The world is not a friendly place. We wish the world was one Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, but the only constant among nations is each governments' self-interest. I think we're the only ones who don't believe this.
We have already surreneded the 'rare earth' metals industry to China and they are beginning to restrict what the rest of the world gets. (see Wall Street Journal, they've done good work on this. Sorry, can'get link at this time.)
Ever wonder what the first Apple II looked like? This is it. The Apple II 29-kiloton nuclear test, originally fired off at the Nevada Test Site on May 5, 1955.
The world is a very strange place. I was born just a little while before the Cuban Missile Crisis. My parents and many of your parents and grandparents were terrified of the possibility of a nuclear war starting in Cuba. I grew up where the primary nuclear avoidance strategy was called “duck and cover.” Basically, we were taught in elementary school that you stick your head between your legs and kiss your class goodbye.
The U.S.S.R., the Red Menace, Russia — this was the Evil Empire, the Supreme Enemy. The Soviets, we were told, existed solely with the desire to destroy the West. Their ideology was diametrically opposed to ours. Russia was the original red state.
China was part of the same game. China was the Soviet Union’s little commie puppet nation. China, too, was the great enemy.
We spied on them. They spied on us. We had nukes pointed at their major cities. They had nukes pointed at ours. The big discussion was about overkill — how many times over could we bomb them back to the Stone Age vs. how many times over they could do it to us.
We were not pals.
Today, the fog of war is even thicker. On one hand, we’re buddies, allies, even friends with Russia. We buy their software. Acronis’ drive imaging software comes from Russia. Many PHP add-ons we routinely use come from Russia as well. A number of quasi-legal MP3 sites are located in Russia, but frequented by Americans who are willing to pay to get their music kinda-sorta legally, but most definitely cheaply.
With China, of course, we borrow money. Trillions and trillions of dollars. Each one of us is tens of thousands of dollars in debt — to the Communists (for they are still Reds) in China.
These are strange days. And now, they’re even stranger.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced this week (PDF) that they’re offering the opportunity for hearings and comment on a wee little purchase of mofo-frackin’ uranium by the Russians.
I am not making this up. I could not possibly make this up.
It turns out that JSC Atomredmetzoloto (a Russian company) is trying to buy the Uranium One Irigaray-Christensen Ranch in-situ leach uranium recovery (ISR) facility in eastern Wyoming.
Now, this is not just a Russian company. Oh, no. Atomredmetzoloto, according to the NRC, “is controlled by Rosatom, the Russian Federation’s state agency that oversees the Russian nuclear industry.”
Kudos to my friend Jorge who pointed out this little bit of news. I couldn’t have said it any better than when he said, “The world no longer makes any sense to me.”
Of course, I’m older than Jorge. The world stopped making sense to me a long time ago.
