Category — International

Swiss professional pilot Yves Rossy, the world’s first man to fly with fitted jet fuel powered wings strapped to his back, flies during his first official demonstration above the Swiss town of Bex on May 14, 2008. Awesome! What a great invention, amazing! Please buy me one of these for my birthday

Rossy a.k.a. RocketMan or FusionMan, always dreamt of flying freely, but it took him four years of hard work on his jet design for the dream to become reality.

To achieve his bird-like status, the 48-year-old was taken up in a light aircraft, just like a normal skydiver.

After steeping out of the plane he appeared to plummet towards earth, before his fall turned to a glide and he ignited the four small jet engines attached to the carbon wing.

Once under power and using a lever to control the fuel, he had the freedom to soar where he chose.

Enjoying the demonstration, at speeds of up to 186mph, Rossy tipped his wings, flipped onto his back then levelled out again, performing a 360-degree roll.

The man then landed safely using a parachute.

He said: “This flight was excellent. It’s like a second skin. If I turn to the left, I fly left. If I nudge to the right, I go right.”

Now Rossy is planning an even greater challenge to fly across the Channel. Hmmm now what would that be, i wonder.

Each year on March 24th, ‘World Tuberculosis Day’ is observed in 22 countries including Pakistan to commemorate the day in 1882 when Nobel Prize winner Dr. Robert Koch astounded the scientific community by announcing that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. TB is as old as mankind and is the No. 1 infectious killer of adults in the world. While this disease is relatively subdued in the more developed countries, the number of people killed in other countries is alarming and mind boggling.

The slogan for the day this year is “I Am Stopping TB”. The slogan is reflecting the reality that every one of us, the health leaders, the health workers, the patients, the family, and the community members has a role to do to stop TB.

The main objective of celebrating this day is to educate and inspire people to adopt a healthier lifestyle to prevent and cure Tuberculosis, “The Forgotten Killer” and achieve a happier and more productive life. As Tuberculosis or TB is curable with six-to-nine months treatment. But unfortunately it has been reported in Punjab, Pakistan that TB patients donot complete their treatment >>> unaware of the fact that it may then develop drug-resistant strains that take up to two years to treat with second-line drugs, often with severe side-effects. Some resistant strains are untreatable with any existing antibiotics.

TB is an infectious disease which is caused by a bacteria whose scientific name is Mycobacterium tuberculosis… Know More And Here are a few types of TB.

According to a report one-third of the world’s population is currently infected with TB. About 60,000 TB patients die annually in Pakistan alone and another 2,00,000 are added to the number each year.

And now is the right time for all of us to unite and help WHO in spreading awareness how to prevent and cure this disease by organizing events, raising funds or by simply taking our prescribed medicine on time.

No one likes odd. Odd stands out (duuh!) and it makes the rest of us feel uncomfortable. Apple computers used the same niche to differentiate itself, claiming that Apple computeres are for ‘the square pegs in round holes’. Celebrating oddity - or uniqueness - is a quality not many of us possess. Tare Zameen Parr, the great Indian movie by Amir Khan, also focuses on this oddity that needs to be taken care of properly.
Then there is oddity that will make a terrorist out of you. Or so thinks the London’ administration. I have no doubts that survelance of the following nature will do more harm than good.

A filmmaker in London writes:

Being a filmmaker, I’m constantly taking pictures of odd things. I know my filmmaker mates do the same thing. Now, I’ll be wondering if I look odd…I don’t want to be spying on my neighbor because they all look a bit odd. How the hell am I supposed to know what’s really odd?

emphasis by blogger Daneeta Loretta - via London Metblogs - full post here.

PHA workers install models of various national monuments at the Jillani Park or Race Course Park to celebrate Jashan-e-Baharan 2008.

Spring festival or Jashn-e-baharan has started from March 1st to March 31st, 2008 in Jillani Park (Race course Park) Lahore. Jillani Park (Race course Park) will be the hub of festivities which is set to bring colour, pageantry and spectacle to the Punjab capital. The roads, especially The Mall and Canal Road, will be decorated with colourful lights and floats while cultural and musical shows will be held in different areas.

Basant, Kite flying is the major and most colorful event of this feastival. Thousands of kite-flying lovers across the globe look forward to visit Lahore and other cities during the Spring festival. But Kite-flying was seriously banned in 2005, 2006 because increase in throat-slitting incidents caused by glass-coated or metal kite-strings. Even after the ban the police sources said about seven people, including children, were killed in kite related incidents in 2007. At least 872 people have been killed and 2,100 injured in kite-related incidents during the last 5 years. And even now in February 2008, 83 people in Lahore alone have been arrested for violating kite-flying law.

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I have had the pleasure of following Obama’s enigmatic rhetoric for some time now.
I do not claim to possess the political insight to predict America’s change in policies towards Pakistan if (or rather ‘when’) Mr. Barack Obama wins, but one thing I do know is that Obama’s speeches are a very a good study in the overlap of marketing with politics. We in Pakistan, as far as marketing your politics is concerned, are far behind in terms of reaching your target market and reaching them through all possibly conceivable channels.
From appearing in Saturday Night Live to having a hip-hop tribute sung to his now-famous words “yes we can”, Obama seems to be doing everything right.
The state of Texas was a crucial state to decide once and for all that Obama is the Democrat’s candidate, but who wins Texas? Clinton wins Texas! A friend of mine was quick to predict this, sitting here in Lahore, that Texas will never vote for a black man! I, again, do not claim to possess this kind of insight.
It now gets exciting; Balaji films, take notes.

Banning is in.
Censorship is out.

You may claim that banning something and censoring something are one and the same somethings :). You are right.

But used together, let me break it down for you:
censorship has a hint of purpose behind it; it has those subtle positive connotations. Banning, on the other hand, is perceived as more of a foolish, mindless blocking.

Therefore, it can safely be said that in an attempt to censor blasphemy, Pakistan Telecom Authority banned youTube a while back. (the ban was lifted later on). PTA also has banned Blogspot, in an attempt to censor - guess what - blasphemy.

But when the US Air Force puts a blanket ban on any URL that contains the word ‘blog’ in it, they are not attempting to censor anything at all. They are just competing with the silliness of government officials around the word, and when it comes to official stupidity, US has always taken the lead. No?

The company with the largest operating system in the world also gets to pay the largest fine.

If this is not just plain monopolistic behaviour, I really do not know what is.

Read full story (external link)

Courts are empty, boycott from today.

Additionally, a bomb scare at Beaconhouse Defence. Correction; a possible explosion averted as the bomb was actually found IN the office block of the school.

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