual. I had not seen that part of the comment, by the way, the user may have edited the post to add that.

      Why Mats commented on LF instead of here is a bit mysterious. It would have lent more weight to his denial. As you may know, the Thomas Clarke comment was an echo of what Mats wrote on his blog, a sign of Mats beginning descent into Sifferkollian conspiracy theory — which he had, ironically, warned Sifferkoll against.

      Mats had many options other than shutting down comments on his blog due to his own overwork. He didn’t use them and certainly is not asking for what he could have done. In any case, he would be welcome here, and could pace himself, instead of just making knee-jerk comments on ECW. He could actually build content. His point of view and experience would be invaluable.

      One more comment: avoiding strong personal reactions is not a controlling goal for me. Sometimes it takes pressure to pop a pimple. Yes, it can also be harmful. YMMV. There are communities where difficult subjects (such as aging, dementia, and various forms of insanity) are avoided, raising them is disapproved socially, and these are not vibrant communities fully engaged with life. They are dying.

  2. Abd,

    Mats claims
    https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/thread/4745-rossi-vs-darden-developments-part-2/?postID=55734#post55734
    the above post was not posted by him, so unless you have positive IP evidence of this it should be deleted. The poisonous and perhaps libellous comments about Thomas Clarke, while they repeat Mats’ past statements, are perhaps things he would not now want on the record again but others (e.g. Sifferkoll) might perhaps? Who can tell… I have to say I thought this post was Mats when it was made, on an off day. The snarky reference to TC seemed quite like him.

    I told Mats to make his point here, as would normally be done.

    1. I have not deleted the comments, but have used strikeout with an explanation, and have given the IP address. I had checked IP before and it was plausible that this could be Mats, though not necessarily likely. Swedish student housing IP. At this point, admins at LF or ECW could check their own logs and may be able to identify the spoofer, because substantial knowledge was shown of Mats’ style, etc., and so this person is likely active. (They would also have Mats’ current IP. Mats used to post from Nyteknik, but that has probably changed.) I could also review my direct server logs, which would have more information about the access.

      Impersonation is completely beyond the pale. I and others have been impersonated on Peter Gluck’s blog, but he basically did nothing about it.

      (yes, this was plausibly Mats. Even the sexual reference might possibly have been him, though not the Mats Lewan that I’d hope for him to be. He is normally more reflective, not so purely reactive. The issue of his relationship with Rossi, and how such a relationship can be warped by the attractiveness of access, is important for him to consider, if he’s to move beyond the mess. Those are the forces that can explain the Lugano fiasco.)

  3. Abd,
    Once upon a time I also asked if you were paid by people in this mess! So it should not be a surprise. You responded ‘not’ . I never asked you again as I believe you. So easy to answer a direct question sometimes.

    I feel sorry for Matts in a way, his audience is greater so what he has done has greater consequence. For me this is sad (no really I mean sad! he has harmed people by is lack of honest follow up as a journalist as he should present all sides and he can still do so if he wants). So I will leave it at that. I am quite a simple man (obviously) So while you are not….

    Plainly speaking anyone else in this saga that is under an NDA from IH– I “also” take with a grain of salt. IH should release anyone that is commenting on this or LENR-FORUM under an NDA. Why? it is in their best interest. I read with some instructive reasoning the #UnitedAirlines interpretation of the carriage of contract. It may hurt– but they IH/Woodford/Cherokee would come out more successful in the long run. They could clean up this->>posting with an NDA release of anyone who is posting in one single email. Rossi is done an buried— in my mind but these other catz are open for scrutiny. I should put it another way. I am tired of people that make perfect sense being accused of being “owned” by IH. They (IH) can fix it if it even exists. So I do not mumble—– I think that it does.

    1. BTW, I did respond to that question, though maybe not to your specific incarnation of it. It was asked several times, and, as well, Rossi claimed it.

  4. Abd

    Yes my “blooper” might need revisiting, probably after the trial as I have little time currently due to other projects.

    Thomas Clarke’s manic posting rate is certainly suggestive of something, and he can be described as unbalanced.

    As for me being mindfucked by an expert – you should also Wake up! because [grossly offensive comment redacted — Abd]

    Note by Abd: Per this post apparently by Mats Lewan, the above was not written by him. As this is a gross offense, I am revealing normally private information, that this was posted from IP 46.239.69.82, Student housing networks (Sweden), which admins elsewhere may use to help identify the offender.

    1. [written before I knew that the post above was not from Mats]

      Got it. All the best to you and your family.

      However, this is very simple: what you wrote was radically incorrect. It was not true by any stretch of the imagination. Yet it seemed true to you. You believed your sources, and they led you astray. You could, in a flash, correct that major error. It would simply take highlighting it and using strike-out, with a brief note explaining. Or, you could follow the “Swedish Professors” and Levi, and stonewall. Maybe it will all go away if we ignore it. Your move.

      Meanwhile, LENR is real, there is real work going on, and Rossi has been a distraction for too long. At this point, for me, this is clean-up. I’m documenting the case, because there will be die-hards who will continue to believe in a conspiracy to suppress LENR, and other ideas that kept us from moving ahead for many years. No longer. Reality is breaking through. It’s about time.

  5. Hi Abd

    Are you sure you are not being paid, or otherwise funded in any way by IH? Because you certainly act like that is the case, and it is not living in cloud cuckoo land to suggest it is true.

    Note by Abd: Per this post apparently by Mats Lewan, the above was not written by him. As this is a gross offense, I am revealing normally private information, that this was posted from IP 46.239.69.82, Student housing networks (Sweden), which admins elsewhere may use to help identify the offender.

    1. [written before I knew that the post above was not from Mats]

      Gee, tough question, Mats. Not.

      Welcome to cold fusion community. Now, please, make yourself useful! You could start by correcting that enormous blooper on your blog.

      I have not received many donations or payments related to LENR, and none of it has been anonymous to me. As you would surely know, LENR is a small world, but nobody connected with IH has funded me, with small or large donations or payments of any kind. All sources, so far, have been completely independent, they are not even people who have been supported by IH. By permission, I can name some of them: Michael McKubre, Ed Storms, the Anthropocene Institute. There are others, well-known, and not “IH,” or paid by IH.

      None of that support was paying me to “blog,” as such, but the latest donation actually received was a small portion of my PACER costs (and may be followed up with more of that). The PACER data is also available through Eric Walker, and I’m starting to lean more on that source. The documents are huge, now, and expenses have been expanding.

      Eventually, my activities will be crowd-funded, and anonymous donations might creep in there. IH money is not contaminated — and anonymous contributions through such a source could not dominate or control my study and reporting.

      Mats, you have previously made judgments about people, because you did not understand their behavior. An example would be Thomas Clarke commenting on your blog. You seem to have assumed that the kind of intense commentary that happens in internet discussions indicates a conflict of interest.

      What that shows, and clearly, is your naivete about human behavior. The world is vast, and people are in many different conditions, and I’m 72 years old, living on social security, and developed an interest in LENR and have the time to do what it takes to study Rossi v. Darden, and I do two things with that: I present study resources, so anyone can follow up and learn for themselves, and I present commentary and analysis, which includes opinion. Mats, you have clearly remained ignorant of the true history of the IH/Rossi relationship, yet you are full of opinions, such as what you express here, that I “act like that is the case,” i.e., that I’m paid by IH. This is Cloud Cuckoo Land, because you would know my history, such as my posts to the private CMNS list. Our first contact was related to Wikipedia, probably in 2009. You could know better, if you think. Apparently you don’t, you just react.

      Wake up! You, along with many others, have been duped. Where did you get the idea of an independent testing organization certifying the Doral Plant? Read the evidence, Mats, and weep. You have been mind-fucked, by an expert at it.

      Follow up on what you wrote about the Lugano test. The loose ends you left hanging are ones that lead toward reality.

Leave a Reply to THH Cancel reply