A TRUE Pakistani

A boy is try to attach the Pakistani flag with his “Jhuggi” for 14 Aug (2009), so now my question is who is a TRUE pakistani? Are we TRUE Pakistani? No, for me he is a TRUE PAKISTANI and I salute him. for me its Million $ picture…

what would you like to say here… ?

David Miliband Experiences Loadshedding in Pakistan

Pakistani public has been facing the worst humanitarian as well as power crisis this year. All over Pakistan the load shedding hours are unlimited and unbearable in scorching summer season.

Traditionally people use hand held fan commonly called ‘Pakhi’ or ‘Pankhi’, to cope up. More or less same kind of hand held fan of a file has been used by British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, David Miliband on his recent visit to a modern Islamic school in Multan. He was spotted in the press conference along with a “file fan” during a power outage. Mr. Shah Mahmood Qureshi seems quite relaxed though but he can’t resist adopting Desi fan.Pakistani public has been facing the worst humanitarian as well as power crisis this year. All over Pakistan the load shedding hours are unlimited and unbearable in scorching summer season.

Traditionally people use hand held fan commonly called ‘Pakhi’ or ‘Pankhi’, to cope up. More or less same kind of hand held fan of a file has been used by British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, David Miliband on his recent visit to a modern Islamic school in Multan. He was spotted in the press conference along with a “file fan” during a power outage. Mr. Shah Mahmood Qureshi seems quite relaxed though but he can’t resist adopting Desi fan.

Wildlife minister scandal- smuggling turtle meat to China

KARACHI: The railway police decided to conduct a raid on the Sindh Wildlife conservator’s official vehicle. They were not disappointed so to speak, as they discovered a heavy consignment of protected turtle meat. The meat was dried, boneless and all packed in four large cartons to be exported to the international market. Turtle meat is served in soups and is considered to be not only a delicacy but also in fact an aphrodisiac in many countries including China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand. Just these four cartons alone could fetch up to Rs 1 million.

The cartons were tagged with the words ‘Thai cargo’ and the bill no 217-16234875. They were supposed to be taken to Beijing, China. The railway police station lodged an FIR no 44/2009 under section 411/34 Pakistan Panel Code (PPC) while also arresting the wildlife department’s junior clerk, Bashir Ahmed Shiekh, the Sindh Wildlife conservator’s personal driver Ghulam Nabi and Imran, a rickshaw driver. The 150 kg consignment was also taken into custody along with the official vehicle, registration no GS-4126 and Imran’s rickshaw, bearing resgistration no D-45521 in custody. The incident took place while Sindh Wildlife Conservator Husain Bux Bhaagat was not in the country and is in Saudi Arabia for performing Umrah. Interestingly, the meat was lying at the Provincial Wildlife Conservator Department, as it had been recovered in raids conducted over the past two years and was stolen from there on early Thursday morning.

“We were already informed that the turtle meat was being stolen, so I had personally arranged for guards so that we could foil their attempt but the culprits had already fled from the scene, hence we contacted the railway police,” said Karachi District Game Warden Karachi Shahbuddin Burfat. He added that Bashir was a junior clerk but had been working as a wildlife inspector and although he has been posted in the Larkana district he has been working in Karachi.

District Game Warden Office official Muhammad Naeem said he and his fellows attempted to intercept the culprits but could not manage to do so and they escaped with the turtle meat. “We took photos while they were stealing the meat,” he said, adding that the meat was supposed to be bought by three businessmen and they had arrived in a rickshaw but when the police came, they ran away. “I helped the police, as Bashir was running really fast but we caught him after chasing him for two hours,” said Naeem.

Turtles are protected under the Sindh wildlife Act 1972 under which capturing, keeping, hunting, killing and transporting turtles in any form is prohibited. During the last two years, the wildlife team has raided several vehicles and recovered meat, which was kept at the provincial conservator office.

The source said that Provincial Minister for Sindh Wildlife Department Daya Ram Essrani directed the wildlife staffers to take the meat to a certain place. To hide the case from media Essrani requested the railway police not to lodge a case and handover the recovered items and persons to his department while promising to conduct a departmental inquiry against them, but the railway police refused to do so. “This cannot be a departmental case as we have arrested the culprits red-handed while also recovering stolen property from them. The wildlife minister requested that we hand the culprits over to his department but we bluntly refused,” said Railway DSP Shafi Muhammad Mughal.

Talking to this scribe, Bashir Shiekh did not mention any names but said that the high ups of the department had told him to sort the old and fresh meat apart and then to weight it. “I came to the Cantonment Railway station to weigh the meat and all of sudden the police came and arrested us,” said Bashir. When he was asked about the tags attached to the cartons as well as the information indicating that the meat will be exported to China, he bluntly rejected the allegation and said that the meat was not supposed to be exported anywhere. “It is a conspiracy and these tags were not on these cartoons when we were arrested and in fact they were glued on after we had been taken into custody,” he said.

Even after this scribe tried to Essrani several times to get an official version on this case and to clarify how the turtle meat came out of the office in the official vehicle and whether or not the recovered items such as animals hides, trophies and other items are safe or not, he bluntly rejected to issue any statement. Essrani, usually does not talk to media men and despite clear directives from the president and the Sindh chief minister he does not sit in his office. “I am on vacation and my number is not saved in the minister’s cell. I have tried to contact him several times but have not gotten a response, hence I cannot issue a statement in this regard,” said Sindh Wildlife Department PRO Hizbullah Memon.

6 failed tech predictions by Bill Gates

The founder of the world’s largest software company Microsoft Bill Gates is often looked upon for his vision. But then they also say, there’s really nothing like perfection. So, all our venerable tech czar’s forecasts too have not been flawless.

Many of the technology prophecies of the man who is often credited for ushering in the third wave of computing — mainframe era, minicomputer era to personal computing era — did miss the mark.

Here’s looking into where all Gates went ‘wrong’.

‘640K (of memory) ought to be enough for anybody’

Seems Bill Gates couldn’t comprehend the pace at which the size of data will grow in the computing space. In 1981, Gates reportedly said that nobody would ever need more than 640 kilobytes of memory on their personal computer. Contrary to what Gates thought, most PCs today come with at least 2GB of memory.

However, in an interview to Bloomberg Business News in 1996, Gates refuted the quote. Here’s an excerpt of what he said when asked about the (in)famous quote, “I’ve said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time.

“The need for memory increases as computers get more potent and software gets more powerful. In fact, every couple of years the amount of memory address space needed to run whatever software is mainstream at the time just about doubles. This is well-known.”

‘OS/2 programme of all time’

In a foreword to the OS/2 Programmer’s Guide in 1987 Bill Gates wrote, “I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly programme, of all times.”

OS/2 was a computer operating system initially jointly developed by both Microsoft and IBM, and later developed by exclusively by IBM.

The OS though gained some ground in large industries like banking, insurance and telecommunications it, however, failed to make an impact among the home and SOHO users. The launch of Windows 95 completely stole the OSes thunder.

Contrary to what Gates wrote, Microsoft’s own Windows operating systems today continue to power world’s over 90 per cent desktops. OS/2 is no longer marketed by IBM, and IBM standard support for OS/2 was discontinued on 31 December 2006.

‘Spam will be solved’

The problem of spam e-mail messages will be gone within two years, Bill Gates promised in January 2004.

Speaking at a session of the World Economic Forum, Gates said that the company was working on three ways to enable email users to keep spam out of their computers.

The first two, he said, would involve having computers reply automatically to any email messages from senders not known to that computer — that is, not in the mail list of the email programme installed on the computer — with a request to solve a problem that could be handled by a person but not by a computer.

The third way, which Gates said was likely to arrive later but be the long-term solution, would require that email messages sent by strangers come with postage attached, the equivalent of a postage stamp. It’s been four-and-a-half years since then, and the spam menace only seems to be growing.

‘Microsoft will never make a 32-bit OS’

In 1983, Bill Gates said that the company “will never make a 32-bit operating system.”

However, nine years later (in 1992), Microsoft released beta of its first 32 bit Windows NT. NT was the first full 32-bit version of Windows. The OSes consumer-oriented counterparts, Windows 3.1x and Windows 9x were 16-bit/32-bit hybrids.

In 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95, which featured new user interface, supported long file names and could automatically detect and configure installed hardware (plug and play). The OS could natively run 32-bit applications, and featured several technological improvements that increased its stability over Windows 3.1.

In 2005, Microsoft released 64-bit versions of Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003, now dubbed Windows XP Professional x64 and Windows Server 2003 x64. Currently, Microsoft’s most popular XP packs both 32 and 64-bit versions. Less-popular Vista also comes in both versions.

‘Blu-ray Disc is the last physical format’

In the year 2005, the tech czar amused the world with one another forecast that failed miserably. In an interview to a newspaper, Gates said “Blu-ray Disc is the last physical format there will ever be.”

Here’s quoting him, “Well, the key issue here is that the protection scheme under Blu-ray is very anti-consumer and there’s not much visibility of that. The inconvenience is that the [movie] studios got too much protection at the expense consumers and it won’t work well on PCs. You won’t be able to play movies and do software in a flexible way. It’s not the physical format that we have the issue with, it’s that the protection scheme on Blu is very anti-consumer. If [the Blu-ray group] would fix that one thing, you know, that’d be fine. For us it’s not the physical format. Understand that this is the last physical format there will ever be. Everything’s going to be streamed directly or on a hard disk. So, in this way, it’s even unclear how much this one counts.”

While Blu-Ray has beaten HD-DVD to death, its successor are on way including multi-layer discs (LS-R), 3D discs that may hold up to a terabyte of data and discs read by short wavelengths such as UV.

‘Tablet PCs to be most popular’

In the year 2001, Bill Gates had said that tablet PC would be the most popular form of PC sold in America.

At an event in Las Vegas, Gates showed a prototype Tablet PC and following year launched it. He said, “It’s a PC that is virtually without limits and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America.”

However, Tablet PCs failed to make an impact. Only a few handful vendors market Tablet PCs. Also, they are still to take off as business devices.

Some time back, Gates again reiterated his faith in the Tablet PC form factor. He said that with better hardware and software, Tablet PCs have the potential to dominate over traditional laptop PCs.

15 Predictions that Failed Badly

“It will be years –not in my time– before a woman will become Prime Minister.”
–Margaret Thatcher, October 26th, 1969.

She became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom only 10 years after saying that, holding her chair from 1979 to 1990. But she wasn’t all that wrong since she is the only woman to have held this post. Maybe she should have added the word “again.”

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
–Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

It may sound ridiculous now, but the prediction was actually true for about ten years after it was made. Almost every forecaster would settle for a ten year limit on the testing of their forecasts. Of course, by the 1980s and the advent of the PC, such a statement looked plain daft.

“That virus [HIV] is a pussycat.”
–Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, 1988,

By 2006, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization estimated that AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized on December 1, 1981.

“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.”
–Associates of Edwin L. Drake refusing his suggestion to drill for oil in 1859.

Only one hundred fifty years passed by since the first attempt to dig out oil from the ground met such contempt, and now the whole world is trying to look for unimaginable places to satiate the thirst for money that is propelled and sustained on this black gold.

“A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.”

–New York Times, 1936.

10 years later, in 1946, the first American-built rocket to leave the earth’s atmosphere was launched from White Sands, attaining 50 miles of altitude.

“Reagan doesn’t have that presidential look.”
–United Artists Executive, rejecting Reagan as lead in 1964 film The Best Man

Before becoming the 40th President of the United States in 1981, Ronald Reagan pursued an acting career, but spent the majority of his Hollywood career in the “B film” division. In 1964 he was rejected for a part in a movie with presidential candidate theme due to “not having the presidential look”.

“The singer [Mick Jagger] will have to go; the BBC won’t like him.”
— First Rolling Stones manager Eric Easton to his partner after watching them perform.

We can only wonder what Sir Michael Philip “Mick” Jagger, Golden Globe, Grammy Award-winning English singer-songwriter, rock musician and occasional actor, has to say about it now.

“Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.”
–Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859)

It may sound impossible to Dr Larder, professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at the University College London back in the 1800, but in 1939 the first high speed train went from Milan to Florence at 165 km/h (102.5 mph). Thankfully no one died. Nowadays these trains go at 200 km/h (125 mph) and faster.

“Heavier-than- air flying machines are impossible.”
–Lord Kelvin, 1895.

This was said by Lord Kelvin (British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society) only eight years before brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright took their home-built flyer to the sandy dunes of Kitty Hawk, cranked up the engine, and took off into the history books.

“There will never be a bigger plane built.”
–A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.

What would this engineer say if he saw the current largest passenger plane on earth, the Airbus A380? The Airbus A380 has 50% more floor space than arch rival Boeing’s 747 Jumbo, with room for duty-free shops, restaurants and even a sauna, and can provide site for up to 853 people.

“Taking the best left-handed pitcher in baseball and converting him into a right fielder is one of the dumbest things I ever heard.”
– Tris Speaker, baseball hall of famer, talking about Babe Ruth, 1919.

Ruth has been named the greatest baseball player in history in various surveys and rankings, and his home run hitting prowess made him a larger than life figure in the “Roaring Twenties”. He became the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season (1927), a record which stood for 34 years until broken by Roger Maris in 1961. Ruth’s lifetime total of 714 home runs at his retirement in 1935 was a record for 39 years, until broken by Hank Aaron in 1974.

“Ours has been the first [expedition] , and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality.”
—- Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.

More than a century later, five million people annually visit this “profitless locality,” by car, foot, air, and on the Colorado River itself.

“If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.”
–W.C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954.

In 1964 the United States Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health began suggesting the relationship between smoking and cancer , which confirmed its suggestions 20 years later in the 1980s. Nowadays, it’s well known that long-term exposure to tobacco smoke is the most common causes of lung cancer .

“You better get secretarial work or get married.”
–Emmeline Snively, advising would-be model Marilyn Monroe in 1944.

In 1944, Marilyn Monroe was discovered by a photographer who encouraged her to apply to The Blue Book modeling agency. She was told by Snively, director of the Modelling Agency that she should became a secretary, besides they were looking for models with lighter hair. So Marilyn dyed her brunette hair to a golden blonde. She finally signed a contract with the agency. And of course, became Blue Book’s most successful model.

“Read my lips: No new taxes.”
–George Bush, 1988.

That pledge was the centerpiece of Bush’s acceptance address, written by speechwriter Peggy Noonan, for his party’s nomination at the 1988 Republican National Convention . It was a strong, decisive, bold statement, and you don’t need a history degree to see where this is going. As presidents sometimes must, Bush raised taxes. His words were used against him by then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in a devastating attack ad during the 1992 presidential campaign.

India to launch cow urine as soft drink

Does your Pepsi lack pep? Is your Coke not the real thing? India’s Hindu nationalist movement apparently has the answer: a new soft drink made from cow urine.

The bovine brew is in the final stages of development by the Cow Protection Department of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India’s biggest and oldest Hindu nationalist group, according to the man who makes it.

Om Prakash, the head of the department, said the drink – called “gau jal”, or “cow water” – in Sanskrit was undergoing laboratory tests and would be launched “very soon, maybe by the end of this year”.

“Don’t worry, it won’t smell like urine and will be tasty too,” he toldThe Times from his headquarters in Hardwar, one of four holy cities on the River Ganges. “Its USP will be that it’s going to be very healthy. It won’t be like carbonated drinks and would be devoid of any toxins.”

The drink is the latest attempt by the RSS – which was founded in 1925 and now claims eight million members – to cleanse India of foreign influence and promote its ideology of Hindutva, or Hindu-ness.

Hindus revere cows and slaughtering them is illegal in most of India. Cow dung is traditionally used as a fuel and disinfectant in villages, while cow urine and dung are often consumed in rituals to “purify” those on the bottom rungs of the Hindu caste system.

In 2001, the RSS and its offshoots – which include the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party – began promoting cow urine as a cure for ailments ranging from liver disease to obesity and even cancer.

The movement has often been accused of using more violent methods, such as killing 67 Christians in the eastern state of Orissa last year, and assaulting women in a pub in Mangalore last month. It also has a history of targeting foreign business in India, as in 1994, when it organised a nationwide boycott of multinational consumer goods, including Pepsi and Coca Cola.

The cola brands are popular in India, now one of their biggest markets, but have struggled in recent years to shake off allegations, which they deny, that they contain dangerous levels of pesticide.

Mr Prakash said his drink, by contrast, was made mainly of cow urine, mixed with a few medicinal and ayurvedic herbs. He said it would be “cheap”, but declined to give further details about its price or ingredients until it was officially launched.

He insisted, however, that it would be able to compete with the American cola brands, even with their enormous advertising budgets. “We’re going to give them good competition as our drink is good for mankind,” he said. “We may also think of exporting it.”

Number Of Unwed Moms In U.S. Rising

The percentage of births to unmarried women in the United States has been rising sharply, but it’s way behind Northern European countries, a new U.S. report on births shows. 

Iceland is the leader with 6 in 10 births occurring among unmarried women. About half of all births in Sweden and Norway are to unwed moms, while in the U.S., it’s about 40 percent. 

France, Denmark and the United Kingdom also have higher percentages than the United States, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The U.S. and at least 13 other industrialized nations have seen significant jumps in the proportion of unmarried births since 1980, said Stephanie Ventura of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. 

Rates have doubled and even tripled in these countries, according to the CDC report released Wednesday. 

“Basically we’re seeing the same patterns,” Ventura said, noting the trend has accelerated in the last five years. 

Experts are not certain what’s causing the trend but say there seems to be greater social acceptance of having children outside of marriage. 

“The values surrounding family formation are changing and women are more independent than they used to be. And young people don’t feel they have to live under the same social rules that their parents once did,” said Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C. 

But there are differences in how unmarried pregnancies are viewed in different countries. 

In the United States, unmarried mothers are more likely to be on their own and – traditionally – they are more likely to be poor and uneducated, experts said. 

In northern Europe, men and women more often live together in unmarried, long-term, stable relationships, Haub said. Because of declining birth rates in some European countries, people tend to be more focused on whether the baby is born healthy instead of whether the mother is married, Haub said. 

He predicted that the total number of births internationally will decline – that’s already happening in some European countries – because of faltering economies. But he expects trends in the percentage of mothers who are unmarried will persist. 

The CDC previously has reported on the percentage of U.S. births to unmarried mothers. The new report gathers previously released information from other countries to make an international comparison. 

The report shows trends from 1980 to the most recent years available – 2007 for the United States and most of the other countries, but 2006 for six nations. 

Japan had the lowest percentage of unmarried births, with 2 percent in 2007, up from 1 percent in 1980. 

Increases were much more dramatic in the other countries, with Italy rising from 4 percent to 21 percent, Ireland from 5 percent to 33 percent, Canada from 13 to 30 percent, and the United Kingdom from 12 percent to 44 percent. 

The U.S. proportion of unmarried births rose from 18 percent to 44 percent during that period, according to the report.

Hum hain Pakistani…

Anonymous photograph from Lahore but a very strong message, can you find it?

Photographs That Changed The World

January 12, 1960. A second before the Japanese Socialist Party leader Asanuma was murdered by an opponent student.

1963. Thich Quang Duc, the Buddhist priest in Southern Vietnam , burns himself to death protesting the government torture policy against priests. Thich Quang Dug never made a sound or moved while he was burning.

1962. A soldier shot by a sniper hangs onto a priest in his last moments in Columbia.

1965. A mom and her children try to cross the river in South Vietnam in an attempt to run away from the American bombs.

1966. U.S. troops in South Vietnam are dragging a dead Vietcong soldier.

February 1, 1968. South Vietnam police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan shoots a young man, whom he suspects to be a Viet Cong soldier

1973. A few seconds before Chile elected president Salvador Allende is dead during the coup.

1975. A woman and a girl falling down after the fire escape collapses in New York

February 23, 1981. Colonel Molina ve military police seizes the Parliament building in Spain. The photographer did not expect the scene, and hid the films in his shoe.

1982. The beginning of it all…. Palestinian refugees murdered in Beirut , Lebanon

1989. A young man in China stands before the tanks during protests for democratic reforms.

1992. A mother in Somalia holds the body of her child who died of hunger.

1994. A man who was tortured by the soldiers since he was suspected to have spoken with the Tutsi rebels.

2001. An Afghani refugee child body is being prepared for the funeral in Pakistan

2002. Soldiers and villagers in Iran are digging graves for the victims of the earthquake. A kid holds his father clothes before he is buried

2003. An Iraqi prisoner of war tries to calm down his child.

1980. A child in Uganda about to die of hunger, and a missionary holding onto him.

1987. A mother in South Korea apologizes and asks for forgiveness for his son who was arrested after attending a protest. He was protesting the alleged manipulations in the general elections.

Plastic Model Of Unborn Baby Now Possible

It’s a defining moment in a parent’s life: Seeing their unborn child’s image on an ultrasound for the first time. Now pregnant women could have the chance to hold a life-size model of their unborn baby.

The startling new medical technology is the result of a Royal College of Art design student’s PhD.

It’s a defining moment in a parent’s life: Seeing their unborn child’s image on an ultrasound for the first time. Now pregnant women could have the chance to hold a life-size model of their unborn baby.

The startling new medical technology is the result of a Royal College of Art design student’s PhD.

Your baby at 12 weeks old: A life-size model of a foetus created using imaging from an ultrasound scan

A 32-week-old foetus is modelled from scanned images

Brazilian student Jorge Lopes has pioneered the conversion of data from ultrasound and MRI scans into life-size plaster models of living embryos using a method called rapid prototyping.

‘It’s amazing to see the faces of the mothers. They can see the full scale of their baby, really understand the size of it,’ said Dr Lopes.

‘The technology can be also be used as an emotional tool for parents whose foetus might be deformed or need treatment,’ added Hilary French, who heads the School of Architecture and Design Products.

A good way of understanding how rapid protoyping works is to imagine a printer that prints plastic powder instead of ink.

Then as it prints layer up layer it slowly builds up a 3D model. Aine Duffy from the RCA said: ‘It’s stunning technology – here at the RCA we use it for everything from new medical devices, to car components, to jewellery, to architectural models.’

Dr Lopes’ work will be displayed at an exhibition opening at the RCA in London today. The technology is currently being trialled at a clinic in Rio de Janeiro.

His supervisor, King’s College head of obstetrics Stuart Campbell, called the invention ‘absolutely unique’ and ‘a fantastic development’.

Professor Campbell, who pioneered the use of ultrasound in the 1980s, also hoped the technology would help mothers – blind mothers in particular – to bond with their babies.

‘I don’t know whether I am looking at science or I am looking at art’, commented an external examiner reviewing the student’s PhD viva.

Dr Lopes, who is sponsored at the college by the Brazilian government, had begun his research by looking at how model-making had been used in practical ways over the centuries, Ms French said.

He started with mummies, then moved on to dinosaurs, then foetuses – leaving friends joking he had gone from ‘mummies to mummies’.

His work uses the latest computer techniques first exhibited by Ron Arad at an exhibition at the V&A at the turn of the century entitled Not Made By Hand, Not Made in China.

Arad, one of the most famous designers in the world and the head of design products at the RCA, called Dr Lopes’ work a ‘ground-breaking new field of world importance’.