So, read any good books lately?

Amazing how quiet things can get after so much noise. Lovely time for reflection, or a good snooze. I intend to do both.

But first, the reflection part...

They say that hindsight is 20/20 and there is probably some truth to that. From the moment Noront made the announcement that they had set their eyes on Freewest, my first, and abiding, reaction was "what in the world are you doing???". I had that reaction because, although I believed that there was some value to chromatite, none of the resource had been proven up on the Freewest lands (via a 43-101) and I figured we had quite enough blue sky possibility on the Noront lands without having to dilute our shareprice on any more.

In earlier posts, I spoke against this deal, other than surmising that our BoD either knew something which the rest of us did not, or was truly placing one heck of a premium on the notion of consolidation.

It is now clear (to me at least) that the canny so and so's on the BoD likely never had the belief that they could see this through, but knew that Cliffs was going to try to buy (steal) a cheap ticket into the Ring, under cover of darkeness, and without competition.

So our BoD decided to shine a great big spotlight into the shadows where Cliffs lurked, and all of a sudden, we were on the world stage...Mud wrestling with a Major.

What a show. Riveting really. Forbes magazine, the National Post, the Globe and Mail, BNN.

Strategically speaking, kind of impressive.

Kind of begs the question, did NOT lose anything at all? The resource continues to grow, we have North America's first (and so far only) NI-43-101 on Chromatite. And forgive my clear grabby, greedy self...but we don't have to share.

On the other hand, Cliffs has been forced to pay more than it wanted, and will now face a vote. Hard to predict where that vote is going to land, but there is no shortage of entitlement being espoused on our neighbour's board. Pretty clear that the FWR s/h's are convinced that they hold some pretty valuable stock. Will they sell out for a buck in Cliff's shares? Will the Hedgies?

Did the Ring just get tighter?

Am I asking too many questions???

All I know, is that somehow or other, I now own even more NOT than I did before. And I find myself continuing to smile when I consider where we are heading.

To those of you who celebrate at this time of the year, warmest wishes from your local crazydik. May the New Year find us all healthy, and a little further ahead in this most interesting of stories.

Cheers,

crazydik