Time to Pak it in?

I don't know why I do it, but every time the President speaks, I find myself hopelessly glued to the radio. It's comparable to rubbernecking at an accident scene, hoping to see blood and gore. The "I know I shouldn't, but I have to anyway" feeling. Like a deer caught in headlights, I suppose.

Not surprisingly, I listened attentively to the recent (August 9th 2007) press conference. After a while, a couple of thoughts popped into my mind.

First of all, why did the president say "first of all" so frequently? According to the transcript, he said it four times. And shouldn't there be more than one point following "first of all?"

The other thing I noticed was that the president referred to the Pakistani people as "the Paks":

To the question you asked, and to my answer in Camp David, I said I'm confident that we -- both the Paks and the Americans -- will be able to work up a plan, based upon actionable intelligence, that will bring the top al Qaeda targets to justice. I meant what I said. We spend a lot of time with the leadership in Pakistan, talking about what we will do with actionable intelligence. And the question was, am I confident that they will be brought to justice, and my answer to you is, yes, I am confident.

I've never heard them referred to that way before - it seems derogatory. But I'm not Pakistani, so I really don't know. Perhaps there is a Pakistani reader who can comment on the topic?