Bits and Pieces - 7/14/09

Congress likes to beef up budgets for military expenditures to keep defense contractors hiring. They frequently go beyond what the Defense Department requests. Now President Obama is threatening to veto a bill that contains such extra expenditures for the F-22 airplane.

It's been argued that future wars will be over basic resources, like water. Looks like Iraq is a candidate.

A Hiroshima survivor speaks out.

A majority of voters want Britain to end its nuclear weapons programs rather than update their Trident missiles as planned.

Hilzoy will retire from blogging this Friday. Unsettled times in the blogosphere.

It's hard to believe that that secret CIA program was only about killing al-Qaeda operatives in other countries. I expect more shoes to drop on this one. (NYT, Karen Tumulty) (Agreeing with helmut here.)

The two journalists convicted by North Korea have not yet been sent to a labor camp, which may indicate that the government intends to use them in diplomatic bargaining.

Helena Cobban interviews what's left of Israel's peace movement to give details on Israel's internal politics.

Fred Kaplan gets it right: if the US and Russia can agree on nuclear weapons, they will be able to talk about other issues. Just now, reducing nuclear weapons and getting a new START agreement are the low-hanging fruit.