When Pakistani fashion designer Honey Waqar said she was going to New Delhi to show her work at Bridal Asia 2008, Gillani gave her his full support. “Ms Waqar has been chosen as Pakistan’s fashion ambassador,” said a fax from Gillani’s office.

The letter, signed by the aide-de-camp to the prime minister, goes on to say, “The newly elected democratic government in Pakistan ably led by the PM himself, encourages all women to explore diversified fields in order to not only excel in their individual capacities but also to bring laurels to their country of origin, Pakistan.”

Unsurprisingly, Waqar is thrilled.

“I’ve shown my work in India and abroad many times before. But to actually be sent as a fashion ambassador, that too by the PM himself, is a great honour. It gives me the confidence that fashion is recognised as a strong industry and is taken seriously by this government. India and Pakistan have similar cultures and it’s very heartening to know that our prime minister is keen to bridge the gaps between both nations.”

It may be better if the gap is filled by salwars-kameez creations from Waqar’s repertoire, rather than strong rhetoric from either side on Kashmir and terrorism. At least some of the prime minister’s interest in this new-fashioned diplomacy may be explained by his wife, Fauzia’s work with the fashion industry. According to sources, Mrs Gillani herself was to be the guest of honour at the bridal wear exhibition but had to cancel in order to arrange her son’s October 11 wedding.

Though Waqar is not a career diplomat, there are signs she is learning the language of diplomacy in her new role as fashion envoy. India, she says, feels so like “home” that she never bothers to get her collection of outfits insured when she brings them here. “I use real jewels (pearls, emeralds, diamonds) on my clothes, so I need to have them insured when I take them out of Pakistan. But in India, I do no such thing. I feel at home here,” she says.

The fashion bonhomie will continue with Mehreen Syed, one of the two Pakistani models showing Waqar’s collection in India. Syed has been offered a role in a Bollywood film by Sanjay Chauhan, who wrote the dialogue for Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara.

Courtesy: Times of India

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While watching GEO around 12:30 today, they were discussing the reasons why Zardari’s comments about Sarah Palin were creating an international scandal, when the GEO transmission went blank. When it returned, the screen said “Scrambled” …. this is to follow the story that was posted on some blogs yesterday that the media was going to change its coverage of the War on Extremism in Pakistan.

Did anyone else lose their GEO transmission around then?

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For those of you who have not seen it yet, this is CNN’s video from the Palin - Zardari meeting. Pakistan’s President showing his true leadership in style….

Maybe the critics were right about our President calling him “a category 5 disaster.”

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This is a great piece from the Huffington Post on how the media can make things disappear even though it is public information.

Fog Facts are things that have been made public, but have somehow disappeared into the mist.

Thereby becoming invisible.

Here are some examples: seven of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers have phoned in to say they were alive.

After the US took over Iraq, including the oil for food program, $19 billion of Iraq’s money disappeared. The Florida recount, completed in 2001, showed that Al Gore got more valid, countable votes than George Bush.

What keeps us oblivious to these things is the failure to frame them, the failure of somebody to push them, and sometimes the deliberate manufacture of fog.

In turn, ignorance of the facts, keeps us from seeing the real picture.

A lot what has happened in the last six years is baffling. Let’s focus on one area, our response to the 9/11 attacks.

The fog, in this case, is made of the things the administration has said. The facts are the things that they have actually done. If someone sells you a car and you notice that it eats grass and milk is coming out of the exhaust, it’s pretty good bet it’s a cow.

The War on Terror does not catch terrorists, especially the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, and the people in charge don’t really seem to care. That’s with the expenditure of $200 billion in supplementary spending, over and above the normal cost of maintaining our military and intelligence operations.
Let’s look at what they actually did, instead of what they spoke of.

That would suggest what the real goals are.

The big, obvious thing that the War on Terror permitted was for America to make its imperial lunge.

There were papers that made it clear that this was an administration goal, the most notable one posted at the Project for a New American Century, and there were statements too.

Something more subtle also took place. It is quite dangerous and it is largely unremarked.

The War on Terror permitted the administration to put an end to the concept that everyone is equal before the law.

We suddenly have people who are beneath the laws. They are called terrorists and unlawful combatants.

All it takes to make someone beneath the law is to denounce them. They then have no rights, no phone call, no lawyers. They cannot argue about what they’ve been called. They can be whisked off to a prison and held incommunicado and tortured. Or at least seriously abused.

It appears unlikely that this could happen to you or I or your friends across the street. But with the end of equality before the law, there really is nothing to stop it. Except our belief that our leaders are all honorable men who would not abuse such power.

Along with the creation of a class that is below the law, there is also a new class that is above the law.

The presidential legal staff, including Alberto Gonzales, Jay Bybee and John Yoo, came up with the theory that when the presidents puts on his commander-in-chief outfit, and acts in that capacity, he is not constrained by any laws. Not international law, not the laws of the United States, not by treaties and not even by the constitution.

Furthermore, anyone that he commands to do things when he is wearing that costume, is also unconstrained by those limits, statutes and laws.

They are all above the law.

In addition, we have created a three tier international system in which there are entire nations below the law: terrorist states, states the harbor terrorists and failed states.

There is, of course, one nation that is above the law. That is the United States.

I would like to take this occasion, my first appearance on the Huffington Post, to offer the first official Fog Facts Challenge!

Give us $200,000,000,000 (two hundred billion dollars) and we will deliver to you Osama bin Laden, and any ten others to be named later, or double your money back!

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As the domestic Pakistani press starts to fill up with interesting stories, I will be posting articles, editorials and other items that are relevant to the situation in Pakistan today. For this purpose, some new topics have also been added:

Extremism
Pakistani Politics

I hope that you enjoy the new additions and that they are able to give you more insight into Pakistan and what is affecting my home country each day.

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There is a great trend in Pakistan where little kids, and I do include immature men in that category, like to call people at odd hours and ask them to “make friendship with them.” In Pakistan, make friendship is to date them. First off, it takes a small man to call someone up and harass them, but then most of Pakistan’s male society is frustrated because of the Mullah code.

Now, since in Pakistan, the only thing that mobile companies will do is warn the person that is making these calls, we have created this Wall of Shame. If you are receiving harassing calls or SMSs, please post them on Take Back Pakistan so that we can approach the relevant authorities for the permanent blocking of the number. Even if the number doesn’t get blocked, this will create a registry of stupid callers that can be referenced to PTA and the mobile companies, since they don’t believe that their connections could be used in this way.

If you are receiving harassing calls or SMSs from any of the mobile companies subscribers, feel free to list their cell number, what they said to you and the time of the call. We will push the mobile companies and PTA to take notice and action once and for all to rid our society of this trash.

I have already started the list there and will add to it as I get more numbers passed to me.

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Everyone wants to achieve great success in their professional and personal life. But while we are climbing the ladder to success, we see some failures, which can either end our dream or inspire us even more to achieve it. I thought that maybe we should visit history and see how many times and people have been visited by failure; more importantly, how they moved forward from their failures and where they ended up.

After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, said, “Can’t act! Slightly Bald! Can dance a little!” Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.

An expert said of Vince Lombardi, “He possesses minimal football knowledge. Lacks Motivation.”

Socrates was called, “An immoral corrupter of youth.”

When Peter J. Daniel was in the fourth grade, his teacher, Mrs. Phillips, constantly said, “Peter J. Daniel, you’re no good, you’re a bad apple and you’re never going to amount to anything.” Peter was totally illiterate until he was 26. A friend stayed up with him all night and read him a copy of Think and Grow Rich. Now he owns the street corners he used to fight on and just published his latest book, Mrs. Phillips, You Were Wrong.

Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, was encouraged to find work as a servant or seamstress by her family.

Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer.

The parents of the famous opera singer Enrico Caruso wanted him to be an engineer. His teachers said he had no voice at all and could not sing.

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. Walt Disney also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.

Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was too stupid to learn anything.

Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didn’t read until he was seven. His teacher described him as “mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.” He was expelled and refused admittance to Zurich Polytechnic School.

Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and ranked 15 out of 22 in chemistry.

Isaac Newton did very poorly in grade school.

The sculptor Rodin’s father said, “I have an idiot for a son.” Described as the worst pupil in the school, Rodin failed three times to secure admittance to the school of art. His uncle called him uneducable.

Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, flunked out of college. He was described as “both unable and unwilling to learn.”

Playwright Tennessee Williams was enraged when his play, Me, Vasha was not chosen in a class competition at Washington University where he was enrolled in English XVI. The teacher recalled that Williams denounced the judges’ choices and their intelligence.

F. W. Woolworth’s employers at the dry goods store said he had not enough sense to wait upon customers.

Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he finally succeeded.

Babe Ruth, considered by sports historians to be the greatest athlete of all time and famous for setting the home run record, also holds the record for strikeouts.

Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He did not become Prime Minister of England until he was 62, and then only after a lifetime of defeats and setbacks. His greatest contributions came when he was a “senior citizen.”

Eighteen publishers turned down Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, before Macmillan finally published it in 1970. By 1975 it had sold more than seven million copies in the U.S. alone.

Richard Hooker worked for seven years on his humorous war novel, M*A*S*H, only to have it rejected by 21 publishers before Morrow decided to publish it. It became a runaway bestseller, spawning a blockbusting movie and highly successful television series.

Achieving success is never easy. Those who get there quickly and easily end up tumbling down just as fast as they got there. It is with failure that we learn the way to success, so don’t ever give up. Find another way and grow stronger… and better for it.

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A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all of their might. The other frogs kept yelling them to stop, that they were as good as dead.

Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were shouting and gave up. He fell down and died. The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out.

When he got out, the other frogs said, “Didn’t you hear us?”

The frog explained to them that he was hard of hearing and thought they were cheering him on the whole time.

This story teaches two lessons:

1. There is power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day.
2. A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them. Be careful of what you say. Speak life to those who cross your path. It’s sometimes hard to understand that an encouraging word can lift people to once thought unreachable height.

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Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.
And, as we let our own light shine,
we consciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

– Marianne Williamson “A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles”

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Gracias. Danke. Merci. Thanks.

Simple words with the power to bind, to build, and to behold. If you’ve ever gotten thanked or given thanks, then you know its power. Just the fact that you say it can be enough to make a difference, just as not saying it can make a difference in a negative way.

“Thank you” isn’t just something that comes with “have a nice day” as you grab your paper or plastic. It’s a sincere sign that something nice has occurred. It’s not just an acknowledgment that you’ve been positively affected by something but a chance to return positive emotions back to the giver.

How can we tap into this powerful force?

Be timely. Timing is perhaps the most crucial element of thanking someone. Waiting too long or forgetting altogether makes people wonder if you got that gift, if they did a good job, or if you really care. No hard and fast rule for what is a reasonable time in which to thank someone can be given, so “the sooner, the better” is always a good rule of thumb.

Be appropriate. Sometimes, just a simple “thank you” will suffice. Most times, though, a more formal card (handwritten) will mean more than any gift. Of course, there are times when physical tokens of appreciation fit the bill, but be careful about going overboard as that makes one look like he’s either trying to be impressive or is buttering ‘em up for next time. Also, that sets up expectations of bigger and better for the next time, which is hard to keep up and really not what thanks are all about.

Be receptive. Some people crave public attention. An announcement during an award ceremony or a toast during a special event might be just the thing to feed the ego as well as the spirit. For the shy crowd, that card and token are better. Giving thanks in the way that a person enjoys means that we care even more about him.

Be personal. A thank you is even more powerful if some thought went into it. A book on a hobby he loves, a picture of his favorite place, or anything that is uniquely him says a lot.

Be sincere. All the other elements are a part of our sincerity, but only a part. There’s a knowingness that comes with a heartfelt thank you. Sometimes, it’s obvious; other times, it’s just a gut feeling, but something just rings true to the receiver. That’s when thanks really hit home.

Expect nothing in return. For a thank you to go deep into the soul of another it must be cast out without expectations, without conditions, without any strings attached whatsoever. Some people have gotten out of sorts because their thank you wasn’t thanked. They’re missing the point: it’s all about the giving.

What If I Forgot?

What if, after reading this, you think, “Oops, I forgot to thank so-and-so.” Now what? The fix is fairly simple: start with “I am really sorry,” then go to step one above.

Guru-cize It!

The following is an exercise for you to try at home, at work, or anywhere!

Who should you thank?
Someone who did something nice for you.
Someone you rely on.
Someone you love.
Someone who needs to feel appreciated.
Everyone else.

What to do when someone thanks you:

Open up and let it in.
Say, “You’re welcome.”

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