Today, President Hugo Chavez ordered that Venezuela’s non-existing Nuclear program be frozen because of the problems in Japan.
This is good news, nobody will lose their job, no project is being stopped, nothing is happening, some money may even be saved in trips to sign useless agreements with Russia, Iran and Vietnam.
Who should I quote? Myself? It is in bad taste, but here it is:
“I can not take Chavez’ nuclear program very seriously, beyond the exhibitionist aspects of it”
or
“To do anything in the nuclear field, you need people and very simply, Venezuela does not have them. It would take years for Venezuela to put together a group of nuclear scientists to perform a small project whether peaceful or not. Unfortunately, educating high level people like that has not been and is not a priority right now and there is no local talent available to even begin doing it locally. The Venezuelan science establishment is getting old and in nuclear physics in particular, the people I know of are mostly retired or in the process of retiring and there are few people coming up below them.”
and
“The only thing that would change my mind on this was to learn that the country was importing huge numbers of experts from other countries for such a project.”
There you have it, mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo. (The Devil knows more because he is old, than because he is the Devil)
The Devil's Excrement 