Pakistan Plane Crash

Pakistan Plane Crash

2 US citizens killed in plane crash in Pakistan

Capital of Pakistan – The United States. Embassy says 2 American citizens were among the 152 people killed in a plane crash in the hills surrounding Pakistan's capital.

Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire didn't provide further details about the two Americans.

The cause of Wednesday's Airblue crash was not immediately clear. It attempted to land in rainy and cloudy conditions.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A passenger jet crashed into the hills surrounding Pakistan's capital amid poor weather Wed, killing all 152 people on board and blazing a path of devastation strewn with body pieces and twisted metal wreckage.

Initial Interior Ministry reports that five people survived the Airblue crash were wrong, said Imtiaz Elahi, chairman of the Capital Development Authority, which deals with emergencies and reports to the ministry.

"The situation at the site of the crash is heartbreaking," Elahi told The Associated Press. "It is a great tragedy, and I confirm it with pain that there are no survivors."

Local television footage showed twisted metal wreckage hanging from trees and scattered across the ground on a bed of broken branches. Fire was visible and smoke rose from the scene as a helicopter hovered above. The army said it was sending special troops to aid the search.

"I'm seeing only body parts," Dawar Adnan, a rescue worker with the Pakistan Red Crescent, told the AP by ring from the crash site. "This is a very horrible scene. We have scanned almost all the area, but there is no chance of any survivors."

The search effort was hampered by muddy conditions and smoldering wreckage that authorities were having trouble extinguishing by helicopter, Adnan said.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said the government does not suspect terrorism.

The plane left the southern city of Karachi at 7:45 a.m. for a two-hour scheduled flight to Islamabad and was trying to land during cloudy and rainy weather, said Pervez George, a civil aviation official.

Airblue is a private service based in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, and Wednesday's flight was believed to be carrying mostly Pakistanis.

Rescue workers scouring the heavily forested hills recovered fifty bodies from the wreckage, said Ramzan Sajid, spokesman for the Capital Development Authority.

"The plane was about to land at the Islamabad airport when it lost contact with the control tower, and later we learned that the plane had crashed," said George, adding the model was an Airbus 321 and the flight number was ED202.

The crash site covered a large area on both sides of the hills, including a section behind Faisal Mosque, one of Islamabad's most prominent landmarks, and not far from the Daman-e-Koh resort.

At the Islamabad airport, 100s of friends and relatives of those on board the flight swarmed ticket counters desperately seeking information. A large cluster of people also surrounded a passenger list posted near the Airblue ticket counter.

Saqlain Altaf told Pakistan's ARY news channel he was on a family outing in the hills when he saw the plane looking unsteady in the air. "The plane had lost balance, and then we saw it going down," he said, adding he heard the crash.

Officials at first thought it was a small plane, but later revised that. George said 146 passengers were on the flight along with six crew members.

The Pakistan Airline Pilot Association said the plane appeared to have strayed off course, possibly because of the poor weather.

Raheel Ahmed, a spokesman for the airline, said an investigation would be launched into the cause of the crash. The plane had no known technical foul issues, and the pilots did not send any emergency signals, Ahmed said.

Airbus said it would provide technical assistance to Pakistani authorities responsible for the investigation. The aircraft was initially delivered in 2000, and was leased to Airblue in January 2006. It accumulated about 34,000 flight hours during some 13,500 flights, it said.

The last major plane crash in Pakistan was in July 2006 when a Fokker F-27 twin-engine aircraft operated by Pakistan International Airlines slammed into a wheat field on the outskirts of the central Pakistani city of Multan, killing all 45 people on board.

Airblue flies within Pakistan as well as internationally to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the UK.

The only previous recorded accident for Airblue, a carrier that began flying in 2004, was a tail-strike in May 2008 at Quetta airport by one of the airline's Airbus 321 jets. There were no casualties and damage was minimal, according to the United States.-based Aviation Safety Network.

The Airbus 320 family of medium-range jets, which includes the 321 model that crashed Wed, is one of the most popular in the world, with about 4,000 jets delivered since deliveries began in 1988.

21 of the aircraft have been lost in accidents since then, according to the Aviation Safety Network's database. The deadliest was a 2007 crash at landing in Sao Paolo by Brazil's TAM airline, in which all 187 people on board perished, along with 12 others on the ground.

self portraits

... are self explanatory. 

most of these are from a Luau cocktail party I helped put together with one of my best friends... which is why I'm wearing a lei. :)

once again, click on the pictures to see them larger.

I also wanted to repost something that Kaley blogged earlier today. it's something we did way back in the MySpace days of blogging, and I loved the meaning behind it. basically, while I'm aware I have flaws and that I'm not perfect, but I refuse to apologize for being me. I love being MandeeFoFandee, and I even love all the things about me that might not be ideal for someone else. 

I just copied and pasted this from my MySpace blog, and I didn't change a thing. it's amazing to see how independent and brash I was back then (this was January 7th, 2007... I hadn't even met Sean yet). obviously, some things have changed... mainly the parts about staying single and not wanting children and not being able to pay my bills (haha). but one thing is for sure - I knew who I was and I loved every bit of it... same as I do now. :)

I'm sorry that I'm not perfect.

I'm sorry that I'm too independent.

I'm sorry that I'm stubborn.

I'm sorry that I'm too lazy to clean my house.

I'm sorry that I'm mean sometimes.

I'm sorry that I don't give a fuck about your feelings.

I'm sorry that I'm too comfortable being single.

I'm sorry that I'm so selfish.

I'm sorry that I spend money I don't have.

I'm sorry that I'd rather lie on the couch than DO something.

I'm sorry that I eat really unhealthy.

I'm sorry you can't convince me to quit smoking.

I'm sorry that I don't see my family as much as I should.

I'm sorry for being a bad influence.

I'm sorry that I can't afford all my bills.

I'm sorry that I'm completely unorganized.

I'm sorry that I stand up for myself.

I'm sorry that I put up walls.

I'm sorry that I don't want the "American dream."

I'm sorry that I have no interest in having children.

I'm sorry that I don't cook as much as I should.

I'm sorry I'm not motivated enough.

I'm sorry that I don't want to work on the weekends.

I'm sorry for being different.

I'm sorry that I like fucked up things.

I'm sorry that I'm not into your band & I won't add them on MySpace.

I'm sorry that I can't afford to go out on the weekends.

I'm sorry that I don't believe in god.

I'm sorry that I'm a picky eater.

I'm sorry that I hide my emotions.

I'm sorry that I love gossip.

I'm sorry that I'm really nosy.

I'm sorry that I don't put up with people's bullshit.

I'm sorry that I don't have enough energy to hate.

I'm sorry that I deserve the best.

I'm sorry that I have high standards.

I'm sorry that I don't fall in love easily.

I'm sorry that I don't beg for anything.

I'm sorry that I'm a bitch.

I'm sorry that I'm NOT sorry.

 

Kaley also posted a list of things she's lucky to have in her life. I'm going to hop along that train too, but that's for another day when I don't have a million pictures to upload.  

stay tuned!

kitties galore!

I am boycotting the term "crazy cat lady." while I am crazy, and I do have tons of cats, I wouldn't necessarily call myself a "lady." in fact, I think I'm the farthest thing from a lady. I fart out loud, I burp, I cuss like a sailor, and most of all... I really don't edit my behavior for anyone. 

so... crazy cat lady WOMAN it is. I mentioned in a post a while ago that I took the plunge and bought my first SLR camera - the Canon Rebel XS. I'm absolutely infatuated with this machine, and I take it with me everywhere I go, cause you never know when a good picture will present itself. 

but let's face it... most of the time, I'm at home chasing my cats with this big ass camera around my neck trying to get the best pictures of them. I mean honestly, that's how it is around here. well I finally looked hard enough to find the computer/camera cord that I, of course, had already misplaced... and I've uploaded the 300 pictures I've already taken with the new beaut.

I'm going to do a couple posts with pictures of certain events, but I couldn't start this out without pictures of my babies. they don't call me a crazy cat woman for nothin'. 

hint: click on the pictures to view them in a larger format. I'm trying to figure out how to post large photos on my blog without having them cut off by the right hand column... anyone have tips for a newbie?

 

Lily: 

Pheobe:

(Pheobe is obviously the stubborn one)

Mama Cat:

Bear:

and for good measure, proof that Bear is a Daddy's boy (don't mind my topless husband):

PS - please keep in mind that I just started taking pictures with a professional camera, and I'm still trying to figure everything out. I'm going to attempt the 12 Weeks To Better Photography program along with Kaley next week, so hopefully, we'll both be pros at the end of it! I'll post more about that later! :) 

also, I've only got 10 days left until the Mister and I are off to the beach for a week, and I absolutely CANNOT wait. I need a vacation sooo badly right now! 

Happy Tuesday!

Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams pictures Bought for $45 Worth $200M

A Beverly Hills, Calif., Artistry appraiser has estimated that sixty-five glass negatives a painter bought at a garage sale a decade ago for $45 were taken by famous photographer Ansel Adams and are worth around $200 millions.

The photographs depict such California sights as Yosemite National Park, San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf and the scenic city of Carmel, CBS News affiliate KGPE-TV in Fresno, Calif., reported last fall. Adams' black-and-white photography of Yosemite helped him become an icon of American photography.



"It truly is a missing link of Ansel Adams and history and his career," David W. Streets, the appraiser whose Beverly Hills gallery will show the photographs Tuesday, told CNN about the photographs once thought to have been lost to a darktoom fire in 1937.

Painter Rick Norsigian of Fresno, who bought the negatives, went to great lengths to authenticate them, even going so far as to enlist a former curator of the Boston Museum of Art, he told KGPE-TV in 2009.

"I have estimated that his $45 investment easily could be worth up to $200 million," Streets told the network.

Norsigian told CNN the person who sold him the negatives bought them from a Los Angeles warehouse in the 1940s. Patrick Alt, a photography expert who helped authenticate the negatives, told the network that Adams likely brought them to a photography class he taught in Pasadena, Calif.

Laila Ali On Parkinsons, Mayweather, Pacquaio and Best P4P

Laila Ali On Parkinsons, Mayweather, Pacquaio and Best P4P
From Youtube User: ESNEWS
Date: 25 July 2010

2011 Ford Explorer

2011 Ford Explorer's secret: puny yet powerful engine

Here's a bold claim: The newly Ford Explorer with the Eco boost turbocharged 2-liter engine will have fuel efficiency on par with a Toyota Camry V-6.

Although Ford hasn't disclosed yet its predicted fuel mileage figures for the 2011 Explorer, a V-6 Camry gets 20 miles a gallon in the city, twenty-nine on the main road, the Environmental Protection Agency says.

That's quite a claim considering what a chunk of metal that the Explorer has all of the time been -- and will continue to be. Ford is counting on this wonder engine to power a lot of its bigger next-generation engines around the world. Just last Friday, Ford CEO Alan Mulally, appearing on Fox News Business, discounted the idea that the automaker would turn to hybrid engines to power its F-150 pickup trucks:



We're betting he said that because of the automaker's overwhelming belief in turbocharging as a smarter, cheaper alternative. It expects to put its advance turbochargers in 1.3 million vehicles from 2013.

Even though its a four-cylinder, the Eco boost 2-liter would be one powerful engine. It is designed to produce 237 horsepower with a 30% increase in fuel mileage over the current V-6 engine in an Explorer.

To get the most out of every ounce of fuel, the engine breathes better and has a relatively high compression ratio. It is designed to last 10 years or 150,000 miles, which sounds a little low side to us in terms how how tough a hand truck engine should be. The recommended oil change interval is 10,000 miles.