Replies to post #105963 on Biotech Values

[turtlepower]

OT -

America today also has its own multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing moon shot: fixing Afghanistan.

Count the afghan war as china's 5th moon shot

Look at Afghanistan, for example, where American troops have been fighting for nearly a decade, where billions of dollars of American aid money has been spent -- and where a Chinese company has won the rights to exploit one of the world's largest copper deposits. Though American troops don't protect the miners directly, Afghan troops, trained and armed by Americans, do. And though the mine is still in its early phases, the Chinese businessmen and engineers -- wearing civilian clothes, offering jobs -- are already more popular with the locals than the U.S. troops, who carry guns and talk security. The Chinese paid a high price for their copper mining rights and took a huge risk. But if it pays off, our war against the Taliban might someday be remembered as the war that paved the way for Chinese domination of Afghanistan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/27/AR2010092704658.html

[Biowatch]

one is building a network of ultramodern airports

They need more qualified pilots to fly the planes they've bought, which takes longer than building airports. It also means giving up a little of the top down command authority, at least to a few.