One thing we can do is to do a FOIA request for any details of the US military's dealings with MSITF. The military is usually pretty cooperative on non-military things like that.
We also ought to do one in which we ask the SEC to produce any requests it has made for filings so that we can know better where we stand. Since the filings were promised for the end of March, I don't think that would be inopportune.

Great news! The Drudge Report has a piece linked to UPI today on a quick HIV test (20 minutes) with saliva. The downside is that it may make the VScan HIV Test Kit obsolete. We've had a quick HIV test with 100% accuracy for quite a few years, but our money has not produced anything for us.

I think we need to hire someone to depose Talbot and take over the company, get the books in order and the SEC filings done, and start getting some of this income down to shareholders.

You'd have to get rid of all four employees. How hard could that be? How much would it cost? How long would it take? What would the blowback be?

Who could do the filings if he left an estate? If he is intestate it might be easier to get the filings, because he certainly doesn't have the testicles for it!

Alternatively, maybe we could just get someone to hold him underwater CIA-style until he completes the filings and revealed the income. Just kidding.

Really.

Mary Kay Dimke is the prosecutor in the ERHC case. She's a US Atty, based in Washington.

Well, my 3-day weekend theory sure proved out... 100% out.
If you do buy into it, what's your reasoning?

Rampartscasino, since you asked, I've been all in (except for a couple of thou) since June 2007 and this is the first time I've made any money. I just wanted to quit worrying about it for a few weeks. I also think it will slide again, sort of inexorably, and I can pick it up close to my $0.25 average, maybe after the indictmetns - if they come - and stick with it then. In the meantime, I needed to make money with my money, so I bought 1K of AG, which I think will make me a few bucks. Simple as that - no crystal ball.

Maybe the most salient thing on the whiteboard is the +2. As we know Addax has +2 to spend (per its budget of $1.6 billion for acquisitions), this well may be the suggested bidding price for any prospective buyer. And as far as I and many of us are concerned, this is where the price should be now. This $0.25 stuff is ridiculous.

I saw a couple of things that interested me. First is the word "invest," as part of the left side stuff. That tells me they were seeking investment. The next was N47%, which tells me they feel they have 47% Nigerian interest. But the most interesting is the big phrase "Portfolio Exchange." What does that mean? Does it refer to SEO shifting his shares over to the Cayman Islands Chrome? I don't think so. I think when you talk about a portfolio exchange you are exchanging what you have in your portfolio for what they have in their portfolio. Now who would be doing that? Let's say the 47% Nigerian portfolio was exchanged for a similarly valued Addax portfolio. Who would benefit there?

Today the Buy volume is 5,450, Sell 62,390 and unidentified (which were sells, believe me) 41,500.

I would like to buy back in at a very low price, as I said Wednesday on the blog, but that has never affected my commentaries. As many know, I've often reported or said stuff that hurt my own assets. I'm not quite so attached to them as others may be, I think.

Sells are outrunning Buys 15 or so to 1.

Many thanks for the kind words, instructmba, and for your condolences. They are deeply appreciated.

On the run-on sentence, I know the one on the majors is indeed very long, and were it not so critical to build a chain of evidence and information all in one place with respect to this business, I would have broken it into many sentences. You guys should read John Adams the younger's Inaugural Address; one paragraph is 19 long statements all in one sentence.

I spoke to DanKeeney yesterday too and foubnd him congenial. On June 20 I talked to US Atty Mary Kit Dimke for four minutes and it was like pulling teeth - and I pay her salary! :)

I have talked about ERHE several times on Stock Talk Live, but I never saw this kind of reaction!

Here's the latest victim of naked shorts... Or had they anticipated today's ruling that encrypted Vonage calls also have to be made accessible to wiretapping by our government?


By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 9, 2006
Filed at 10:57 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- Regulators at the New York Stock Exchange are investigating whether short sellers helped fuel the decline of Vonage Holdings Corp.'s share price since its initial public offering last month, according to a published report.

NYSE investigators have sent a letter to securities firms with questions focusing on how dealers may have facilitated short sales in the stock of the Internet phone carrier, according to a report Friday in The Wall Street Journal.

In a short sale, a trader or investor sells borrowed stock in hopes of buying it back later at a lower price -- a bet, in essence, that the stock will fall.

The Journal reported that the letter also inquires about ''naked short selling'' and failure to deliver stock after the offering, specifically with regard to trades by prime brokerage customers. A naked short sale is when someone sells shares without actually having them in hand, a much riskier stock bet that the Securities and Exchange Commission cracked down on in 2004.

Dealers are allowed to execute short sales on behalf of customers that don't actually hold the borrowed shares if the dealers have ''reasonable grounds'' to believe the stock can be borrowed by the time the stock is due to be delivered, according to an NYSE Web site.

NYSE Regulation's letter also poses questions about the first day the company was public, May 24, when it fell 13 percent in its first day of trading.

The firms have until Wednesday, June 21, to provide information that was requested in the letter.

The NYSE regulatory probe follows a related inquiry last week by the National Association of Securities Dealers, according to the Journal.

Since Vonage's IPO, the company's stock has fallen about 32 percent. Of the total, Vonage had set aside 13.5 percent of the shares for its own customers.

A Vonage spokeswoman declined to comment on any short selling of the stock.

I have a back and forth exchange on Jefferson with Ken Silverstein on the blog now - erhc.blogspot ...

Remember, Chevron said "at least" 150 feet of net pay "in multiple reservoirs." Those five words mean an awful lot.

Art, Daukoru was quoted by Platt's as saying the discovery in Block 1 might have to be revised upwards from the initial assessment of 1 billion barrels.

I have gotten a fax copy of the press release from Sao Tome and put it up on the Web.

The phrase about our share price experiencing "fluctuations that are UNRELATED [emphasis instructmba's] to the operating performance" is of course accurate, as the two bear no relationship - and yet, of course, they should.

If by "operating performance" we mean the amount of cash we've earned, we have earned $0.00 until now, and any price at all was a bet on the Come line. Now we have earned $0.04 per share, so on a strictly realistic level, we should be selling for $0.04, or even the typical oil company multiple of 8x or 10x, $0.32 - $0.40.

On the purely theoretical level, then, we are selling at a 150% of value.

On the other, subjective side of the equation, we have probably won the rights to a billion barrels of oil as our share of the equity in the three blocks, and in the years to come that will be a source of vast revenue. So any trading in this stock today is "unrelated to the operating performance," as it has traded for various "multiples" of $0.00.

Any constructive showing that we paid a bribe through Jefferson or anyone else to win theequity could result in the loss of all our equity, as that is one of the terms of the operating agreements if I remember correctly (and I am sure I do).

It is my considered opinion that no such showing can be made - but that is my opinion.

Explosion at Valero Refinery Under Investigation

Matt Scallan
River Parishes bureau

A fire and explosion at the Valero St. Charles Refinery in Norco late Saturday shut down a portion of the refinery, but caused no injuries, a refinery spokesman said.

The explosion, which rattled the windows of homes for miles around, occurred about 11:45 p.m. in the refinery's hydro-diesel unit, spokesman Ron Guillory said.

The cause of the explosion has not yet been determined, he said.

The unit uses hydrogen to remove sulfur from diesel fuel to meet federal emissions standards, refinery spokesman Ron Guillory said.

Portions of River Road and Pospect Avenue were blocked after the incident, which sent flames shooting more than 100 feet in the air, as the fire was put out. No evacuations were called, however.

Guillory said only about 80 workers are on duty at night at the refinery, compared to 800 during the day.

The plant, refines some 260,000 barrels of oil per day into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other products. A barrel of oil equals 42 gallons.

Guillory said this is the first major incident at the refinery since the Valero Refining Corp. bought the 1,000-acre plant in 2003.

www.nola.com

Retiree's Concept Takes Energy Search Out To Sea
Skip directly to the full story.
By LIZ BLEAU lbleau@tampatrib.com

Published: May 20, 2006

SUN CITY CENTER - Dave Nicholson is working to launch his idea for an alternative energy source: collapsible wind turbines secured on ocean platforms tied to a hydrogen production process.

Nicholson, a retired mechanical engineer, has formed Windhunter Corp., tapping into the varied backgrounds of some of his Sun City Center neighbors to serve as consultants for his project.

Frank Slesnick, a retired economics professor, developed the economic analysis for the plan; retired Norwegian ship captain Olav Olsen helped Nicholson with the seagoing aspects of the venture; and George Shambaugh, also a retired professor, assisted with technical writing. Nicholson and Shambaugh have known each other more than 50 years and attended college together.

For now, Nicholson's project is an idea and a tabletop model. He has applied for a patent for his system and hopes to garner enough interest in it to have someone make his concept a reality.

Nicholson came up with the idea for his project as he researched global warming and related issues for a talk he gave last year to a local current-events group, Issues and Ideas.

Nicholson estimates it would cost about $100 million to equip and operate his invention for 20 years, including staff salaries. According to his calculations, the project would begin making a profit four to five years after it's launched.

He and his wife hope an investor with sufficient means to build the vessel will purchase the rights to his invention, perhaps in another country already using hydrogen to propel vehicles.

"I started to look at ways to correct global warming and at energy sources," he said. "The problem with wind turbines is that people don't want them in their neighborhoods and it is hard to get them mounted."

"I knew hydrogen is a good energy source, but it's difficult to produce," he said.

His Windhunter model solves a number of problems that exist with wind turbines and with hydrogen production, he said.

Wind turbines only work at full capacity a small percentage of the time because of available wind. With the Windhunter, the oceangoing platform can relocate at sea to find higher wind velocities.

In the event of a storm, during relocation or for maintenance, the turbines can be lowered parallel to the platform deck.

The turbines would produce electricity, which would be used to break down treated seawater into its components of oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen would be captured and stored in tanks. When the storage area is full, the tanks would be transferred to a surface ship for transport to shore.

"The turbines and hydrogen production would operate 24/7," Nicholson said. "It would be like a huge floating power plant. Eighteen-member crews would operate the plant; each crew would rotate after 30 days."

Except for the mounting of the turbines on the collapsible frame, all the other parts of the system already exist, Nicholson said.

"And we could use old oil tankers that are going to be phased out for the platforms," he said, "or old military vessels."

The cost of the hydrogen product varies, he said, depending on current energy prices and how long it would take for the vessel to break even.

Slesnick has designed a Web site so that variable figures can be put in to change the financial outcomes.

"If you think our estimates are not conservative enough, you can put in your own numbers and see what you get," he said.

Barbara Nicholson, who serves as company vice president, said she believes her husband's idea could help save the planet.

"We wanted to do this for our grandchildren and all the world's grandchildren," she said. "It's kind of like our baby. It keeps us up at night, and we will never be rid of it. We might be able to sell the concept, but it's still ours."

The Web site, www.wind hunter.org, has been in operation since April and has logged more than 38,000 hits, Nicholson said. When a neighbor mentioned Windhunter during a telephone call broadcast on C-SPAN several weeks ago, the site had almost 11,000 visits in 24 hours.

Art, that's my copy, from the blog. I interviewed Elias Johnson - the economist who studies Nigeria for the Energy Information Administration - yesterday. They had really thought at the time of the last one that oil would be flowing in 2-3 years. They are going to update the Nigeria Country Brief before April to correct that estimate, unfortunately.

Homeport, that was "great news" we were hoping for. The PM's words are an incontrovertible signal to go ahead with PSCs, and an acknowledgment that politics in the end has not been decisive. Many thanks for this news!

IDCC, can I claim it next year?

It's just another misleading statement.

I appreciate the information. You would think with a granddad who was Collector for the Western District of NY, and a mom and dad who both worked for the IRS, and two brothers with business degrees, I would know that. Fortunately, it really doesn't make much difference. My income this year was probably below the threshold to pay taxes, anyway, although I may have some SS to pay. I guess I could take the benefit next year if I sell, but that will be a huge gain, won't it?

Ruby, I think we're going to get some great news...

There's some indication now the Guardian's "Mike Cohen" was a US Dept. of Energy employee... . That would sure fit.

Buys are leading Sells 125,000 to 5,000 - 25:1. Every couple of buys will move the price up a cent in this super-thin market.

I like women my age, oilman.

91,500 plus 89,110 = 180,610, or 18.8 percent, mugwump, as of 2:48pm EST. My new profit position is $649.35.

No problemo, mugwump. I picked them back up as fast as I could, too, and I even have a small profit in ERHE now.

I did spend some time beside her in a firehouse in New Hampshire last year, and she was a very sweet, very charming and lovely lady. You should have been so lucky to get them into the White House.

Top Drive, we cannot get advertising because we urged our readers to support our advertisers, which I then learned is expressly forbidden by Google. They removed all the ads, and with all the income, at the request of stockhocker. There was never any income, and thus there is no business element to my blog. I do it because I felt aggravated about being booted by stockhocker and others from Raging Bull (because after being booted once for posting negative news stories I came back with a new nick and was booted for that) and even more so because I feel there is a real need for someone to communicate about this stock. I'm a communicator, so I put myself to the task. It is its own reward. I do enjoy it a great deal, though, and I guess you can stick it to me for that. It;s too bad you can't ever use your real name, because then we would think you were somebody.

I just found it, typing "erhc," as the second result, as it has been for months.

In your dreams, Top Drive. He and I don't even live in the same region of the country. He is someone I admire, though, for ferreting out all the information he does. And frankly, I don't see much congruence between our writing styles nor our points of view. I guess you're just trying to stir the pot. Meanwhile, guys like you can't afford to have a real identity. Wouldn't be wonderful if you had the courage to put your real name out there and let the rocks and brickbats fly? Kinda scary, isn't it?

No, it's not about ERHC - it's about $200 billion - and closer to $1 trillion when it's finally extracted - that awaits the winner of Block 4. It has nothing to do with democracy; if it did, they would have no reason to oppose a chnage in the constitution just as we changed it in 1947-51. Or is what is good for the goose not good for the gander?

TopDrive, you said, "And why is Block 2 being dragged into this? If the U.S. is really concerned about U.S. oil companies not getting control of the blocks in the JDZ, then someone intentionally or unintentionally has "forgotten" about Pioneer..."
They did "forget," didn't they? Not one word about Block 2.
Did we have the highest bid there? I don't remember the bids but I think the answer is no. That proves my point that it is all about Block 4. There is a huge reservoir of oil there. If they really gave a crap about ERHC Energy more than the fact that they didn't get it, we'd be hearing about our part in all the blocks. But Block 4 is the prize. Among our partners, only Noble and Addax were not caught up in the Equatorial Guinea scandal - PNRC and Devon were. I wonder what they have said in private to Soros about funding this Sao Tome probe? And why haven't they pulled out to show solidarity with Devon and Noble? It's precisely to provoke your question that I brought up Pioneer today.

Actually, that suggestion about investigating any link between Dobie aned Trovoada is a great one. My guess is that the nexus would be Arlindo Pereira, the AG who issued the report. You can certainly link Trovoada to Anadarko by his past efforts to get them Block 4. There is probably some financial relationship between APC, possibly through their Washington guy, Greg Pensabene (VP Govtl. Affairs), and Trovoada that is worth exploring.

Wow, Rambus. I understand "the presence of oil petroleum systems!"

Thanks for posting that, upndwninnout. I thought I remembered him saying something like that.

Without being tendentious, I hope, let me also say that he adds that "there is not much apprehension over investments in Nigeria and the political situation is encouraging." I don't see that squaring well with what Porter Goss, the head of the CIA, told the Senate last August, which was that the FG would collapse in a decade. There certainly are two strongly different strains of outlook coming from observers. I see quite a lot of concern over investments, and don't find the political situation all that appealing, either, although I think there is an essential stability at the core even as revolutionary acts grow slowly in number.