In your post, you said, being the "devil's advocate" I believe, that,

"It has been mentioned before that CLF could well decide to pick up what they desire in the ROF, Cr presently, and then mothball it for an indeterminate period of time. This would mean, from their position, that they would have locked up resources and postponed development and likely, the planned infra-structure."

Now, here is my way of thinking... the bulk of the infrastructure is on Crown land, therefore, the Government of Canada/Ontario is and will be responsible for putting this infrastructure in... correct me if I am wrong, but I have heard it said here many times that the Rail line would be government owned and operated on Crown Land.

Secondly, should Cliffs decide to mothball thier Chromite deposits (if the vote goes through in January), I think that this would be a HUGE bonus for Noront, who seems to be going full steam ahead towards getting our ore bodies to the production stage (my opinion, and also my hope and prayer). IF cliffs decides to put their mine on hold, Noront would have all the time in the world to set up their contracts to sell their chromite to the highest bidder... kinda makes cliffs look silly if they end up buying chromite from Noront without buying Noront now, doesn't it???

Now, if cliffs upsets the locals with all their bullying tactics and along comes Noront offering jobs and incentives and underground mining which leaves a smaller ecological footprint, do you think that there would be any way the FN would be inclined to go to bat FOR Noront to bring their mine into operation???

And remembering that Mr. Nemis had his "pre-feasibility" study done in July, 2008 which had Noront funding the infrastructure with only building a road and trucking the high grade ore directly to a smelter... So, Noront borrow's a couple hundred million from a bank (with NI 43-101 in hand along with permits and a plan to pay the loan off in 2 years according to the study done), pays off the roads (which should be the majority if not all the Governments responsibility on Crown Land), and digs out enough high grade ore to pay cash for a concentrator and permanent power line to the site. Now, working for Manitoba Hydro, I know a thing or two about charging people/companies for installing power lines. If Noront pays for the power lines, then if someone else wants to connect to them within the next 15 years (timeframe - Manitoba), they still pay their percentage of the power line coming into the area and it gets refunded to the original company who paid the whole shot BEFORE they get connected to the grid. So, it really doesn't matter if cliffs waits Noront out, they still get to pay for their share of any power line built into the area!!!

So, cliffs can wait all that they want. I think that would be nothing but a huge plus for Noront in the long run, provided that they are serious about getting Eagle's Nest into production, along with the Blackbirds, maybe triple J if gold maintains it's value, and anything else that comes along with the exploration being done in the next 4-5 years that it takes to set all this up...

So, cliffs can sit and wait, it's OK with me,provided our BOD and President are on the ball and can follow the script written for them by Mr. Nemis 2 July's ago...

That's it, that's all I got for now. Have a Merry Christmas and may God Bless all Noront Shareholders with Peace, Health and Happiness this coming New Year :-}

Herb