{"id":5010,"date":"2010-02-16T21:07:33","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T02:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=5010"},"modified":"2010-02-16T21:09:19","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T02:09:19","slug":"nuclear-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nuclear-family","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve tried to avoid writing about politics and politicians for the last few years. This post is a pretty clear example of why I chose to do that.<\/p>\n

I read a news item this morning about Obama’s announcement of $8 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear reactor construction<\/a>. Awesome<\/em>, thought I! Go on with your bad self, Our Friend The Atom!<\/em><\/p>\n

Then I read another paragraph in:<\/p>\n

“On an issue that affects our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we can’t continue to be mired in the same old stale debates between left and right, between environmentalists and entrepreneurs,” Obama said in a stop at a job training center outside Washington. “Our competitors are racing to create jobs and command growing energy industries. And nuclear energy is no exception.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Foreign countries are “our competitors”<\/em>? Really? So it’s a zero-sum game if, say, China builds up its use of nuclear power and reduces its use of fossil fuels? That’s bad for us how?<\/p>\n

I thought it was just a bizarre, pandering anomaly when Obama made his SOTU comment<\/a> about “foreign companies” and “foreign entities” being able to, um, buy U.S. elections with TV ads.<\/p>\n

I could’ve sworn the 2008 election was supposed to be \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in part \u00e2\u20ac\u201d about restoring America’s stature overseas. Little did I know it was going to be about jingoistic nationalism. Not so awesome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve tried to avoid writing about politics and politicians for the last few years. This post is a pretty clear example of why I chose to do that. I read a news item this morning about Obama’s announcement of $8 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear reactor construction. Awesome, thought I! Go on with your … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Nuclear Family”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[183],"class_list":["post-5010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-explicit","tag-barack-obama"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1iO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":989,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-800-lb-gorilla","url_meta":{"origin":5010,"position":0},"title":"What 800-lb. gorilla?","author":"Gil","date":"June 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, manages to write an op-ed in the Washington Post about nuclear proliferation without mentioning Iran a single time.","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (implicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (implicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-implicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3383,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/whats-the-worst-that-could-happen","url_meta":{"origin":5010,"position":1},"title":"What’s the worst that could happen?","author":"Gil","date":"February 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani nuclear bomb expert who sold secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya, is a free man! Khan said he was finished with his nuclear work and wanted to devote his time to education. He said he had no plan to travel abroad apart from Mecca,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":313,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-rest-wing","url_meta":{"origin":5010,"position":2},"title":"The Rest Wing","author":"Gil","date":"August 23, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Perhaps the need for clean public toilets will lead to an Iranian counter-revolution. As the Brooding Persian sez:\"A country, I keep telling everyone, which finds it practically impossible to keep its public restrooms clean has no business pursuing nuclear power.\"","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1510,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-may-18-2007","url_meta":{"origin":5010,"position":3},"title":"Unrequired Reading: May 18, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"May 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In which the Virtual Memoirist provides links to miscellaneous sites and posts. 2Blowhards offer up a ton of architecture links. * * * Tintin's going big-screen? In exactly the wrong way? (For some reason, I keep envisioning the Charles Burns Dog Boy shorts on Liquid Television) * * * Firefox\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":957,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/let-them-eat-broadband","url_meta":{"origin":5010,"position":4},"title":"Let them eat broadband!","author":"Gil","date":"May 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"If Eliot Spitzer has his way, someday we'll all be able to download porno, regardless of race, color, creed or economic class. The NY state attorney general believes that universal high-speed internet access is a necessity for NY. (Presumably, this will allow him to utilize the Marshall Law to force\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":809,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/peace-in-our-time","url_meta":{"origin":5010,"position":5},"title":"Peace in our time!","author":"Gil","date":"January 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Yay! Osama Bin Laden's offering a truce! If we give up more of the world's oil regions to nuclear-ambitious apocalypse-obsessed mullahs, we'll have peace! It couldn't be more easy! (I was really hoping he'd go with the \"I just saved a bundle on my car insurance\" line, but that's what\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5010"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5014,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010\/revisions\/5014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}