Since Mr. Krivit would like us to accept his professional capacity both as an objective and competent investigative journalist; since Mr. Krivit hopes that enough of us will accept the conclusions he draws about Mr. Rossi & Co's real agenda, I have found myself questioning why Mr. Krivit seems to be so relentless in his efforts to paint Rossi as a clever scam artist. From my perspective Krivits' efforts strike me as having transformed into an exceedingly one-dimensional attack against the reputation of a single individual: Andrea Rossi.
In retrospect, I realize that Krivit pursuing such an agenda was not entirely unexpected. In the past Krivit has followed a similar agenda of going after the personal reputations of certain academics such as during the despicable Bubblegate debacle. Back then, I think Krivit garnering a lot of well deserved positive feedback for his tenacious efforts in revealing the "dirt". In my mind, Krivit deserved the complements he received. But today we are talking about Andrea Rossi. We are talking about Rossi's professional reputation and why Krivit's agenda seems to be focused on dismantling the reputation of Rossi. As Jed recently pointed out, there seems to be no wiggle room left. What can Krivit do if it turns out that Rossi's controversial work is determined to be authentic? Despite all the scientific flaws currently associated with Rossi's controversial eCats many intelligent, well-informed scientifically literate individuals continue to suspect Rossi's eCats, flawed as they may be within the scientific community, are the genuine article. Under the circumstances I have remained baffled over the fact that Krivit seems to be oblivious to their observations. For Krivit to have essentially cornered himself in the manner that he has chosen raises serious questions in my mind. He is now risking his professional career in an All-for-Nothing gamble based on what is essentially a personal hunch - Krivit's personal hunch. The agenda Krivit currently seems to be pursuing strikes me as having little to do with investigative journalism. It strikes me more as mirroring the classic novel, Moby Dick, of Captain Ahab's relentless pursuit of the white whale. I've personally witnessed this kind of "hunt" in the past, such as in the dysfunctional behaviors of other investigative reporters I've known. I recall a string of relentless attacks from UFO investigator Kevin Randle that had been launched against his former partner Don Schmitt after Schmitt disgraced himself by lying to Randle over in incredibly petty matter. Nothing good comes of such relentless attacks other than the generation of a lot of juicy UFO tabloid sensation that was of interest only to a small incestuous inner circle of UFO investigators and gawkers. Years of wasted effort that could have been more productively channeled elsewhere. And now, on to some of my personal observations: Two former NET BoD members (prior to me) had been active Vortex-l participants. I could be wrong but I'm under the impression that at present none on the current BoD membership check vortex posts. If some still do, they probably do so only sporadically - perhaps to monitor the posts of certain individuals of passing interest to them. IOW, associations with the Vort Collective appear to have been systematically eliminated from the ability of making any kind of useful contribution to NET's BoD, and to Mr. Krivit. I noticed that any BoD member Mr. Krivit perceived as challenging his authority or his job performance was asked to resign. This in itself is certainly understandable. NET is, after all, Mr. Krivit's baby and he can bring it up anyway he chooses. When Krivit demanded the resignation of a certain vortex participating BoD member I did my best to intercede on BoD's behalf. I suggested that the member's resignation would be unwise, a waste of a valuable resource. I don't know if it was due to my personal efforts or not, but the Vortex participating BoD member remained, at least temporarily. Unfortunately, after I resigned he was soon kicked out. Mr. Krivit appeared to have become terrified of Mr. Lomax. Much of the Lomax/Krivit conflict came to the forefront in the aftermath of NET's infamous Issue #34, where Krivit questioned the conclusions certain prominent cold fusion researchers had arrived at. Krivit concluded that "fusion" isn't occurring. Krivit claimed that a mysterious "nuclear" reaction was instead occurring. (I still don't understand the all-too subtle distinctions drawn between a "fusion" reaction versus a "nuclear" reaction, even after repeatedly asking Krivit during my capacity as a BoD member.) Be that as it may, what seriously concerned me was the fact that Krivit was claiming that cold "fusion" evidence had been deliberately manipulated in such a fashion as to indicate "fusion" had occurred when in Krivit's opinion it really hadn't. The implication was that the professional reputations of certain prominent cold fusion researchers was under attack, and this deeply concerned me. Meanwhile, Mr. Lomax had taken to posting an obsessive number highly detailed criticisms of Krivit's cold fusion assessments. I also noticed that Lomax's efforts were beginning to drive Krivit to absolute distraction. Making matter worse, as best as I could tell, Krivit was never willing to consciously confront the possibility that he had become terrified of the obsessive amount of detail displayed in Lomax's posts. More to the point, Krivit did not strike me as even being willing to confront the disquieting possibility that the content of some of Lomax's postings might even be correct. For Krivit to consciously admit such a possibility existed, it would imply that his professional investigation skills may not be as good as he wanted to believe they were. Krivit eventually began to deal with what I perceived to be his unrealized fear of Lomax in a unique way. Krivit gave me the impression that he suspect an organization of individuals was in truth behind the personification of "Mr. Lomax". In other words, Krivit began to wonder if a secret group of individuals were in fact pulling "Lomax's" strings in an effort to destroy his reputation. Finally, Krivit forbade the BoD membership to actually speak Lomax's name in his presence ever again. - End of Discussion. Mr. Krivit gave me the impression that he wondered if there also might exist an organization possibly made up of certain cold fusion researchers, possibly directed by their authorship that was out to get him. Krivit feared that someone. some organization might eventually try to take him down. get him out of the picture. Some of Krivit's concerns were based on correspondence he showed me pertaining to what certain researchers had said - or more precisely what was being implied in wording that had been carefully chosen for which these researchers (I firmly believe) KNEW would eventually get back to Krivit with the intent of rattling him. Such wording did get back to Krivit and it did concern him... even frightened him. Again, I suspect a goal of rattling Krivit had been one of the goals. However, I tried to suggest to Krivit that what I personally read, including what was being implied between the lines, which Krivit interpreted as being a concerted effort (a conspiracy) to take him out of the picture was unfounded. Granted, the documentation Krivit showed me revealed the obvious fact that many of these individuals had grown frustrated and downright angry over Krivit growing independence. They certainly wished that Krivit's journalistic influence would begin to wane. The point was that Krivit was no longer their Cold Fusion cheer leader, an "asset" they could depend on to tow the party line. But would any of these frustrated, disappointed individuals feel an urgent need to actually take Krivit down, precisely because he was no longer under their "direction"? I saw absolutely no evidence of that, and I told Krivit so. I'm not sure Krivit believed me. I was beginning realize the fact that I was no longer able to advise Mr. Krivit in an effective manner. Carefully worded diplomatic messages sent via email along with several lengthy phone calls seemed ineffective. I was left with the choice of becoming confrontational. At one point I told Krivit that I would resign If I saw Krivit publishing a personal opinion that stated a personal belief that certain cold fusion researchers had deliberately cooked their own data. My worst concerns began to materialize when during a radio interview the interviewer got Krivit to imply that certain cold fusion researchers had indeed lied about their data. Krivit never said outright that these researchers had "lied". But there existed little wiggle room in what Krivit hoped the audience would infer from what he had not said directly. After listening to the radio interview, I did a really stupid thing. I attempted to defend Krivit's intentions, specifically some of the wording he had used in the radio interview. I claimed that the interviewer had skillfully manipulated Krivit's actual intentions in such a manner as to imply that certain CF researchers were deliberately lying about their data when that was actually not Krivit's intention to do so publicly. I "defended" Krivit out in vortex-l by saying Krivit was inexperienced at being interviewed by a skilled interviewer who was fishing for a specific outcome - for the sake of drama. It was stupid thing for me to have done because it was never my place in the first place to defend Krivit's actions, good or bad. Curiously, while Krivit had claimed that he was no longer monitoring vortex-l posts I was astonish at how fast Krivit contacted me by eMail and later by phone. He made it very clear that I should not have done what I had done, that I had essentially performed a public job performance on him. Krivit was right. I shouldn't have done it. Afterwards, I realized there was a lot more that I needed to tell Krivit, IN PRIVATE. But first I had to think about what needed to say. Later that evening, I sent Krivit my private concerns. I was quite confrontational. Mr. Krivit responded by cc'ing the private contents to the rest of the collective BoD. Krivit then told me (and obviously everyone else on the BoD) that my highly-inflammatory message was wholly inappropriate of a BoD member and that if I could not work with him with civility, courtesy and respect he would ask me for my resignation. I resigned. Mr. Krivit followed-up by politely thanking me for my prior service to NET, and that was that. Obviously, one would say that I was deliberately fishing for an excuse to resign. I won't deny the fact that by the time spring of 2009 had rolled around I was seriously questioning my effectiveness as a NET BoD member. To be honest I was also concerned about the legal ramifications. I wondered, as a BoD member could I personally be held liable for the actions of someone I was presuming helping to "direct"? Be that as it may, if any of my private correspondence with Mr. Krivit should ever come to light, that's ok by me. I have nothing to hide. --- Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
