I Don't Even Know Your Name But I'm Going To Blow Your Head Off

WASHINGTON: The CIA received secret permission to attack a wider range of targets, including suspected militants whose names are not known, as part of a dramatic expansion of its campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan's border region, current and former counter-terrorism officials say.

The expanded authority, approved two years ago by the Bush administration and continued by Barack Obama, permits the agency to rely on what officials describe as ''pattern-of-life'' analysis, using evidence collected by surveillance cameras on the unmanned aircraft and from other sources about individuals and locations.

The information was used to target suspected militants, even when their full identities were not known, the officials said. Previously the CIA was restricted in most cases to killing only individuals whose names were on an approved list.

The rules had transformed the program from a narrow effort aimed at killing top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders into a large-scale campaign of air strikes in which few militants were off-limits, as long as they were deemed to pose a threat to the US, the officials said.

Instead of just a few dozen attacks a year, CIA-operated unmanned aircraft now carry out multiple missile strikes each week against safe houses, training camps and other hiding places in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. Officials say their surveillance yields so much detail that they can watch for the routine arrival of particular vehicles or the characteristics of individual people.

''The enemy has lost not just operational leaders and facilitators - people whose names we know - but formations of fighters and other terrorists,'' said a senior US counter-terrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity. ''We might not always have their names but … these are people whose actions over time have made it obvious that they are a threat.''

In some cases drones conducted surveillance for days to establish the evidence that justified firing a missile, the officials said. A strike could be delayed or cancelled if the chance of civilian casualties was too great.

But some analysts said permitting the CIA to kill people whose names were unknown created a serious risk of killing innocent people. Civilian deaths caused by Western arms are a source of deep anger in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

''There are a lot of ethical questions here about whether we know who the targets are,'' said Loch Johnson, an intelligence scholar at the University of Georgia and a former congressional aide.

''The danger is that it could spawn new terrorists and increase resentment among the Pakistani public, in particular where these strikes are taking place.''

We're All Wasting Away

This video clip by Kasabian is pretty brilliant. No one reads this blog. But a certain girl with a name beginning with S and ending with E looks at it occasionally. However, she NEVER watches the video clips. S****E I implore you to watch this!

This is the song 'Empire' by Kasabian. It sends a strong anti war message and depicts the members of Kasabian as troopers of the 11th Hussars regiment during the Crimean War. The video opens with a child solider being killed by a shot to the head. It is a reference to the waste of young men or boys in conflict. The generals are seen sitting on their arses well behind the front line enjoying drinks and toast. This is how it was during the Crimean War and also the First World War, where boys were sent out to die while their superiors watched from a distance, sending orders. The band decides to remove itself from the front line and head back to the generals' station while passing their regiment which is disembarking for an attack. After the firing squad refuses to shoot the last survivor of the band, the commanding officer steps in and shoots him for refusing to enter the battlefield. The video closes with the use of the latin phrase "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" - this is part of an anti war verse written by WW1 poet William Owen.

In short, Kasabian is awesome.

If Men Could Menstruate by Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem is an American journalist, feminist, social and political activist who became recognized as the leader of the Women's Liberation Movement in the 1970s. This is the essay she wrote in 1978:

Living in India made me understand that a white minority of the world has spent centuries conning us into thinking a white skin makes people superior, even though the only thing it really does is make them more subject to ultraviolet rays and wrinkles.

Reading Freud made me just as skeptical about penis envy. The power of giving birth makes "womb envy" more logical, and an organ as external and unprotected as the penis makes men very vulnerable indeed.

But listening recently to a woman describe the unexpected arrival of her menstrual period (a red stain had spread on her dress as she argued heatedly on the public stage) still made me cringe with embarrassment. That is, until she explained that, when finally informed in whispers of the obvious event, she said to the all-male audience, "and you should be proud to have a menstruating woman on your stage. It's probably the first real thing that's happened to this group in years."

Laughter. Relief. She had turned a negative into a positive. Somehow her story merged with India and Freud to make me finally understand the power of positive thinking. Whatever a "superior" group has will be used to justify its superiority, and whatever and "inferior" group has will be used to justify its plight. Black me were given poorly paid jobs because they were said to be "stronger" than white men, while all women were relegated to poorly paid jobs because they were said to be "weaker." As the little boy said when asked if he wanted to be a lawyer like his mother, "Oh no, that's women's work." Logic has nothing to do with oppression.

So what would happen if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?

Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event:

Men would brag about how long and how much.

Young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood. Gifts, religious ceremonies, family dinners, and stag parties would mark the day.

To prevent monthly work loss among the powerful, Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea. Doctors would research little about heart attacks, from which men would be hormonally protected, but everything about cramps.

Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields- "For Those Light Bachelor Days."

Statistical surveys would show that men did better in sports and won more Olympic medals during their periods.

Generals, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation ("men-struation") as proof that only men could serve God and country in combat ("You have to give blood to take blood"), occupy high political office ("Can women be properly fierce without a monthly cycle governed by the planet Mars?"), be priests, ministers, God Himself ("He gave this blood for our sins"), or rabbis ("Without a monthly purge of impurities, women are unclean").

Male liberals and radicals, however, would insist that women are equal, just different; and that any woman could join their ranks if only she were willing to recognize the primacy of menstrual rights ("Everything else is a single issue") or self-inflict a major wound every month ("You must give blood for the revolution").

Street guys would invent slang ("He's a three-pad man") and "give fives" on the corner with some exchenge like, "Man you lookin' good!"

"Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!"

TV shows would treat the subject openly. (Happy Days: Richie and Potsie try to convince Fonzie that he is still "The Fonz," though he has missed two periods in a row. Hill Street Blues: The whole precinct hits the same cycle.) So would newspapers. (Summer Shark Scare Threatens Menstruating Men. Judge Cites Monthlies In Pardoning Rapist.) And so would movies. (Newman and Redford in Blood Brothers!)

Men would convince women that sex was more pleasurable at "that time of the month." Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself, though all they needed was a good menstruating man.

Medical schools would limit women's entry ("they might faint at the sight of blood").

Of course, intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguements. Without the biological gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets, how could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics-- or the ability to measure anything at all? In philosophy and religion, how could women compensate for being disconnected from the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death and resurrection every month?

Menopause would be celebrated as a positive event, the symbol that men had accumulated enough years of cyclical wisdom to need no more.

Liberal males in every field would try to be kind. The fact that "these people" have no gift for measuring life, the liberals would explain, should be punishment enough.

And how would women be trained to react? One can imagine right-wing women agreeing to all these arguements with a staunch and smiling masochism. ("The ERA would force housewives to wound themselves every month": Phyllis Schlafly)

In short, we would discover, as we should already, that logic is in the eye of the logician. (For instance, here's an idea for theorists and logicians: if women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long? I leave further improvisation up to you.)

The truth is that, if men could menstruate, the power justifications would go on and on.

If we let them.

Crave

Crave
Written: Sarah Kane
Directed: Felicity Nicol

Crave Cast
M: Amanda Stephens-Lee
B: Richard Hilliar
C: Rebecca Wood
A: Maurizio Degliespotsi

Crave, written by Sarah Kane, is an extremely difficult play to describe. Crave features four characters, A, B, C and M. There is no plot. Your enjoyment of the play depends upon your ability to decipher it.

My impression of Crave is that it illustrates hell. And a brief glimpse of heaven. As soon as you grasp onto an experience, a memory or moment, it slips out of your reach and into the abyss that is this abstract and often intimidating piece of work. There are many ugly moments to be had in Crave. Mutterings of violence, rape and incest. Then there is beauty, and shouts of love.

The latest production of Crave, directed by Felicity Nicol presents A, B, C and M stuck in their perpetual cycle of misery, guilt and rejection. But Nicol also brings hope and humour to this purgatory.

If you read any of Sarah Kane's Crave make sure it is this:

"And I want to play hide-and-seek and give you my clothes and tell you I like your shoes and sit on the steps while you take a bath and massage your neck and kiss your feet and hold your hand and go for a meal and not mind when you eat my food and meet you at Rudy's and talk about the day and type your letters and carry your boxes and laugh at your paranoia and give you tapes you don't listen to and watch great films and watch terrible films and complain about the radio and take pictures of you when you're sleeping and get up to fetch you coffee and bagels and Danish and go to Florent and drink coffee at midnight and have you steal my cigarettes and never be able to find a match and tell you about the the programme I saw the night before and take you to the eye hospital and not laugh at your jokes and want you in the morning but let you sleep for a while and kiss your back and stroke your skin and tell you how much I love your hair your eyes your lips your neck your breasts your arse your... and sit on the steps smoking till your neighbour comes home and sit on the steps smoking till you come home and worry when you're late and be amazed when you're early and give you sunflowers and go to your party and dance till I'm black and be sorry when I'm wrong and happy when you forgive me and look at your photos and wish I'd known you forever and hear your voice in my ear and feel your skin on my skin and get scared when you're angry and your eye has gone red and the other eye blue and your hair to the left and your face oriental and tell you you're gorgeous and hug you when you're anxious and hold you when you hurt and want you when I smell you and offend you when I touch you and whimper when I'm next to you and whimper when I'm not and dribble on your breast and smother you in the night and get cold when you take the blanket and hot when you don't and melt when you smile and dissolve when you laugh and not understand why you think I'm rejecting you when I'm not rejecting you and wonder how you could think I'd ever reject you and wonder who you are but accept you anyway and tell you about the tree angel enchanted forest boy who flew across the ocean because he loved you and write poems for you and wonder why you don't believe me and have a feeling so deep I can't find words for it and want to buy you a kitten I'd get jealous of because it would get more attention than me and keep you in bed when you have to go and cry like a baby when you finally do and get rid of the roaches and buy you presents you don't want and take them away again and ask you to marry me and you say no again but keep on asking because though you think I don't mean it I do always have from the first time I asked you and wander the city thinking it's empty without you and want what you want and think I'm losing myself but know I'm safe with you and tell you the worst of me and try to give you the best of me because you don't deserve any less and answer your questions when I'd rather not and tell you the truth when I really dont' want to and try to be honest because I know you prefer it and think it's all over but hang on in for just ten more minutes before you throw me out of your life and forget who I am and try to get closer to you because it's a beautiful learning to know you and well worth the effort and speak German to you badly and Hebrew to you worse and make love with you at three in the morning and somehow somehow somehow communicate some of the overwhelming undying overpowering unconditional all-encompassing heart-enriching mind-expanding on-going never-ending love I have for you."

Intro

The xx are a three piece band from south west London. They sound like a mix between Hot Chip and The Cure. They're signed to the Young Turks label and have received a lot of hype in the past six months. However the self titled debut is one of the best records of this year. The sound is minimalistic and melodic, mellow but uplifting. Vocalists Oliver and best friend Romy Madley Croft whisper over the beats of Baria Qureshi and Jamie Smith.

If you've heard anything of The xx it has probably been 'Islands', a beautiful track. The first track on the record, Intro, is my favourite. It is entirely instrumental and goes for less than two minutes. Listen to the remix of 'Intro' and Notorious B.I.G. here:

Juicy

Check out their Myspace here.

You're called a Caucasian or a poor Asian

Just the kind of preachy shit I love.

Guildford Four

The Guildford pub bombings took place on 5 October 1974. The IRA detonated two 6 pound gelignite bombs in a pub popular with British soldiers. The bombings took place at the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland and British police were therefore under immense pressure to arrest the perpetrators. They arrested four people. None of them actually committed the offence.

Gerry Conlon, Paul Hill, Patrick Armstrong and Carole Richardson were falsely convicted of the bombings in October 1975 and became known as the Guildford Four.

Gerry Conlon had come to London from Belfast after his father paid for his ticket. He had been living at a hippie commune with Paul Hill but both were soon on the street after a dispute with the other residents.

They were arrested and signed confessions under coercion. They had guns pointed at their heads by British police officers. Gerry Conlon was told that his father would be killed if he did not sign the document.

Conlon was released after fifteen years in prison. His father Guiseppe, who was sentenced to twelve years for allegedly possessing nitroglycerin, died in prison.

The film In The Name Of The Father tells the story of the wrongful convictions.

The convictions were overturned in the early 1990s and Tony Blair issued a public apology in 2005. "I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and injustice...they deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated."