Author Archives: Abhi

About Abhi

Abhi lives in Los Angeles and works to put things into space.

Hamdan, Katyal, and Swift beat Rumsfeld

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As we have blogged about several times before, The Supreme Court has been considering the case of Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld for most of this year. Today the court handed down a 5-3 decision (Chief Justice Roberts had to recuse himself) in favor of Hamdan. It was also a victory for his two lawyers, Indian American attorney Neal Katyal, and Cmdr. Charles Swift. It has been the most awaited decision of the year.

A great victory…at least for now

The Supreme Court today delivered a sweeping rebuke to the Bush administration, ruling that the military tribunals it created to try terror suspects violate both American military law and the Geneva Convention.

In a 5-to-3 ruling, the justices also rejected an effort by Congress to strip the court of jurisdiction over habeas corpus appeals by detainees at the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

And the court found that the plaintiff in the case, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, could not be tried on the conspiracy charge lodged against him because international military law requires that prosecutions focus on specific acts, not broad conspiracy charges. [Link]

The Court split along idealogical lines and Roberts had to recuse himself because The Court had overturned his ruling on this case when he was a still a lower court judge. Thomas hasn’t been this unhappy since the Coke incident:

Justice Thomas took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench, the first time he has done so in his 15 years on the court. He said that the ruling would “sorely hamper the president’s ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy…” [Link]

Hamdan’s other attorney, a JAG officer, issued a statement after the ruling:

Cmdr. Charles Swift, the Navy lawyer assigned by the military to represent Mr. Hamdan, said at a televised news conference held outside the Supreme Court that the logical next step would be for Mr. Hamdan to be tried either by a traditional military court martial, as provided for under the Geneva Convention, or by a federal court.

He called today’s ruling “a return to our fundamental values.”

“That return marks a high-water point,” Commander Swift said. “It shows that we can’t be scared out of who [we] are, and that’s a victory, folks…” [Link]

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Posted in Law

Bo-ne Head

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Turbanhead sends us word that Media Matters.org has posted a news clip from last Friday which clearly demonstrates why Fox News continues to be the cable news leader. It is from a program called “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” Cavuto in this segment is “interviewing” someone named Bo Dietl who is somehow important. As you watch I think you should keep in mind that this is your world he is ranting about. The title says so, remember?

One of our worker monkeys must have altered the image before it landed on my desk.

Here is a quick summary:

During the June 23 edition of Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, Bo Dietl, chairman and founder of the private investigation firm Beau Dietl & Associates, argued that the recent arrest in Miami of seven men on charges of conspiracy, which allegedly included plans to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago, illustrates that “we can’t go off … where we are going with [racial] profiling.” Referring to the men as a “crew of mutts,” Dietl suggested that “[t]he people that are coming in to our country” are “like a cancer” and “[w]e need some chemotherapy now.” He further stated that law enforcement officials should “[g]o into your 7-Elevens or go into one of these stores that keep rotating young men who are Muslims,” and say “identify yourself.” However, when host Neil Cavuto asked if “racial profiling [would] have worked” in the case of the Chicago plot, Dietl responded that it wouldn’t, because “[t]hey look like Americans.” Dietl then added: “[M]y point is that the attack will come from a Muslim person,” so law enforcement should go to Muslim communities, “knock on the door,” and say “[w]e would like you to identify yourself…” [Link]

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No More Tears Sister

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Begining on Tuesday night (but staggered depending upon where you live) on PBS, the series P.O.V. will be featuring a must-watch episode titled “No More Tears Sister: Anatomy of Hope and Betrayal.” This one’s a no brainer. You got to Tivo it at least.

If love is the first inspiration of a social revolutionary, as has sometimes been said, no one better exemplified that idea than Dr. Rajani Thiranagama. Love for her people and her newly independent nation, and empathy for the oppressed of Sri Lanka — including women and the poor — led her to risk her middle-class life to join the struggle for equality and justice for all. Love led her to marry across ethnic and class lines. In the face of a brutal government crackdown on her Tamil people, love led her to help the guerrilla Tamil Tigers, the only force seemingly able to defend the people. When she realized the Tigers were more a murderous gang than a revolutionary force, love led her to break with them, publicly and dangerously. Love then led her from a fulfilling professional life in exile back to her hometown of Jaffna and to civil war, during which her human rights advocacy made her a target for everyone with a gun. She was killed on September 21, 1989 at the age of 35. [Link]

You can view a trailer of the episode on the website. I recommend switching it to Quicktime mode as it seems to stream better.

There are a host of interviews on the site including one with the filmmaker, Helene Klodawsky:

I’m very interested in subjects that we don’t hear about often in the normal press. So I was very, very interested in ethnic nationalist war from the point of view of women. We’re always hearing about wars between different factions, different ethnic groups, but rarely do we hear about those wars from the point of view of women. And I was interested in Sri Lanka — it’s one of these wars that have gone on forever and nobody understands it. I knew that Sri Lanka was entering a peace process, so I was curious to see how women would be engaged in that peace process.

Once I started looking at the conflict, someone said, if you really want to understand Sri Lanka and ethnic war, you must look at the work of the University Teachers for Human Rights. [Link]

After you watch this episode come back and leave comments here. I think it could be an interesting discussion. Check your local listings here.

See related posts: All-American girls in Calcutta

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Posted in TV

There is no place like home for Raj Goyle

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A couple of weeks ago Kansan Raj Goyle filed the necessary papers to take a run at a seat in the Kansas House of Representatives (thanks for the tip AK). The Wichita Eagle reported:

Taking back Red States one at a time 🙂

Flanked by family, friends and supporters, Raj Goyle announced his bid for a seat in the Kansas House of Representatives on Tuesday at Wichita State University.

Goyle, 30, is the only Democrat to file against incumbent Bonnie Huy for the 87th District seat.

Huy, a Republican who was first elected to the House in 2000, has filed for re-election.

Goyle grew up in east Wichita and graduated from Duke University in 1997 and Harvard Law School in 2000. A lecturer at Wichita State University, Goyle said he will push for more education funding, improved health care, better jobs and neighborhoods and alternative energy sources.

Goyle has worked as a constitutional lawyer and a policy analyst. He was an intern at The Wichita Eagle during the summers of 1992 and 1993.

He also has worked for the Maryland ACLU on post-Sept. 11 immigration issues and voting rights, and was an advocate for homeland security issues in Washington, D.C. [Link]

Those are the type of credentials I like to see in a desi candidate. Harvard Law followed by work with the ACLU will hopefully get him the win, although a democrat running in Wichita obviously has his work cut out for him. We have also learned that the more qualified candidate can still fall short sometimes. There is more about Raj on his website:

My life in Wichita began at the tender age of nine months old and it wasn’t long before I was bringing people together to help improve our community. When I was 15, I helped organize a community-wide recycling program that saved hundreds of pounds of garbage from the county landfill and led to a large cleanup of the Arkansas River downtown. As a reporter for the Wichita Eagle, I worked with U.S.D. 259 to produce the annual ‘back-to-school’ issue and wrote a column on each high school in the city…

In high school, I was active in sports, debate, and newspaper, and was honored to graduate as both valedictorian and student body president. [Link]

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Postcards from the 2006 Artwallah Festival

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I spent the entire day yesterday at the Artwallah Festival in Los Angeles. Since many of you couldn’t be out here for the festival I thought I would do my part to relate the experience through some pictures that I took. I bought a new camera recently so forgive me for going overboard with the colors. 🙂

Micro Pixie soothes the crowd with her ambient sound.

Adnan does his thing while Micro Pixie does hers.

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A brown Justice League?

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All of a sudden the desi comic book scene seems to be blowing up. It has led me to pose the timely question, “is the world ready for a brown Justice League?”

Let’s meet some of the candidates. First we have Sonic. No, not the hedgehog. This one is all woman as you can see. Sonic is featured in the new comic book series titled Guardian Heroes by Kevin Grevioux, who was one of the folks behind the movie Underworld.

There are three questions that immediately came to mind:

1) Does this woman workout at Manish’s gym in Mumbai?
2) What are the tunes she be spinning from those long fingered hands?
3) Does the oversized bindi have any special powers associated with it?

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Not the official sponsor of the Mutiny

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“Yo Dad” informs me that the local free paper in the D.C. suburb where he lives has been advertising a new beverage called Café Sepia.

Experience the finest in coffee with ITO EN’s new CAF&Eacute SEPIA (TM). Each ready-to-drink coffee delivers an artful balance of aroma, body and flavor. Our beans are specially selected for their unmistakable character…to create a truly exceptional coffee encounter. [Link]

I wish we had thought of this first. It would have solved our funding problems. My mom says we should sue them. The question is, “is it any good?” I hate the taste of coffee so I am going to rely on the blog Air Massive to give us a review:

We’re sad to report that Caf&eacute Sepia tasted weak. It was too watery and diluted than we like. In fact, it lacked the coffee punch of even most established major brands of Japanese can coffee. (Personally, the Boss brand is our gold standard in this East Asian drinks sub-genre.) Caf&eacute Sepia didn’t taste “bad,” mind you. It was actually pleasant to the tongue. But we expect more — much more — from anything that a drinks maker dares call coffee. [Link]
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First we play…then we’ll meditate

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Via our News tab (thanks WGiiA) we get a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been if only India had fielded a World Cup Team…of Hindu ascetics. From the Associated Press:

Peep the footwork on the right. Put this guy in for Ronaldo.

If I worked for Addidas I would have my new ad campaign right here. Those feet just need some free shoes.

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A big sloppy hug

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Thank you again to everyone that donated cash over the last 36 hours to keep this blog running for the next year and to allow us to make some cool new improvements. I just want to give you all a big sloppy hug. We are taking the thermometer and the Paypal link down for now. Counting the people who had asked to mail in checks, we will make our $1000 goal for the year Whether you sent in $1 or a $100 we appreciate your contribution and will try and live up to the high expectations.

Despite the fact that even the smallest of donations means a lot to us, we wanted to single out the following people for going well beyond the call of duty in the amount they were able to donate this time around:

1) Brimful– Given her donation this year and last year she would own a substantial amount of stock in SM if we went public.

2) Seema K.- A dedicated reader and tipster from the East Coast. You rock.

3) DesiDudeinAustin/Gotham- He will be co-hosting the first Texas meet-up with me in a few months.

4) Yo Dad- I promise to mow the lawn next time I’m at home.

5) Vijay C.- We appreciate the love.

6) My attorney in Chicago- You know how I’m going to thank you.

7) VMN Rao- Drinks are on me this weekend.

8) Mahesh G.- Much thanks and please come to a meet-up if you can.

9) Our favorite Canadian (a.k.a. Neha)- We are giving you a second monkey and making you the SM colonial governor of the territories of Canada.

Now, ideally I would post all your names as gratitude but I know that some of you want to keep your privacy. Please try and make it to a meet-up so that we can thank you properly and feel free to email us with any suggestions for improving the site (we might already be working on your idea ;).

And now we return you to your regularly scheduled Mutiny.

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Where can I get…

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You’d be surprised at how often we get these kinds of questions come in over our “Contact Line.”

Message:

hey where did you buy the vikash dhorasoo jersey from? i’ve been looking for it everywhere

What do we look like…Google? Someone want to help this dude out? In the meantime I have another item that may interest Vikash Dhorasoo (a.k.a The Great Brown Hope) fans. The official Dhorasoo action figure from his regular team Paris Saint-Germain:

Now I know it may not look exactly like him. The skin color should be darker. But who really cares? A few years ago I actually looked into making bobble-head dolls and action figures of me. I thought, “what a great gift to give to friends.” Who couldn’t use a bobble-head Abhi to kick around? My action figure would have been extra-muscular though. And I’d finally have perfect hair. You have to buy in bulk though and I just don’t have that many friends.

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