"Unafraid of pythons…"

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SM’s favorite plus-size man is in the spotlight once again [via Dhoomketu]. Dalip Singh (see previous posts 1,2) made his World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) debut earlier this week (watch him introduced). I will give $5 to anyone who can translate what he says for SM readers :). Here is the ring-side play-by-play:

Daivari made his triumphant return with the giant Dalip Singh! They walked out from backstage, slowly walking to the ring. The announcers didn’t know who this giant man was, but noted that he was being managed by Mark Henry’s manager. Taker bounced Henry’s head off the announce table.

[Under]Taker turned around and saw Singh. Singh stepped over the top rope and got in the ring, staring down Taker. Taker got in the ring. Taker had to look up at Singh. The announcers talked about how massive Singh is. Taker threw a right hand, but Singh basically no sold it. He threw another right hand, but it barely moved him. Singh then hit a karate chop to the head of Taker, knocking him down! Taker sat up, but Singh grabbed him by the throat. He ripped open one of the turnbuckles with one hand, then bounced Taker’s head off the exposed turnbuckle. Singh headbutted Taker in the back of the head twice. Daivari shouted “Do it again! Do it again!” Singh delivered another headbutt to the back of the head. There were tons of boos from the crowd. Singh hit a big kick to Taker’s head. Singh stood over the downed Taker as Daivari celebrated next to him. [Link]

Instead of the above you could just watch the clip and do your own play-by-play. I was never much into “entertainment” wrestling. The only reason I sometimes watched as a kid was because my dad wouldn’t let me. He said watching wrestling made you dumber and so it was forbidden in our house. I’d watch occasionally because I don’t like being told what to do, plus I wanted to see if he was right. The character that Singh plays in the WWE is named “the Great Khali.” He has quite a bio:

Hailing from India, The Great Khali stands at an impressive 7 foot 3 and weighs 420 pounds. The Great Khali has walked the jungles of India unafraid of pythons and wrestled White Bengal tigers. Daivari claims that The Great Khali has “stared into the abyss and the earth trembled at his gaze.” One of the largest athletes the WWE has ever bared witness to, The Great Khali stands to be a powerful force and a threat to every member of the SmackDown locker room. [Link]

But…here is something not in his WWE bio. Singh has wrestled in the States before. According to many wrestling observers he is a nice guy but just not any good at wrestling. Actually, in 2001 he accidentally killed a man in the ring by doing an imperfect “powerbomb.”

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In a puff of smoke

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A Kashmiri man was recently injured by an explosive cigarette either distributed by militants or airdropped by Acme Corporation. While I feel terrible for the guy who was hurt, the moral here is, don’t pick up stuff by the side of the road and, like, smoke it.

Thakkar landed in hospital after he lit one of the two cigarettes he found lying in a field in Mislai village of Doda district…

… terrorists are probably experimenting with the low-cost idea of filling cigarettes with explosives, leaving them in public places to tempt smokers to pick these and light up. [Link]

“Militants are now using explosive-filled cigarettes to carry out blasts in Jammu and Kashmir. One such cigarette has been recovered last night,” Col Badola said. [Link]

If the FDA randomly hid a few of these in every thousand packs of cigarettes, just imagine where the smoking rate would be now.

That’s right, exactly the same. Only some smokers would need to switch hands while taking a hit off the cancer stick.

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Biju vs. The Stanford Daily

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A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about how Biju Mathew was in the Bay Area speaking on topics of taxi wallahs, an event coordinated by the people at Friends of South Asia (FOSA). He was invited to speak at Stanford, but then The Stanford Daily wrote a story on April 8th (Friday) which accused Biju of having communist and terrorist sympathies– suggestions received from an anonymous source.

Biju

One source, a man who has protested against previous FOSA events, but wished to remain anonymous, expressed concern over what he perceives as Islamist and Communist sympathies within the organization. Mathew himself has also drawn criticism for his radical political beliefs… At one time his Web page featured a link to the Unabomber’s Manifesto, although the link is no longer active… The same protester said that he is troubled by Mathew’s “support for the Unabomber and his association with the Communist Party of India (Marxist).”[link]

Because of the article, Biju was kicked off of speaking on campus. All this makes me reminisce of that time here at UCLA that Vinay Lal made Dirty Thirty list, and the McCarthyism-like tactics that were used. This article was officially retracted over the weekend, and on Monday The Stanford Daily stated the following apology…

We apologize for last Friday’s article on the upcoming event organized by Friends of South Asia (FOSA) (“Leftist speaker sparks debate,” Apr. 7). FOSA does not have any ties to Communist or terrorist groups. We should not have made such allegations on the basis of a single anonymous source. We also apologize to Prof. Biju Mathew for associating him in any way with the Unabomber and other extremist elements.[link]

Tsk, tsk. Bad journalism at its finest. Even I, as a mere blogger, could have told you not to base your story on one anonymous source. This letter to the editor sums it up, pretty much.

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The Kafka index

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The French government has announced it will rate bureaucratic red tape using a ‘Kafka index’:

France has created a “Kafka index” that measures the complexity of a project or law against its usefulness to cut red tape. The index – referring to Franz Kafka’s The Trial, which describes one man’s fight against a nightmarish bureaucracy – is a scale of one to 100 measuring how many hurdles, from forms to letters or phone calls, are needed to win state permits or aid for a project.

“It is an indicator to measure as objectively as possible the most complex procedures so that we can then simplify them,” said a government spokesman. [Link]

I’d have suggested a Brazil index had I not witnessed the following exchange at a Reliance Mobile branch in Bombay last week:

Customer: I closed my account a month ago, but you billed me another thousand bucks.

Rep: Saar, you have to clear an additional 80 rupee charge.

Customer: Where do I go to get the account permanently closed?

Rep: Saar, you must go to the Lilavati branch.

Customer: I’ve been going there for four days now. Every day they say their systems are down.

Rep: Saar, that is the only branch which can close accounts.

Customer: I just came from there!

Rep:

You must go there only.

Customer:

 I just came from there!

Rep: You must go there only.

Customer: I just came from there!

Rep: You must go there only.

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No justice, no purse

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The survivors of the Pan Am Flight 73 hijacking of 1986 have just filed a $10B reparations suit against the government of Libya because of information which came out in 2004 about Libya’s role:

… the lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, and it seeks $10 billion in compensatory damages, as well as unspecified punitive damages, from Libya, its long-time leader, Muammar Qadhafi, and the five convicted militants, all of whom were members of the notorious group Abu Nidal Organisation (ANO). [Link]

The Bombay-Karachi-Frankfurt-JFK flight was taken over in Karachi by a Middle Eastern terror group called Abu Nidal. Four men dressed as Pakistani security guards and bristling with arms got on board the Boeing 747. Twenty people were massacred on board:The hijackers had intended to crash the jumbo jet into Tel Aviv

Flight attendants were able to alert the cockpit crew using intercom, allowing the pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer to escape through a hatch in the cockpit, effectively grounding the aircraft…

… flight attendants surreptitiously declined to collect some of the United States passports and hid other United States passports from the hijackers… [Link]

Sometimes it’s better to be a citizen of a subcontinental country:

When [Jordanian terrorist Zayd Safarini] arrived at the seat of Rajesh Kumar, a 29-year-old California resident who had recently been naturalized as an American citizen, Safarini ordered Kumar to go to the front doorway of the aircraft and to kneel with his hands behind his head… Shortly thereafter he shot Kumar in the head and pushed him out the door onto the tarmac below… [Link]

Surviving passenger Jay Grantier, a resident of the state of Washington, said, “This was an attack on America. The terrorists murdered their first victim because he was an American, and when they ordered the cabin crew to collect all our passports, it was pretty obvious that they intended to kill more of us in the hours to come.” [Link]

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Ohio’s newest puppetmaster

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In 2005 much of Ohio politics was dominated by the controversy surrounding a scandal dubbed “Coingate” by the media:

Coingate is a nickname for the Thomas Noe investment scandal in Ohio revealed in early 2005 in part by Ohio newspaper Toledo Blade. The Ohio government’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation fund (BWC) invested hundreds of millions of dollars in high risk or unconventional investment vehicles run by people closely connected to the Ohio Republican party who had made large campaign contributions to many senior Republican party officials.

A rare coin investment fund has attracted particular scrutiny after it was reported that two coins worth more than $300,000 had been lost. Further investigation then revealed that coins worth $10-$12 million were missing and that only $13 million of the original $50 million invested could be accounted for. [Link]

As you would expect, politicians, especially Democrats running for office this year, find it beneficial to point to the Coingate affair as another example of Republican corruption and a reason to vote to change the status quo. One of those politicians is a Democrat named Subodh Chandra (see previous SM mention here) who is running for Attorney General of Ohio. Subodh recently talked about the Coingate affair to drum up support at one of his fundraisers. Well…he didn’t so much “talk” about Coingate, rather he…well you’ll see:

Apparently it was a “kid friendly” fundraiser. What? Kids in pre-school really do dig politics. The man is providing a valuable service to a segment of the population that lacks a voice in their government. His puppeteering skills aren’t bad either. Continue reading →

Not too sharp a Kirpan (updated)

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A newly declassified Indian navy investigation says that the only Indian naval vessel ever sunk by an enemy submarine was inadequately protected, and the Indian navy initiated an immediate cover-up. The Pakistani sub Hangor torpedoed the INS Khukri during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. An accompanying Indian ship fled instead of returning fire. But many involved received awards for gallantry rather than court martials for dereliction of duty.

… a Pakistani submarine torpedoed and sank the Khukri on the night of December 9, 1971. It is the single biggest wartime casualty of independent India. There was never a court of inquiry to find out if anyone was responsible for the ship going down.

… in their last moments some 250 officers and sailors of the Khukri were abandoned by INS Kirpan, an accompanying naval ship that should have carried out an immediate counterattack250 sailors were abandoned by an accompanying naval ship . It also reveals that the navy’s claim that it hunted and sank the Pakistani submarine a few hours later to be false. The Hangor returned to Karachi harbour safely…

“The Khukri, in company with another A/S (anti-submarine) ship Kirpan, was torpedoed and sunk without even an engagement with the enemy. Eighteen officers and 176 sailors perished with the Khukri. Both the COs deserved to be punished, but the higher authorities gave them gallantry awards. INS Khukri and INS Kirpan violated every principle of A/S doctrine for hunter killer operations…” [Link]

If true, this revisionism may be linked to a military and civilian culture which gives greater weight to saving face than fixing problems.

… It also raises uncomfortable questions about numerous gallantry awards given out by the government to many involved in the incident. [Link]

It reminds me of the Pat Tillman friendly fire cover-up by the U.S. Army Rangers:

… the military’s top commanders were covering up the truth to protect their image… Although “soldiers on the scene said they were immediately sure Tillman was killed by a barrage of American bullets,” according to the Post, and “a new Army report on the death shows that top Army officials, including the theater commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, were told that Tillman’s death was fratricide days before the service,” Army officials decided not to inform Tillman’s family or the public until weeks after the memorial…
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Our Blue Turbaned Mayor (Updated)

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I was mindlessly watching the mind-numbing local news of Los Angeles (it’s usually either a shooting or a car chase), and I did a double take. On my TV, there was a group of Sikhs parading on the streets in front of the Staple Center and a shot of Mayor Villaraigosa in a blue turban.[Google image has not been able to help me on this one, but trust.]

“What makes L.A. so special is that we come here from every corner of the Earth to participate in the American dream,” [Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa] said during a prayer service at the Los Angeles Convention Center, part of a celebration for Baisakhi Day, the India-based religion’s annual holiday of renewal and rebirth…Organizers said that as many as 15,000 Sikhs from throughout Southern California attended the daylong event, which included music, free food and a colorful parade through downtown.[link]

Busy weekend. Not only was it Sri Lankan New Year, Bangladeshi Bengali New Year, Thai New Year (with water fights), Easter, the Los Angeles SM Meetup, but it was Baisakhi Day as well.

L.A.’s Blue Turbaned Mayor

Baisakhi Day, which historically marks the year’s first harvest, commemorates a principal guru’s directive in 1699 that Sikhs “become protectors of the human spirit.” [link]

The Sadh Sangat of Sikh Dharma held its first celebration of Baisakhi in Los Angeles in April, 1970…Since the late 1980s, the Sikh Dharma Baisakhi Celebration has been held at the vast Los Angeles Convention Center, in collaboration with a network of Southern California Gurdwaras…This year’s Baisakhi theme is “We are the Khalsa – A Legacy of Service.”… To highlight that standard, this year Golden Temple Cereals, a socially and environmentally responsible company founded by Yogi Bhajan, will be making a presentation to the Los Angeles Mayor’s office on behalf of the entire Sikh Community of Southern California, and donating a truckload of Peace Cereals to the Los Angeles Food Bank. [link]

Yum, Peace Cereal. And a peaceful post 9/11 message at the parade to go with it…

“In the post-9/11 environment, the turban has gotten a lot of negative associations because of the images we’ve seen,” said Ek Ong Kaar Kaur Khalsa, a spokeswoman for Sikh Dharma International, one of the event’s sponsors… “The Sikh turban, from a values perspective, is synonymous with the core Bill of Rights.” [link]

Whatever your holiday of choice was this weekend, I hope it went well-!

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Everything’s More Fun in a Group

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Meetups might just be the most delightfully unexpected dish which is made from all this flavorful brownness (which conveniently is contained in one savory packet). When liveblogging isn’t possible, sometimes the best substitute is looking at all the wacky, joyful pictures which inevitably get captured by the half-dozen or so cameras which tend to be around (80% of which are Canons– you read it here first).

Now that we’ve had several meetups in four Amreekan cities, I just know that there are potentially hundreds of pictures moldering away on your computers, pictures which could find a home in the Flickr group created just for the Mutiny. LA Mutineers, this is a gentle plea to share your pictures with the rest of us via this outlet. If you are already a member of Flickr, you may comment on the 100 photographs which are already up, all from last month’s fantastic DC meetup. If you’re not a member, you can still view all pictures by clicking here.

I PROMISE you’ll want to see what’s hiding after the jump. 😉 Continue reading →