So the Obama administration is hungry for some positive news to come out of Afghanistan. Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 “No one has tested that law; no one knows how it will stand up in a fight between the central government and the provinces,” observed Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for business and leader of the Pentagon team that discovered the deposits. “The big question is, can this be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible?” Mr. Brinkley said. “No one knows how this will work.” 
 
 With virtually no mining industry or infrastructure in place today, it will take decades for Afghanistan to exploit its mineral wealth fully.  ink-stained wretches Cranky Times Reporter Lashes Out at Critical Bloggers 
 
 With many online news outlets wondering whether a New York Times story on Afghanistan's mineral deposits was less a fresh discovery than a PR ploy by the Army, the story's author, James Risen, let loose on the brash, ignorant youngsters who dare to question him. Using geological data from the Soviet era and USGS surveys conducted in 2006, Brinkley dispatched teams to Afghanistan last year to search for minerals on the ground. And they did new research and came up with a lot of new data and put everything together in a more comprehensive way." Risen's story reported the findings of ongoing Pentagon research into the value Afghanistan's lithium, copper, iron, and other mineral deposits, and cited officials claiming that "the United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself."
– New York Times reporter James Risen is not a big fan of bloggers. Yahoo News blogger John Cook, formerly of Gawker, learned this when he called Risen to ask about criticism of his recent story on Afghan mineral deposits. (Original story here; sample of criticism here.) "Do you even know anything about me?" Risen asked. "Maybe you were still in school when I broke the NSA story, I don't know. It was back when you were in kindergarten, I think." (Risen shared a Pulitzer in 2006 for a story on secret wiretapping. Cook was age 33.) "The thing that amazes me is that the blogosphere thinks they can deconstruct other people's stories," Risen continued. And while a tamer version of this line appeared on Yahoo News, Cook tweeted that Risen accused bloggers of sitting around and "jerking off in their pajamas," reports New York magazine. Minutes after hanging up, Risen called back. "I was taken aback by some of the criticism, and didn't sleep well last night, and was upset about it. I apologize."