| Watsco, Incorporated Earnings Conference Call (Q4 2007)
Watsco, Inc., along with its subsidiaries, distributes air conditioning, heating, refrigeration equipment, and related parts and supplies in the United States. Its products primarily comprise residential central air conditioners; light commercial air conditioners; gas, electric, and oil furnaces; commercial air conditioning and heating equipment and systems; and other specialized equipment. The company also offers various parts, including replacement compressors, evaporator coils, motors, and other component parts; and supplies consisting of thermostats, insulation material, refrigerants, ductwork, grills, registers, sheet metal, tools, copper tubing, concrete pads, tape, adhesives, and other ancillary supplies. Watsco operates through approximately 380 locations in 32 states. It distributes its products to contractors and dealers who service the replacement and new construction markets.
A blog about technology from BBC News
They see themselves as passive conduits, like a road network or the postal system. The global record industry has been quick to back the government's proposal. "It is simply not acceptable for ISPs to turn a blind eye to the piracy on their networks which is at such a rate that there are 20 illegal music downloads for every legal track sold," said John Kennedy of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries. Digital rights activist will be outraged by this move, I'm sure. Monitoring our internet traffic will have huge privacy issues. No-one can deny that the scale of copyright theft is mammoth. A cursory glance at a website like The Pirate Bay revels thousands of films, TV programmes, albums, software programs etc being shared across the net.
Tesoro, Seawater AC, Hoku Scientific and Wall Street
Tesoro, owner of the larger of Hawaii's two refineries, says gasoline price margins have shrunk so it will make less gasoline. Tesoro says its Kapolei refinery will be dialed back to as little as 74% capacity. Here's an alternative to oil for downtown office buildings. Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning has lined up more than 10 million dollars in equity financing. U.S. and Swedish investors are chipping in for a zero emissions seawater air conditioning plant. Downtown building owners could save a fifth of their air conditioning costs by using seawater instead of a system-based on freon. Hoku Scientific has installed two solar power systems on neighbor islands. Its newest turnkey photovoltaic systems are at the Lihue and Kona operations of Paradise Beverages. The company uses a lot of power to refrigerate its warehouses, since it's the Hawaii distributor of Coors, Corona, Miller and Heineken.
Wild Card -- Tuesday PM
President Bush answers a question during a news conference at the White House today. Bush is keeping his second-term pledge to hold at least one major news conference each month. He was squeezing one in on Tuesday, the last day of May. W. Mark Felt, who retired from the FBI after rising to its second most senior position, has identified himself as the "Deep Throat" source quoted by The Washington Post to break the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation, Vanity Fair magazine said Tuesday/MSNBC here. 1. Political 'Toon Fix: Paul Nowak (Amnesty International's claim), Gary Varvel (Embryonic stem cell research), and Mike Lester ("Star Wars" fans). 2. Humor Fix: PERRspectives (via politicalhumor.com) provides a "separated at birth" featuring George Bush and Darth Vader here.
|