Schmorealis August 1, 2003January 22, 2017 August? Already? COD Chas from Hawaii: ‘For those of your readers who think Cod is a good read, with whom I agree, I highly recommend The Founding Fish by John McPhee, which I think is an even better book.’ BOREALIS From Chris Bourne, Head of Public Relations at Borealis Exploration Limited: I’d like to correct one thing you said in yesterday‘s column (Borealis Speaks) – we didn’t pay them for the interview. We are far too mean with our money, although we’re happy to take free publicity where we can get it. One of the reasons your preposterous stock continues to prosper is that we do our best not to trade our credibility for ephemeral gee-whiz publicity. There are enough ‘miracle’ technologies out there already: we’d prefer to spend money building the real thing, instead of hyping it. Because we can demonstrate that our work is serious, companies like Rolls-Royce take the time to listen to us and work with us as we make steady progress towards commercialization. ☞ I had based my comment on this, from the web site: ‘Interviews are done without compensation or payment of any kind. However, companies do pay to have a text version of the interview published online as part of a paid media program.’ Apparently, this was not the case with the Borealis interview. Meanwhile, the stock is unbudged at $3.50 (for a total market cap of $17.5 million) – while a Borealis subsidiary, called Cool Chips (symbol: COLCF), recently traded above $8. Given that a share of Borealis stock represents ownership of more than one share of Cool Chips stock, one could draw the conclusion that – however good or bad a buy Cool Chips is at $8 – BOREF is a substantially better or less bad buy at $3.50. BOREALIS-SCHMOREALIS Sergei Slobodov: ‘Since you can pronounce ‘stern warning’ in Russian, here is your strogoye preduprezhdeniye about Borealis. I have actually looked through their patents (betcha you didn’t before investing). All their claims are based on a ‘Method for increasing of tunneling through a potential barrier’ they say they invented. Suffice it to say, if the claims were true, they would probably have received a Nobel prize in Physics by now for single-handedly solving the problems of fusion power. Close examination of the patent reveals that the stuff they write, while plausible looking to the uninitiated, is actually complete nonsense. Sort of like perpetuum mobile machines.’ ☞ Well, that settles THAT. Though it does leave one to wonder why Rolls-Royce would allow themselves to be publicly associated with something that, from a simple review of the patents, is patent nonsense. Understanding absolute zero of the science – all negative 459 degrees Fahrenheit of it – I am just left to live in hope. THE TAX CUTS KEEP ROLLING IN Mark Gorman: ‘I just got my first paycheck with the latest tax cut applied. I’m single, no kids, and gross $60K/year. It increased my take home pay by $20/month. Gee, I think I’ll run out right now and buy a new car! For a $240/year tax cut now, I will probably see my Social Security and Medicare benefits cut by the equivalent of $240 PER MONTH when I reach 65 (in 13 yrs).’ ‘If this is class warfare, then my class is winning.’ – Warren Buffett