Re: the gold box

["Tom Harais" <tjhemh@domain.elided>]

John:

Funny you should say that.....................

I've never much believed those informercials for the PTFE additives for oil
(Slick 50, Duralube, etc.), where they run the engines without oil after a
single "treatment" to prove that this stuff is "slicker than owl shit" and
will help protect your engine against wear.

But, there is this company in L.A. that just went public a few years ago,
called BAAT that specializes in developing high mileage engines (so far,
some sort of "pulse injections systems for diesels that they have USAC
tested and gotten 80 MPG), specialized batteries for electric vehicles,
electric vehicles and electric bicycles, other "alternatives to today's
cars", etc.  As I say, I've been following them for two reasons: 1) Thier
products, which have seemed very legite since Chrysler, Ford and GM have
sent execs to each of thier public tests to see what gives and 2) because
this was a classic case of "penny stock" market manipulation a few years
back when thier stock "zoomed" from $0.25 or so per share to $4.00 or so
per share on a rumor about a great breakthrough in technology and then
suddenly fell back.  The whole time, the president of BAAT was warning
people that someone was manipulating their stock value and he was going to
find out who and go after them.

Anyway, I go to my news on investments today, and there is a PR release
from BAAT. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/990604/ca_bat_int_1.html   In it,
they are now offering one of these oil treatment products BUT ARE NOT GOING
AFTER THE RETAIL MARKET VIA INFOMERCIALS!  Instead, they say they are going
after the commercial market and in their press release they have
supposidely gone to a mining site in PA or somewhere and treated the
president of the mining company's Isuzu Diesel with thier stuff. Then
drained the oil and used the little truck for 10 hours of normal mine duty
with no ill effects.  They gauranteed the president they would rebuild his
engine if there was a failure.

Like I say, this outfit seems legite.  Now, they are on the "oil treatment"
bandwagon for reduced wear and emissions improvements (supposedly new laws
for mining vehicles) but they say they are going after commercial and
over-the-road market.

Maybe this stuff actually helps.  I've never seen a good refute.  But I'll
be damned if I'm going to run any of my motors for any length of time
without oil.

Tom H.