Here's more fuel for the fire.  Reference the Jan 29th letter to shareholders from executive committee of Patriot's BOD.

<The Company is currently unable to repurchase Patriot shares in the market at this time due to the same blackout period that currently prevents insiders from stock transactions, but we previously engaged in a share buy-back program until the last quarter of 2007.>

The song and dance that Flowers gave you is somewhat odd in light of that statement from the BOD.  Unless of course, upon further investigation they determined that the company could continue the buyback.  Since the BOD already said they couldn't why not just say they couldn't?   The response you got is very odd indeed.    Opty