Piss Krishna

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Penises of Paradise: You could be forgiven for thinking a post with this subtitle refers to the prowess of the male Mutineers. Alas, our significant others demand truth in advertising. Actually, our old friend Beads of Paradise has thrown a new wrinkle into its exotica-dealing ways: it’s encircled Ganesh with a garland of penises. A dangle-sutra. A dick-lace.

I’m bemused by the dildos strewn around the feet of the idols, and the well-hung Buddhas dangling off Christmas trees. Is this Inuit-Hindu totemic mashup? Is it a newfangled fertility ritual? Are they invoking the subcontinental symbol of disgrace, the garland of shoes? Andrés Serrano would be proud.

Color me unimpressed by the gonads on display. Here’s what a real New York set looks like, from this year’s Halloween parade (NSFW after the jump).

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Panic room

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Reader Dhaavak reports that he narrowly escaped a violent in-car mugging at the hands of a criminal pretending to be a construction worker. It’s the prototypical Good Samaritan horror story. Glad you’re safe!

I was approaching the stop light when a man with a construction worker’s safety gear stepped out of the side and waved at me to stop… The construction worker walked up to my side and said that he needs a jump for his truck… “Sure guy. Come in”, I said, asking the guy to get in.

… he caught hold of my neck with both hands and started choking me. “You are about to die”, he said as he squeezed.

It was a powerful grip and I started struggling. I had my left leg half way out and I kept trying to push the door open. He was quite strong and pulled me towards him with the neck. I used my left hand to try to pry open his hands and tried to honk the horn with my right knee. “Don’t kick open the door”, he warned, “Hand me your wallet, or I will kill you”. I got a couple of fingers open and then all of a sudden, he let go.

I leaped out of the door and turned around to face him. I noticed my lights were flashing and the horn was honking. I had inadvertently pressed the panic button… [Link]

Lesson learned:

Do not ever get into someone else’s car or allow some stranger into your own… If someone approaches you for help, lower the window just a little, offer to call on the cell-phone, but don’t let anyone enter your car. [Link]

There’s a silver lining. By nearly getting himself killed, Dhaavak pulls himself off Abhi’s list:

(13) dhaavak- This is the most boring blog EVER. [Link]

Read the whole thing.

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Canadian peace activists abducted

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Yesterday the Canadian government declared that two of its citizens, both humanitarian workers, had been abducted in Iraq. It decided to keep their identities secret for the time being. CBC News reported:

The Canadians were among four people – all humanitarian workers – who disappeared.

Media reports say the other two hostages are a British man believed to be in his 70s, and an American. A British Foreign Office spokeswoman has identified the missing Briton as Norman Kember.

Canada’s Defence Minister Bill Graham says the government will do everything it can to help free the hostages. He did not provide any details.

Foreign Affairs spokesperson Rodney Moore told CBC.ca on Monday that the department is “closely monitoring the situation.” It is “not giving any names,” of the individuals involved, he said, since “we have to respect the families” of the people taken hostage.

Today the identities of the two men were released (thanks for the tip Dhaavak). They are Harmeet Singh Sooden and James Loney:

James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden, both members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, were among four aid workers abducted Sunday at gunpoint, the organization confirmed in a statement late Tuesday.

Mr. Loney, 41, a community worker from Toronto, had spent many years working with the city’s homeless before joining the organization in 2000. He had been leading the group before he was abducted.

Mr. Sooden, 32, a Canadian electrical engineer, was described by his family as being “peaceful and fun-loving and he is known to be passionate about the plight of the underprivileged around the globe.”

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Don’t F#ck with my website!

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Back in May of 2003 Indian American Biswanath Halder went on a shooting spree on the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. CBS news reported at the time:

The 62-year-old man accused of a shooting spree at a prestigious Cleveland university had military training with the Indian army and a grudge against an employee, authorities said Saturday.

Biswanath Halder, armed with two handguns, allegedly killed one person, wounded two others and held police at bay for seven hours Friday in a shiny, swirling building filled with twisting corridors that complicated his capture.

Halder wore a bulletproof vest and a wig glued on “a kind of World War II Army helmet” as he walked the halls of Case Western Reserve University’s Peter B. Lewis Building and fired hundreds of rounds, police Chief Edward Lohn said.

“There’s a trail of blood throughout,” Lohn said. “It was a cat-and-mouse game.”

Now, nearly three years later, Halder’s trial has begun (thanks for the tip Joyce J.):

“This case is about two things, arrogance and selfishness,” assistant county prosecutor Rick Bell told the jury in the Cuyahoga County common pleas court yesterday.

Halder, accused of killing student Norman Wallace and injuring two other persons during the siege on may 9, 2003, has repeatedly said information he considered vital to his own life’s work was destroyed.

The defence position is that Halder was trying to protect “mankind” from a cyber criminal. [Link]

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Fight AIDS in your Computer’s Spare Time!

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In honor of the upcoming Support World AIDS Day(Thursday),

The World Community Grid team has announced the FightAIDS @ Home project. By downloading their screensaver you donate your computer’s idle processing power to the project. The increased processing power will hopefully allow researchers to more aggressively and quickly screen possible HIV-fighting drugs. [Link]

AIDS is an increasing problem in India:

India has had a sharp increase in the estimated number of HIV infections, from a few thousand in the early 1990s to around 5.1 million children and adults living with HIV/AIDS in 2003. [Link]

This software is similar to the SETI @ home project that was popular a few years ago, no more intrusive but with (IMHO) a much higher probability of success. A full explanation of the program follows for the geeks amongst us:

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Papal pull

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The new pope of the Catholic empire has put the rebel alliance of Assisi and its dialogue with Hindus and Buddhists in check:

Peace, love and tolerance: you disgust me

In a decree published Nov. 19, the pope placed the Franciscans in Assisi under the… control of a new local bishop… The edict overturned autonomy granted in 1969 by Pope Paul VI that in effect made the Franciscans ambassadors to peace movements and to outside cultural and religious groups… So far, [Pope Benedict’s] reign has been an exercise in the tightening of practice to match church doctrine as he sees it… [Link]

Rise, Lord Ratzinger. What bugs the new pope about those hippie-dippy Franciscan friars: respectful, tolerant interfaith exchange. Why, those reasonable bastards.

In the view of critics, few places within the church challenged Catholic certainties more flamboyantly than Assisi. In particular, interfaith meetings held in the hilltop town appeared to them to be a kind of food court of dangerous relativist thinking.

… Benedict was settling scores with the Franciscans over a “carnival-like” interfaith meeting they hosted in 1986. Voodoo priests, American Indian dancers and African animists took part… The Franciscans went beyond agreed-upon rules by allowing pagan worship practices to take place on church property, and Benedict “never forgave the Franciscan community for the excesses…” [Link]

Voodoo, Native Americans and animists are fine, but what really gets the good pope’s robes in a twist are Hindus and Buddhists:

St. Francis basilica at Assisi

“… during [the previous pope’s] voyage to India, he had given speeches of unprecedented openness toward that country’s religions, and at Bombay had even let a priestess of the god Shiva anoint his forehead with a sacred Hindu symbol…”

Some of the city’s churches were allotted for the prayers of Buddhists, Hindus, and African animists, as if these buildings were neutral containers, void of any indelible Christian value. The Buddhists set up a shrine of Buddha on the altar of the local Church of Saint Peter. The absence from Assisi of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger [the new pope]… was not improperly interpreted as… self-distancing… [Link]

Hinduism, he said, offers ‘false hope’; it guarantees ‘purification’ based on a ‘morally cruel’ concept of reincarnation resembling ‘a continuous circle of hell’…… [Link]

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Ain’t no junk in her trunk

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M.I.A. says in an Urb magazine interview that she took a lot of flak for licensing ‘Galang’ for a Honda Civic ad:

Ahh, fake hipster outrage keeps me warm at night. Our own Sajit (Gandhi, not Ghandi) defends the TV spot in the story. The title’s a little familiar, too:

Read the whole thing.

Update: Another mag cover (thanks, Amardeep). Spin, spin, spin.

Related posts: Ga-ching-a-ching-a-ching, Lolita Was a Man Eatah

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Coming down is the hardest thing

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Vijaypat Singhania, the 67-year-old Richard Branson of India, set a new hot air balloon altitude record in Bombay on Saturday at 69,000 feet:

Indian Vijaypat Singhania has claimed a new world record for the highest flight in a hot air balloon, after a voyage lasting several hours. The 67-year-old textile tycoon soared past 21,000 metres (69,000 feet) but fell just short of his original target. He travelled in a pressurised cabin attached to a balloon as high as a 22-storey building… [Link]

The temperature outside the balloon was expected to fall as low as minus 93 C and oxygen was negligible. Before taking off, Singhania stressed the importance of the pressurized cabin, saying that if he was exposed to such temperatures his “blood would boil.” [Link]

This is at a height no living being had been and is nearly two-and-half times the height of Mount Everest. [Link]

At least 17 aviators have attempted to beat the existing high altitude balloon record… “The aviation industry shudders at adventure flights. I chose India because it is my home and I feel [it] needs to be on the world aviation map… This flight is both dangerous and demanding…”

Most hot air balloons are powered by propane gas, but propane burners have never been tested at this altitude. [Link]

Singhania is a men’s suiting entrepreneur — I guarantee it:

Before taking off Mr Singhania, who chairs Indian textile giant Raymond Group, told the BBC that flying was in his blood. [Link]

Like SpaceShipOne’s record shot, he ran into difficulties:

The unexpectedly strong winds lifted off his balloon from its moorings prematurely, even before he was fully ready. Whereas the balloon should have taken off vertically, the gust dragged him westwards towards the sea at a dangerously low altitude. At this juncture a rescue helicopter set off in pursuit and chief co-coordinator Andy Elson radioed to Vijaypat that he should ditch the balloon into the sea. [Link]

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