Link to some links

I came across this story on Arts & Letters Daily a while ago, but didn't bother to check up on it until now. The author makes a lot of points about China and India's seeming rise that are both relevant and abvious to an interested observer, but which most other commentators seem to have missed.

Seymour Hersh writes on George Bush's future plans for US forces in Iraq. Of particular (and chilling) import is this quote:

“He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’ ” He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. “They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,” the former defense official said.

Moving on to an arts story, but still with a political tone (sorry), here's an account from the Guardian of a music festival in Pakistan that helps to combat the religious extremism present in the country.