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China Considering Cuts In Rare-Earth Metal Exports
SillySnake sends in a report from the Telegraph on draft plans in China to restrict exports of rare earths. "Beijing is drawing up plans to prohibit or restrict exports of rare earth metals that are produced only in China and play a vital role in cutting edge technology, from hybrid cars and catalytic converters, to superconductors, and precision-guided weapons. A draft report by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs."
Maybe now we won't have cars with catastrophic converters messing up the air. Yeah, let's get rid of carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide, and have hydrogen sulphide instead. What could possibly go wrong?
Midwest-hating urban hipster.
He's just upset we'd still be here after.
Why are we getting an article from Aug 24 now? I though we were faster then that. Stale.
I'm guessing satellites would pick up such a mass movement of people. You could probably wipe out 80% of them before they even left Chinese soil. Sure you'd have to worry about civilian casualties, But you could just wait until they get to an uninhabited place and then bomb them. Also, if they wanted to go to alaska, they would have to cross over Russian soil. I don't think the Russians would like this, and would probably help to bomb them all. Also, they would still have to cross some ocean, as there is no connecting land mass. At that point we could easily start sinking ships. Also, it would be quite hard for them to organize 300 million people to all attack at once without some of the news of the attack getting out before they actually started to move.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Can we cut a deal? We'll keep the hipster kids from the farms from going to New York if y'all will promise to go to LA and keep them from moving into the rest of the West.
Mod parent the hell up.
I'm in Tucson for graduate school and have been here for five years. Pretty much every native Tucsonan is tired of the various metastases that have come off of the primary tumor in southern California. For my part I'm about ready to start stabbing the LA-types with sharp pointy cacti.