Call me a cynic, but the whole tone of the NYT piece on minerals in Afghanistan reminded me of the pre-war reporting about WMD In Iraq. Marc Ambinder does a good job of fleshing out the theory that the piece was essentially a DoD press release:
The way in which the story was presented — with on-the-record quotations from the Commander in Chief of CENTCOM, no less — and the weird promotion of a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense to Undersecretary of Defense suggest a broad and deliberate information operation designed to influence public opinion on the course of the war.
Bill H
“Warspeak” ala’ George Orwell.
MattF
Very possibly– although I wouldn’t say that it’s an attempt to ‘influence public opinion.’ More like ‘get the attention of the imperialist faction in the DOD bureaucracy.’
sukabi
if there’s even a tiny fraction of the lithium in Afghanistan as they’re claiming, I say we take it and turn it into prescription form… there’s a hell of a lot of people in this country that don’t have access to bipolar medication… and it seems they are all in charge…/snark.
Ash Can
It wouldn’t be the first time the NYT has reprinted a press release and tried to pass it off as straight news reporting, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be the last.
NobodySpecial
I’m shocked, shocked to think that any US administration would be in on selling a war.
LittlePig
To Mr. Ambinder: Duh.
The only surprising thing is that Ambinder had the self-awareness to notice it.
El Cid
If we can just remain a bit longer to consolidate their new resources, then finally it will get stable enough so we could safely leave. Maybe another 6 months. Or another 10 years. But we have to do it. We’ve got this new counter-insurgency strategy which is totally getting things under control. If we just put more pressure on Pakistan, then the Taliban will weaken. And all the new resources will give the people hope. Promise.
PeakVT
We are so screwed. And it’s nothing compared to what the Afghanis are about to experience.
srv
I was just going to ask the General how the great victory and COIN demonstration in Marja went… oh, look at all those shiney minerals…
Even the wonks are skeptical.
Rick Taylor
I really don’t mind them attempting to influence public opinion on the war; I expect them to. I just want them to do it by using things that are true.
ppcli
Great post title.
danimal
Oh God, now we’re going to get long, expansive treatises on the all-important lithium trade for months from wingnuts who never heard of the stuff last week. Just shoot me now.
cleek
no blood for Li !
Ken
“designed to influence public opinion on the course of the war”
Yeah, but the problem is, it’s going to excite the wrong public. Most Americans will yawn at this, but every group that thinks the U.S. went into Iraq for oil will see this as confirmation.
Brian J
Has something happened in Afghanistan recently that makes it likely the perception of the war’s progress (or lack thereof) is trending downward, at least more than it usually does? If not, and things are more or less the way they have been for a while, why would they try to create such a positive image at this point in time? Why not do it after some particularly bad news?
Also, the first paragraph of the article mentions that what was discovered was far beyond what was expected in the past. Nobody seems to be questioning that, and if it’s true, it’s not really unexpected that it’s news.
Or maybe it’s just because one mineral in question, lithium, is of particular importance, and the country where it’s found isn’t really relevant. Here’s an article from The New Yorker this past March talking about the importance of Bolivia as a source of lithium. As far as I can tell, that country isn’t in the same category as Afghanistan–at least, not until Sarah Palin is sworn in as president.
Tax Analyst
Hurrah! This means the war will pay for itself!
How lucky can we be?
But when does the flowers & candy part kick in?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I don’t know, but another line of thought by the American public could be that now they can afford to finance their own war, so why are we using US taxpayer money. Most Americans supported going in there after 9-11, and after 9 years most now believe it is a lost and expensive cause, and want us out. What are the Generals and Obama gonna say, we’re staying cause there is gold in them thar hills? If it was oil, that would be different, the public knows they need oil to make their SUV’s go. But precious minerals, I doubt it.
El Cid
What’s funny is that if there’s a lot of gold, it will reduce the price of gold (via supply), so all the goldbug nuts selling gold as protection against ‘inflation’ (of where there has been none, nor signs of it) and against a ‘weak dollar’ (which we need to help export more) will see a drop in the value of gold. Well, it would take a loooong time, but at least in theory.
srv
One of the dudes that Karzai sacked last week says:
Someone’s finally getting a clue.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Brian J: Bolivia now has a presnit who has the audacity to proclaim his country’s natural wealth actually belongs to the people of that country, not to foreign exploiters. He has nationalized the oil and gas industry there, and that has put another marxist bee in the bonnet of the Palin’s of the world. I love it.
El Cid
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: The Iraq war paid for itself. Soon the Afghan war will too. We promise.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brian J:
Well, the troop death total recently passed 1,000 in Afghanistan, and there has been an uptick in suicide bombings that have killed NATO soldiers, so yes, there has been more going on, you just wouldn’t know it from the coverage in the press because … oh, look, Sarah Palin’s written a new Facebook entry!
And Ambinder is just being idiotic here
if he really thinks the broad swath of the “public” really gives two shits about minerals in Afghanistan as a reason to keep our troops over there in perpetuity.
If anything, as someone said above, it’s meant for villagers’ consumption. Bill Kristol must be typing with one hand today.
Zifnab
My god, if we just mined out all those valuable minerals in Afghanistan, the war would practically pay for itself (*)
Someone get Paul Wolfwitz in front of a camera!
(*) Lose of human life is negligible and does not maintain a cash value.
me
@El Cid: I don’t think there is any rationality behind the current price of gold so it’s futile to look for some.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@El Cid: I doubt that will wash after Iraq. Or, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but, you can’t, er…. we won’t get fooled again.
El Cid
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: In the old days, the U.S. had the power to back Morales’ overthrow. They tried, reportedly, in supporting the separatist aspirations of the richer provinces, who failed in that move but did get some success in modifying policies. The red/pink tide across South America has brought what appears to be permanent changes, such that even the right wing politicians are no longer interested in turning their nations into subjugated conduits for sending resources and payback to Western investors.
Zifnab
@arguingwithsignposts:
Glenn Beck will be playing this story sandwiched between five minute “BUY GOLD!” ads. And the fiscal scalds and economic drones will decree mining Afghanistan is their solution to ending the domestic economic downturn.
This has “Drill, Baby, Drill” written all over it, and I have no reason to believe the same old 27%ers won’t buy it hook, line, and sinker. The question is how many of these “Afghanistan is a gold mine just waiting to be hollowed out” nonsense pieces the warmongers can grind out to make imperialism look economically viable for the future.
David in NY
The history of poor countries, ill-governed, with a rich endowment of natural resources, makes me unwilling to applaud this, even if it’s true. From a review of Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion:
http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/08/books/saucier.htm
Also:
http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=Document&id=3505&source=rss
Alex S.
It’s being said that these resources could be worth a trillion dollar. However, the war has already cost far more than that. A trillion dollar isn’t what it used to be.
twiffer
i will admit, i’m a bit curious as to why the army is performing mineral surveys in afghanistan. is this standard operations? would make sense if we were to become entrenched for a ridiculously long time. or if they were asked. otherwise, i wonder a) why they were surveying; and b) why they would publicize the results. unless it were for a pre-emptive: we have to stay! they have money, not just heroin!
JR in WV
Hi,
This is another occasion where “news” has been known for years (decades, really) to everyone with any interest in mineralogy or geology whatsoever. Google “Afgan mineral specimens” -ebay and you will see that hundreds of mineral specimens worth from $100-100,000 and which will fit in a good sized ziplock show up.
This has been the case since the rule of the Mogul emperors in India.
These minerals often come from lithium-rich deposits called pegmatites, which are common in mountain ranges all over the world. Including Pakistan!
Lithium is a very valuable metal, just like copper, cobalt,or tantalum, but mostly in rail car lots rather than ziplocks. No railroads in Afganistan.
Bolivia is rich in minerals, has mines and railroads, and the natives are poor and die from contamination from the mines. So don’t expect trillions of dollars to bring Afgans into the 20th century.
JR
celticdragonchick
Well, now I know here the geology jobs for the next twenty years will be. Hazard pay included.
I think I’ll pass, thank you very much.
David in NY
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
This is not uncommon when commodities prices are high, I gather. When prices fall, nationalization fails and private companies are called back in.
See, The Natural Resources Trap (various authors): http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12166
El Cid
Maybe this mining could be cheaply done by that anti-union, anti-regulatory mine owner from all the mine deaths in West Virginia. I’m sure in Afghanistan there will be no regulations and death squads to suppress workers’ rights.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@David in NY: Well yea, and I don’t have a problem with foreign companies being involved, so long as they just take their fair share of profit, and not horde it all,minus what they siphon to indigenous oligarchs and their right wing junta protectors.
Nationalization is just a means to first break the historical strangle hold of the greedy few.
Brian J
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
If Palin or someone like her is elected, I don’t think he needs to worry. They’ll try to mess with Bulgaria instead. I mean, both begin with a “B,” right? It’s so easy to confuse them.
@arguingwithsignposts:
As I have said in the past, I’m much more of a domestic policy guy than a foreign policy guy, so forgive me if I sound harsh or insensitive, but is any of that really major in the grand scheme of things?
As far as Ambinder goes, I understand what he’s saying. He’s under the impression that if it looks like there’s some possibility for the country, the public will eventually start to feel as if what we are doing, or allegedly doing, which is trying to bring stability, isn’t hopeless. In his mind, what that possibility entails isn’t important. It could be unicorns, for all the public would eventually care.
I just don’t think I agree with what he’s saying. It seems like you’d have to suggest several of the premises of the argument–namely that the mineral deposits in question are a lot bigger than we thought–aren’t true. The Foreign Policy blog above says that the article uses estimates from 2007, but the first few paragraphs make seem as if what was recently discovered was in fact a lot bigger than we thought.
celticdragonchick
@JR in WV:
Pegmatites are not deposits. They are felsic intrusive igneous rocks characterized by very large crystal growth and large amounts of accessory minerals.
More here.
The word “deposits” denotes a sedimentary rock that has been deposited through some mechanical process. It may also describe a volcanic ash layer or tuff that although is not considered sedimentary, was “deposited” via volcanic interaction with the atmosphere..
Brian J
@JR in WV:
The article makes it seem like a lot of what has been discovered is new and/or bigger than previously thought. That’s where the “news” comes in.
Brachiator
@Brian J:
The New Yorker link is very interesting. And if you do a google search for, say, “lithium Afghanistan,” you come up with the site for the Afghanistan Geological Survey, done in conjunction with the British Geological Survey.
And although the latest report is from 2008 and confirms the country’s potential, does not make vast claims about the value of mineral resources there and notes that no systematic investigation of geological resources has been done since the Soviet occupation in the 1970s.
But as another poster noted, I don’t think these claims will excite conservatives nearly as much as it will those who believe that Afghanistan was always only about oil and other natural resources.
Morbo
We shall lay claim to the minerals with the cunning use of flags.
Roger Moore
@danimal:
I wonder if any of them will notice that Lithium is an important element for nuclear weapons. Not that it’s a very big deal, since the amount needed for nuclear weapons is small enough that we’d have to declare lithium batteries a dual use technology to do anything about it, but it’ll be fun to see the wingnuts flip out.
celticdragonchick
@arguingwithsignposts:
That.
All the same, I really despise that my field of study has been reduced to right wing masturbatory talking points for Machiavellian hacks.
John Cole
I don’t understand the doom and gloom in this post and the comments. What could go wrong?
ScottRock
@twiffer: The USGS is doing the surveying; the Army steps in with support as needed. This has been going on since 2005; the minerals report [PDF] was made public in 2007.
I really don’t think the Chinese aspect to this story is getting enough play in the media. It’s mentioned briefly in the article, but the patent part is left out: this story is coming two weeks after China announced its intention to nationalize its rare earth mining industry. There are more levels to the media fluffery than we’re seeing.
If the mineral thing pans out, then we have essentially an ongoing military operation designed to secure resources needed for the advancement of green tech. A “green occupation”! Hooray!
celticdragonchick
@John Cole:
For starters, all my post doc job offers will now probably have a minimum 2 year Afghanistan assignment attached…
celticdragonchick
@ScottRock:
Fixed for 19th century appropriate Imperial over reach.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@John Cole: It will be interesting to see the first Afghani’s dining at Allah’s Applebees.
edit – Maybe Bobo will treat us to an insightful column of the new Afghan middle class.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brian J:
It is major if it keeps up in spite of our “surge” of troops. An uptick in losses among our friends in the “coalition of the willing” and an increase in U.S. troop casualties could cause further deterioration of support in Congress for further funding of the war (which is back for another supplemental budget request, IIRC).
Remember, this is the war we can win, according to the administration (I don’t agree with them on this, or the tactics they’ve adopted from the previous “regime”).
And I’m sure the insane 27 percent will support whatever we do that involves killing brown people and taking their mineral wealth. But the rest of the public, I believe, are more worried about getting and/or keeping jobs in an uncertain economy and that little oil leak we’re trying to clean up in the GoM.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
@cleek: Kurt Cobain, Seer of American Allies in Afghanistan 19 years ago: “I’m so happy, cuz today I found my friends – they’re in my head.”
Church Lady
@celticdragonchick: Do you own a burka?
Brian J
@Brachiator:
I wasn’t trying to make any particular point about Afghanistan. I was only using it to say that it’s not in the same category as Bolivia.
Michael
Sort of OT, but I noted today that the largest of the local wingnut talk radio stations used the SeekingAlpha website as a source in its hourly report of tea leaf reading and tarot card flipping that passes as “financial reporting”.
I started to bitch about it, and then realized that financial reporting in this fucked up country is so completely screwed anyway that they might as well go to odd websites for news.
One of these days, I’d like to think that financial reporters would quit talking about analysts and investors “having fears” over employment figures, commodity pricing, political climates, etc., and would simply focus on things that are actually measurable, like dividends, production increases, facility upgrades, market share and customer satisfaction.
Methinks that stock prices would make a shitload more sense if investors and analysts focused on things that can actually be, you know, measured.
David in NY
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
And I’m not necessarily against nationalization (might recently have supported it here in the case of a couple of banks). Just cautious about its ultimate benefits in these circumstances.
Brian J
@arguingwithsignposts:
Again, I don’t mean to sound like what’s happening doesn’t matter at all, but you said it will be significant if it keeps up, not that it’s absolutely important right now. Why would the administration try to do damage control about something that hasn’t happened?
celticdragonchick
@Church Lady:
I guess I had better update my wardrobe.
I always wanted to wear a cobalt blue(how mineralic!) head to foot garment while doing field work, dontchaknow.
danimal
Perhaps the Taliban mining overlords will ingest enough lithium to mellow their pathologies and everyone will live in peace and tranquility while living off the fruits of the land.
A new warlord-free Afghanistan emerges as the population shares the mineral wealth in peace and prosperity.
El Cid
@John Cole: The positive impacts of the newly confirmed vast mineral wealthy will be felt in 6 days, 6 weeks… I doubt 6 months.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@David in NY: I’m cautious too, money is the root of a lot of evil, but so are poppy plants and religious fanaticism. Afghan. will now have all three of those things. but there is a chance that national wealth could mitigate the second two. I doubt it could get much worse than it is there, well, maybe it can.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brian J:
First of all, it is important right now to someone, or they wouldn’t be trotting this out. As I mentioned, I read somewhere recently (GOS?) that the Afghan war is back up for another supplemental budget request.
Also, it doesn’t necessarily have to be “damage control.” It could be “getting ahead of the story” by putting out this “positive” in advance of the negative in hopes of blunting some of the inevitable negative press that will come.
There’s a swell of negative press about the “surge” right now (see this Google News search for some of the articles). Note McChrystal’s negative prediction for the summer in this article:
So clearly, there’s some impetus for the DoD to push this story ahead of the bloodshed they’re predicting.
Brian J
@arguingwithsignposts:
I see that. Maybe I am just too trusting or too skeptical of those who are alleging some sort of collusion, but I like to see more proof before I consider something definite one way or the other. Right now, it looks like it could go either way.
John PM
Who knew that Avatar was actually an allegory for modern-day Afghanistan. I just wonder which lucky Afghanni lady Obama is going to f-ck before he unites the various tribes and the Taliban in order to overthrow the Americans?
liberal
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Though it’s not clear it’s truly Marxist. Could also be Georgist. Given available ideologies in Latin America, I’d agree it’s most likely the former of course.
ruemara
Not impressed, just wanna leave.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brian J:
I can see that, and I mostly agree with your position. Given the history of our involvement with Af-Pak and Iraq over the last 9 years, it can be hard to maintain that attitude, however.
Speaking of which, IIRC, there was talk way back in 2003-04, I believe, about an oil pipeline being built across Afghanistan, and that was the “real” reason we invaded. Does anyone know what became of the oil pipeline? Was it built? Was it a mirage?
tkogrumpy
@celticdragonchick: Picky, picky, picky.
liberal
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
That’s confusing the issue.
Their fair share of the true economic profit—return on capital—is 100%. The thing is, their fair share of the natural resource rent is 0%.
tkogrumpy
@John Cole: I’d answer but who would wade through a thirty eight page comment?
cleek
@John PM:
maybe Sharbat Gula has a daughter ?
trollhattan
One good bit of news: a large contingent of the population is newly versed in explosives, which should come in handy for mining.
This must be good news for John McCain and the Chinese (maybe the Aussies too). All the good comments on parallels with Iraq and the magic of oil self-sufficiency have been covered. Is there any historical precident of a vast, impoverished, illiterate, tribal country being improved via extraction of their natural resources?
El Cid
@liberal: Just because it’s declared soshullist doesn’t mean it’s strongly defined as “Marxist”. Marx wasn’t the only soshullist, nor can all soshullist plans be defined as “Marxist”.
celticdragonchick
@tkogrumpy:
Accuracy is important when using scientific terms. I do note that I forget to include chemical precipitation and chemical alteration in the list of depositional processes. My bad.
Brachiator
@Brian J:
Instead of making two separate posts, I was just thanking you for the New Yorker link and then responding to DougJ’s general question about the timing and substance of the DoD report.
Sorry about any confusion.
But in another way, this is kind of a weird non-story.
Maybe in the 1950s and 1960s, this kind of stuff might have had some impact on public opinion. But today, the unstated background to the story is a lot of “what if’s.” The potential mineral wealth doesn’t amount to much if we don’t “win” the war, and if Afghanistan is not able to become a stable nation, and if it strict religious fundamentalists don’t come to power and thwart economic development, etc.
Zifnab
@John Cole: The warmonger pundit hedgehog just peaked its head up, saw its own shadow, and declared six more years of “Bomb, Bomb, Afghanistan” and you’re asking what’s wrong?
Honestly, I think the worry is overblown. Either this will explode as an issue, with an army of idiot Republicans declaring Afghanistan mineral rights the new Middle Eastern Oil Reserves. In which case, the inability to even begin mining them inside a quarter century won’t really help their case.
Or the issue will be quietly dropped, or tossed in as fuel for the Obama-spiracy nuts to burn on. (I bet Obama is hording all the gold for himself, that bastard!)
Bill H
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Just to clear things up a bit. “Afghani” refers to the monetary currency of Afghanistan.
The people who live there are “Afghans.”
So “Afghani’s” can’t dine anywhere, and the apostrophe is possessive rather than plural in any case.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
I thought there was something fishy the first time I read the piece.
There’s no shortage of extractable lithium in the world, any shortage in product is due to shortfalls in production capacity and the nature of the market. Lithium mines have been closed in recent years because new sources have been exploited which are cheaper and easier to extract.
But even if the “Saudi Arabia of Lithium” label were accurate, which it is not, since the world was calling Chile the Saudi Arabia of Lithium just a couple of years ago, it wouldn’t make the NYT story true ….. there isn’t that much money for the local economy in that kind of extractive mining. To build the technical capacity for that mining the mineral rights would be sold or leased for a fair price, which probably wouldn’t put a dent in the drug economy in Afghanistan (mostly opium).
The whole NYT thing is just a bunch of bullshit from the get go. Even if the mineral story had merit, it would take years and years for that potential to be realized and become an economic reality. And who in his right mind would go into that trainwreck of a country and invest the billions it would take to get those minerals out? Freeport McMoran? Maybe Dick Cheney and his pals would put together a deal? Seriously, it’s ludicrous as far as I’m concerned.
How is that scheme to get the oil riches of Iraq working out?
pk
This is the worst possible news. I can see the future. Profits from mining siphoned off by some dictator or the taliban, money being used to buy more weapons and create further trouble in or by Pakistan, leading to further chaos. Right now the region is controlled by poor thugs. In the future it will be controlled by rich thugs. And the Americans will be guaranteed to make everything worse, by trying to manipulate the situation to their own advantage.
Brachiator
@pk:
At least profits from lithium might not be as bad as profits from heroin.
bemused
Thom Hartmann read an excerpt of an article (I didn’t catch from where) that the Pentagon “discovered” the mineral deposits from reading 1980’s records of Soviet engineer explorations in Afghanistan. I don’t think it would be wrong to speculate about US motivations in our involvements in Afghanistan in the last 30 years.
DTGinSTL
Definitely sounds a lot like the “this war will pay for itself” nonsense before we invaded Iraq.
arguingwithsignposts
@Bill H:
You and your pesky facts. The real question is: will the Afghans have salad bars in their Applebees?
Bill H
@arguingwithsignposts:
I was watching, I think it was Hardball, a few months ago and he had some “expert” on who was delivering himself of his great expertise on the “Afghanis” and how the “Afghanis” felt about this and that and how he had met a few really “nice Afghanis” as well as some who tried to shoot him, etc. Needless to say, the idiot grated on me, and he sounded like a complete moron.
I’ve been a little sensitive ever since then.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
This is all the fault of the Indian plate. Ever since the Tethys Seaway closed the whole region has been nothing but trouble. If only India would stop drifting so darn much and just settle down like a regular continent fer crissakes!
celticdragonchick
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
:D
arguingwithsignposts
@Bill H:
Wait, are you talking about Tweety, or his guest? Because when Tweety starts his “real working Americans” bullshit, I grind my teeth something fierce.
twiffer
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: well, as a sub-continent, it’s got that inferiority complex to deal with…
twiffer
@ScottRock: thanks for the clarification. the article read as if DoD was driving the survey.
Joseph Nobles
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Bolivia should take cues from Alaska and nationalize the resource, not the industries. That’s socialism even Sarah Palin can get behind.
Joseph Nobles
Goldarnit, I said the S word. *shakes fist at moderation gods*
maus
@sukabi:
Narcissistic Personality Disorder is not something Lithium would necessarily help with.
benintn
Agree with the feel of the PR “manufactured” part of this story. But it’s still a story. And still worth telling.
This may actually be a reflection of a shift in military intelligence info. While on the one hand, this will “up the ante” in Afghanistan, it will also change some of the international information. Rather than keeping it quiet, this is an example of a time where it makes more sense to make this information public knowledge.
The difference between this and the ramp-up to the Iraq War is that there actually seem to be real, pre-existing documents with evidence that the minerals and resources are there.
And the timing is also right in light of current frustration about our presence in the “Empire’s Graveyard” of Afghanistan.
Should we still get out?
Yes.
Should we get more international support?
Yes.
Should we be very careful about protecting this region?
Yes.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Bill H: Thanks for correction. I knew that already but sometimes have inexplicable grammar incidents. Well, more than sometimes.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@liberal: Your getting pedantic again liberal. It was snark.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@liberal:
I doubt it.
I think most here understood what I was saying, except maybe you.
licensed to kill time
If anyone hasn’t read Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan yet, it’s very much worth your time.
And Bill H is right, when you say Afghanis to refer to Afghans it’s like saying pesos to refer to Mexicans or dollars to refer to Americans.
trevorb
Just so we are clear the important elements we will run out of first are potassium (freakishly important) and helium (important if you want fusion, balloons, or any type of ultra cold radiation studies). Lithium while a limited resource will not reach peak until long after potassium and helium run out.
norbizness
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Good news, everyone. We were supposed to deliver a package to the planet Tweenis 12, but it’s been completely destroyed.
Leela: Why is that good news?
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: They paid in advance.
JR in WV
@celticdragonchick:
Hi CDC,
I wasn’t going so much for exact geologic terms and technical education as for the historic fact that they’ve been mining them for centuries, and the “deposits” exist in the NW Territories of Pakistan as well. Thanks for expanding on the geology, are you a field geologist?
I’m technically an (ex-)IT guy, but I worked with geologists and engineers for 20 years, so I’m not textbook educated so much as field BS educated. No igneous formations in WV except for a tiny bit in the eastern panhandle, also. Mineralogy and collecting is one of my hobbies, though. Shiny, ooooh! Old Old Clam, Ooooh!
JR
KevinNYC
Some of Tom Ricks’s readers starting laughing and then pointed out this has been known for 30 or more years. There’s no cheap way to get the minerals out of the country. They don’t really have a transportation network and it’s a long way to any ocean.
El Cid
@KevinNYC:
Silk road caravans, baby!
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@El Cid: Jingle Trucks.
celticdragonchick
@JR in WV:
Hey there.
I can get pedantic, although I generally try not to. :)
I am actually shopping around for my masters program in geology this year.
El Cid
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: What’s the use of having a truck if you can’t throw a party in it every day?
bjacques
Ya got sandworm-riding Fremen wiping out yer mining colonies, Paul Atreides running around loose with the family atomics, ornithopters breaking down….but screw all that.
THE SPICE MUST FLOW!