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Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Rare Earth Metals From California Mine

A mine in California's Mojave Desert has recently resumed production of ores that are rich in 15 rare earth elements, according to this Fox News story. These elements are used in all kinds of high-tech devices, including cell phones and military electronics and China has pretty much cornered the market for them in recent years, achieving 97% penetration worldwide.

This mine is a good thing for lots of reasons--defense, jobs, providing raw materials to the economy to name a few.

But ... based on past performance, Obama will probably have the EPA shut the operation down so that we'll continue to be dependent on China. Especially since this stuff has strategic military value.

Can't have the US in a position of military and economic strength, now, can we?

# posted by ExRat @ 4:33 PM

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"While North Korea itself may not be a proximate threat, the failure of the international community to stop even this impoverished and bizarre regime suggests that it is fundamentally toothless or has forgotten how to bite. What chance is there of blocking the stronger aspiring powers? None. It’s over. Ignoring North Korea isn’t a sign of confidence. It’s just whistling past the graveyard." Richard Fernandez, May 27, 2009.

"The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.” General Sir William F. Butler in Charles George Gordon, 1889.

"The fact is that Iran will never voluntarily give up its nuclear program, and a policy based on the contrary assumption is not just delusional, but dangerous." -- John Bolton, Surrender Is Not An Option, p. 340, 2007.

"Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace, and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war." -- Sir Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life, 1930

"Environmentalism should be about good planetary hygiene and honest science, not romantic Luddism." Glenn H. Reynolds ("Instapundit") 27 Feb 2007

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"We now have the first truly global terrorist insurgency because the Islamists view the whole world the way the IRA view the bogs of Fermanagh: They want it, and they've calculated that our entire civilization lacks the will to see them off." -- Mark Steyn, in Opinionjournal.com, 4 Jan 2006

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Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Rare Earth Metals From California Mine

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