Bill you say:

I will wait for a reply from him and then I'm going to fire off a salvo. There's just no reason for this lack of transparency and obfuscation.

I say I am reminded of the memorable words of Governor William J. Lepetomane (Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles), " Gentlemen, we have got to protect our phoney baloney jobs!"

I think the simplest answer is that TPL/PTSC asked for the NDA in the J3 settlement. That settlement was very disappointing. Now they are in survival mode. The agreements since then have been disappointing (again that pesky NDA prevents the story from being known) which is why the BIG FOCUS (nothing up the sleeve, pay no attention to those investments and buybacks) is the M + A.

The 10 q illustrates that.

The shareholder letter illustrates that.

The opinion of the SHR illustrates that. (anyone that was unfortunate enough to sell based on his opinion the day after the Q was released is certainly monetarily better off than if they held)

The conflicting statements from Hawk illustrate that.

Simple, clear, and legal.

No need for obfuscation, hidden messages, hidden royalties, FD problems, insider trading problems.

It is what it is. No vast conspiracy theory needed to support my conclusions.

The final proof is evidenced by the share price. That is the be all and end all of ANY public company.

And for the very loyal true longs you only have to wait for the next Q to peak behind the curtain again. Nothing concrete will come out before that and you will be strung along till then.

The only upside I can see it that they will collect minimal fees the next few years and try and leverage that into something tangible for 400,000,000 shares. That is a lot of hungry mouths to feed.

Just my very unimportant sideline opinion.

(I) can't wait

ps no offense..;o)