namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

News report - my commentary follows.

(Canberra) The Australian government has passed legislation recognizing same-sex couples under a large number of laws, but the measure falls short of granting either marriage or civil unions.
The omnibus bill mounted its final hurdle Monday, winning approval in the Senate. The legislation passed the House in September. It still requires the signature of the Governor General, a formality, before going into effect.

Last night Brisbane was hit by the worst storm in a decade. One person was drowned and thousands affected by falling trees, damage to their houses, and extensive power outages which will take days to fix.

More storms forecast for this week.

"We will come out tomorrow in numbers this world has not yet seen," said Amy Balliett, the co-founder of JoinTheImpact.com, in a news release posted on the Web site Friday. See iReporters' experiences in cities nationwide

JoinTheImpact.com, which organized the rallies,was established three days after Election Day, when the three states passed the ballot initiatives.

The Vedic culture relies heavily on learning through hearing. One of the primary pramanas or sources of evidence in Vedic epistemology is sabda-pramana or "hearing from authority".

First of all watch Peter Schiff predict the 2008 economic meltdown with crystal clarity in August 2006:

And then check out his recent economic analysis of President-elect Obama:

From within the US it might look like Obama advocates and represents change. I mean after all, the guy's skin is black, right? That's a different color from the last guy...

Hugh Hefner just lost his three live-in girlfriends. Holly Madison has left, and Brigette and Kendra are not far behind

Here's another podcast from the Jorm. This time it's about the current economic crisis.

• David Jorm on the Economic Crisis .ogg .mp3

I love the way he predicts the apocalypse with the Polynesian crooning in the background...

Don't try to be a person of importance, try to be a person of value

- Albert Einstein

What we are seeing is a bunch of people who have failed to be of value, but still insist on being important.

Their focus was wrong. Don't try to be an enjoyer - strive to be a servant.

I'm not personally familiar with the situation, and all newspaper reports give a slanted version of reality.

However, reading a couple of pieces in the LA Times I get a sense of the root cause of the meltdown of the major financial institutions of the US economy.

The Fannie and Freddie situation was a result of their unique roles in the economy. They had been set up to support the housing market. They helped guarantee mortgages (provided they met certain standards), and were able to fund these guarantees by issuing their own debt, which was in turn tacitly backed by the government. The government guarantees allowed Fannie and Freddie to take on far more debt than a normal company.

As an economist, I am supposed to have something intelligent to say about the current financial crisis. To be honest, however, I haven’t got the foggiest idea what this all means.

- Steven D. Levitt, New York Times

He consults his other economist friends, Diamond and Kasyap, and they have something to say about it, so it gets better.

Google.com.au today celebrated the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider with the above graphic.

Obviously the world didn't end last night, unless the black hole swallowed the Earth and we're now in another dimension, ala The Quiet Earth.

The Large Hadron Collider is being powered up tonight.

Scientists have admitted that it may create a black hole that will swallow the Earth.

Fasting for one day each month may reduce the risk of clogged arteries by 40 percent, according to a new study conducted by researchers from Intermountain Medical Center and the University of Utah and presented at a conference of the American Heart Association.

Researchers first began to study fasting when an analysis of a health registry indicated that significantly fewer Mormons than non-Mormons in Utah suffered from the clogged arteries indicative of heart disease, even after different smoking rates were taken into account.

''We cannot say with any certainty that cellphones are either safe or not safe,'' Dr. Black said on CNN. ''My concern is that with the widespread use of cellphones, the worst scenario would be that we get the definitive study 10 years from now, and we find out there is a correlation.''

- Experts Revive Debate Over Cellphones and Cancer, New York Times

So what are intelligent responses to our predicament? First, we’ll have to dramatically reorganize the everyday activities of American life. We’ll have to grow our food closer to home, in a manner that will require more human attention. In fact, agriculture needs to return to the center of economic life. We’ll have to restore local economic networks — the very networks that the big-box stores systematically destroyed — made of fine-grained layers of wholesalers, middlemen and retailers.

The other day I went to see Mike Myer's film "The Love Guru". First of all let me say that it contains some favorable (to devotional service) elements that have stuck in my mind - like the name of the village his character grew up in: "Haremakeester", and his greeting: "Mariska Hargitay" (a pig latin-inspired "Hare Krishna").

I mentioned that the ISKCON NA press release was getting some mileage in the Hindu press - this article points out that it might not be too hard to do:

You would think a press release about a German Nazi war criminal named Johann Bach being caught in the jungles of Goa after trying to sell a stolen 18th-century piano would be worth double-checking.

The North American ISKCON Communications press release is getting some reprinting in the Indian / Hindu press:

On June 20, Mike Myers' The Love Guru hit theaters, amidst controversy that the film is offensive in its depiction of Hindu themes. In a notable departure from other Hindu organizations, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement, released a statement rejecting calls to protest the movie, and encouraging others to view the film with tolerance and a sense of humor.

Mahaprabhu's strategy was to "hijack" Hinduism - not simply go along for the ride.

The Associated Press have a good piece on "The Love Guru" and the surrounding controversy. Here's the opening sentence:

In the run-up to this weekend's release of "The Love Guru," self-described Hindu leader Rajan Zed began blasting e-mail releases to media outlets (including The Associated Press) from his Nevada home, stating his objections to the Mike Myers comedy when it was still a two-minute trailer.

Watch this space for my movie review (Mike Myers is hilarious in my book).

ISKCON's North American Communications gurus have released official statements (here and here) on the engineered controversy surrounding Mike Myer's new film "The Love Guru".

That other group dedicated to the downfall of materialistic globalized civilization is also facing significant internal debate over traditional gender roles. From CNN comes the story: "Al Qaeda faces gender debate".

In an April 2005 post entitled The Inevitability of Gay Marriage I wrote: "Over the next ten years time anyone opposed to Gay marriage will increasingly be viewed like someone who opposes freedom for black people or suffrage for women."