Just as "Seinfeld" was a "show about nothing," in my circles, "House of Cards" is a "show about rare earths." From that heady moment in season one's finale when billionaire Raymond Tusk -- played by Gerald McRaney -- confides in Kevin Spacey's Frank Underwood his yearning for Chinese-sourced Samarium 149 (the better to control nuclear fuel rods with), to his Oval Office comment in the second season on China using export quotas on rare earths as "political levers," this plot line looms larger for me than journalists being shoved in front of metro trains or a faked congressional suicide.
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