Bits and Pieces - July 5, 2010

Almost unnoticed: the new National Space Policy. I would love to read it and comment. I tend to distrust the New York Times, but it's the best I've got just now. I do feel better about William Broad than some of their other writers.

In contrast, Mark Hibbs is highly knowledgeable on nonproliferation issues and a good analyst. On China's pending deal to supply two reactors to Pakistan:

If that happens and China looks set to move forward with the trade, all is not lost. Rather than remaining formally silent or issuing a paper démarche expressing regret about China's move, the United States could call upon China and Pakistan to provide a significant nonproliferation benefit as part of the transaction—of the sort the U.S.-India deal failed to include.

More unnoticed news: the first US centrifuge uranium enrichment plant starts up in Eunice, New Mexico.

Oil company tax breaks.

Seems to me that what is going on in Xinjiang and Tibet is a lot like the Russification practiced by the Soviet Union in its republics.

More cognoscenti indignation against bloggers. This is a good place to start; it probably contains the best rebuttal of a post by a Fed economist who would like bloggers just to shut up about economics. That link contains several others worth reading. Here's one more that is almost as good as the first. The original paper seems to have been yanked from the internets.

Some of the fauna living in the Gulf of Mexico that could be affected by the BP blowout.

[h/t on the last two to commenters at The Oil Drum.]