KFRCanuk

David Johnston is the new Governor General of Canada. He was formally a FFH director. As Governor General, he gets to design a new coat of arms. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/Personal_Coat_of_Arms_of_Governor_General_of_Canada_David_Lloyd_Johnston.jpg.jpg Notice the 1's and 0's? According the the Governor Generals website: "The wavy band inscribed with zeros and ones represents a flow of information, digital communication and modern media." People are now trying to figure out what it means if anything. CBC has an article on it http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2010/10/the-new-ggs-binary-banner-whats-it-mean.html I think it would be neat if there was a message BUT 33bits is kinda odd so it's only meaning might be flow of information, digital communication and modern media.

Does anyone follow BRK.un closely? My inlaws bought some furniture from BRK.un and so far every piece has been returned after delivery due to damage or defect. I'm wondering if they report items damaged at customer delivery.

I'm wondering what they could do to hedge their BRK.un position and If a small investor could do the same?

I get the feeling from my social circle that the banks are too willing to refinance mortgages. People seem to be throwing $30K onto their mortgages for a new kitchen. I really wonder what will happen years down the line when people are ready to retire BUT have, for the most part, a large mortgage to pay off since they kept refinancing over the years to pay for "stuff". In my household, it's been suggested that we refinance to pay for a new kitchen. So far, I have resisted. Sigh... I will continue my passive aggressive resistance.

I haven't been much into getting/using coupons. Apparently if you spend enough time at it and get enough of a back catalog of coupons, your grocery bill can be cut by a significant margin.

Well if you get a chance to catch the HBO documentary, you should. It shows the impact of drilling/fracturing on drinking water. One tends to think that natural gas is clean but clearly that isn't the case if you consider the numbers of wells, the resources required to construct the wells, the chemicals in fracking fluid and the emissions, not only burnt fuel but gas leaks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing HBO has a documentary on the subject tonight http://www.hbocanada.com/details/?id=51407

I'm thinking of buying some property up north(middle of nowhere) in the event of something crazy going on. Working in IT, I have seen a lot of unforeseen consequences. American's don't seem to think that their government can handle heath care but have faith that their military can handle WMD's without accidents.

I read today that in the UK, the VAT will rise to 20% from 17.5%. Which let me to the Wikipedia article. It seems that most euro countries have a rate arround 20% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax#Tax_rates Wow people complain in Canada about the HST/GST/PST. I ain't complaining any more ::)

The price is going to go up after the TLC show.

Gruru Focus has a page(probably dynamicly generated) of the changes at http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=94670 SuperMedia Inc., formerly Idearc Inc. is a yellow pages directory publisher in the United States. It provides media advertising programs to the clients and consumers, through the SuperYellowPages, Superpages.com and SuperpagesDirect, as well as services, such as the SuperGuarantee and SuperTradeExchange Programs. During the year ended December 31, 2009, the Company published more than 1,200 distinct directory titles, including more than 1,100 directory titles in the markets and more than 100 directory titles in the expansion markets. During 2009, it distributed about 121 million copies of these directories to businesses and residences in the United States. I find IAX more interesting International Absorbents Inc. (International Absorbents) is the holding company of its wholly owned subsidiary, Absorption Corp. (Absorption). Absorption accounts for almost all of the consolidated entity’s annual sales revenue. Absorption is engaged in developing, manufacturing and marketing a range of animal care and industrial absorbent products made from off-specification and reclaimed cellulose fibers. Absorption is a manufacturer and seller of small animal bedding in North America. The primary product that the Company sells in this market is small animal bedding sold under the brand name CareFRESH. It also expanded the animal care segment of its business by the addition of new sales channels and the introduction of animal food and cat litter into its product line.

Christine Lagarde, Finance Minister of France talks about Greece on Charlie Rose http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10979

Former SUN Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz explains how companies use patents to protect themselves http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/

kawikaho, this isn't necessarily directed at you but what happens if someone had deposits over the FDIC limit?

Ok Polish Re might have also fallen in the same boat. Also Northbridge and Odessy Re were re-purchases not new acquisitions. Previously, CRUM and TIG were attempts to turn around businesses that ended up take a lot of capital and energy out of FFH(run off). To me, it looks like the first LARGE high quality acquisition that they have done.

I watched a repeat of a nova documentary last week "Extreme Ice" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/extremeice/ It freaked me out. I mean some scientists think it's possible that greenland's ice may no longer exist is frightening. Were I live in Canada, replacement furnaces with less than 92% efficiency are banned. I'm really wondering what kind of world my infants son's children will be born into.

I thought Bill's talk with Elizabeth Warren (Chair of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel) was really interesting. It's pretty surprising that nothing has been done and that Elizabeth thinks that it can happen again. Episode 174 will replay at the following times on HBO Canada Feb. 22 - 4:30PM ET / MT Feb. 24 - 12:20PM ET / MT Feb. 24 - 6:00PM ET / MT Feb. 25 - 1:00AM ET / MT Feb. 26 - 2:25PM ET / MT

It was only 5% of all my portfolios... So i wasn't that smrt.

Can I swear? FFH puts sucked my thumb. ORH buy back sucked my thumb. Buying zenith (not sucking thumb) priceless! Ok Maybe not priceless but a kewl 25.7%

Watched the end of it yesterday. Seemed interesting. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/

The purchase of NTE is interesting also... http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ANTE Increasing their circle of competence? edit: whoops this was an existing purchase not new.

Where I work we use a lot of SUN technology. In fact, I help implement it ::) I'm wondering why they purchased java since the oracle take over offer was announced 10 months ago? Or did they happen to buy it before the April 20, 2009 take over announcement?

Westaim raised a nice chunk of change http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/February2010/09/c8076.html

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10842 I found him hard to understand and not very engaging. It might have been because I was doing something else at the time. What did you think of the interview.

Back in the 80's 60 Minutes ran a story about unintended acceleration in Audi 5000's. Sales of 5000's collapsed over night. It took audi 15 years to get back to the same sales levels. The 5000 name had to be abandoned. I think it's going to take a while. Not 15 years though. On the geekish side of things, the Woz seems to have found a bug with the cruise control on his prius http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10445564-64.html