SGI Powers Jurassic Gorky Park
"In our review of the situation it is apparent that errors in judgment were made by not asking the right questions prior to the sale and by not raising the issue to the top of our organization for consideration," saith Edward R. McCracken, CEO of Silicon Graphics (NYSE:SGI). "I take full responsibility for this situation."Hey State Department! Get off of SGI's back! SGI sold the Russians nuclear simulation hardware, not real nuclear weapons. Everyone knows the so-called "Cold War" is ancient history. Duh. Kruschev, Nixon, Mao: all two-bit players in a canceled theatrical production engineered to amuse the masses. Ecce: The Iron Curtain. The show must go on. Nuclear warfare is a scientific process of speculation and projection, not a political catastrophe of projectiles and population loss. The fact is, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) mathematically guarantees a peaceful stalemate for all. Hey, I'm OK, you're OK. What's your damage, State Department? Our greatest movie actor and president, Ronald W. Reagan, designed his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) knowing full well that nuclear warfare exists only in science-fiction and the last chapter of the New Testament. Why else would Reagan, our most beloved president, prophesy in People magazine that "this may be the generation that will face Armageddon," AND simultaneously dub his hi-tech nuclear weaponry "Star Wars?"Coinky-dink? We don't think so.Reagan knew. As SDI goeth, so goeth SGI. In this day and age of virtual democracies and even more virtual meritocracies, the Evil Empire is a classic to be rerun on the big screen, not a dubious sales lead to be verified on some SGI salesguy's (monochrome) monitor. How is Joe Stereosalesman, now peddling SGI "Reality Engine"(tm) multi-processors, supposed to know that the Russian Scientific Research Institute is actually Chelyabinsk-70, the "former" top secret city and nuclear weapons facility?SGI should be thanked, congratulated even, for bringing our most powerful computers to the "ex-"commies. Real-time visualization software is the stuff of goodwill between once-warring nations. Nothing says "I trust you" better than a fully rendered red rose floating atop a flowing field of 64-bit grain. Let Carter rue his wheat shipments to the Russians, our technology president will not bat an eye at McCracken's egregious oversight.What, after all, is a supercomputer if not the realization of 50 years of direct funding from the military/space complex? Who are we to say who deserves to buy a node of parallel processors originally designed to calculate the durability of diverse nuclear warhead types? Who is the U.S. State Department to determine whether the fledgling and volatile Russian democracy can enter into the fast-paced world of feature film-quality digital effects? On the contrary, let us encourage our colicky Yeltsin to spur on his third world superpower and produce a Jurassic Gorky Park that would make even Spielberg, himself, weep like a child. SGI should be supported by the American people. Their obscenely powerful supercomputers are the girders under the Bridge to the 21st Century. It's too late to "dig our heels in" on the slippery slope of international arms trading. Yes, Virginia, there are multi-national corporations based on American soil who have no national allegiance in the marketplace. Simulation today, global thermonuclear war tomorrow.
