MH370 – Australian sighted debris

The plot thickens

I had this very bad feeling that the two pieces of debris reported by Australia are parts of MH370. I hope they are not as there is no reason for MH370 to be there. The distance is beyond its fuel range even if it was to fly straight through Singapore to the spot. The plane could not fly through Singapore and Indonesia without being picked up on radars. The only way was to fly through the north of Sumatra and that would make the distance even further. It would thus need to make a stopover, refuelled and continued to the location. It definitely could not make it directly. The 12 days could explain this mystery. And very likely no passengers were found among the wreckage.

There would be many questions to be asked as the Antartica was the last place anyone would think the aircraft would be, and why would they want to fly to crash in a remote corner of the deep ocean? The aircraft deliberately evaded all the radar stations and it is simply meaningless to want to do all the manoeuvres only to crash into a corner of the Indian Ocean away from civilisation. And it is also very strange, sheer coincidence that the Australians thought it could be there and found it so quickly.

Then there are questions like why weren’t the black boxes beeping? Given the time lapse, could the aircraft actually be flown somewhere first, got its black boxes stripped, passengers off loaded and then flown there to crash into the ocean? Because of the depth of the ocean at that spot, recovering it would be impossible and would be abandoned. Who would want to do it and pay for it? No one would know that the black boxes were already removed from the aircraft.

For the pilot/crew to fly and ditch the aircraft, they must then be picked up by another aircraft or ship to bring them to safety. After successfully pulling off such a stunt there was no need for them to die there.

The whole episode of the hijack was so meticulously executed and now another piece of well planned evacuation of the pilot/crew that could only be done with great resources. It is not a simple piece of terrorist work. It is a very difficult thing to do to fly from where it disappeared to where the debris appeared, assuming it is the aircraft. The mastermind must have great expertise, technological knowhow, manpower and hardware like ships and aircraft at his disposal to get this job done. It is mind boggling to think through the whole process.

The eagerness of the Aussie PM to call Najib and the media conference said that they knew something already even before any confirmation by the lab. This is the Freudian slip.

Anyone thinking of conspiracy theory? I already have an outlined of how Hollywood would have scripted it. The big question is, what is the motive or what is it all about? Would they spare the lives of the passengers while trying to get what they want?

PS. The possibility of it flying through Singapore, say to Australia, is to file a flight plan ahead, disappeared from radar cover at the edge of KLIA radar cover, change the transponder code, reappear in the civilian flight corridor like any legitimate aircraft with the transponder squawking a new identity. No air trafficker would know anything unusual. The truth could be more dramatic than fiction.

MH370 – Abbot called Najib to report on rubbish found in the sea

Australian PM Abbot found it important enough to call Najib to inform him of some floating rubbish he found in the sea and had satellite pictures of it. And the Australian govt also found it so important to call a press conference on the discovery. Unbelieveable.
 
I am putting my neck out on this, that the area being search by the Australians would be the last place for the plane to be in. Using the logic of a reasonable man and all the facts available till now, MH370 cannot be in that region.
 
Why would the pilot make all the clever manoeuvres to evade radars just to fly the aircraft into the Antartics and ditch the plane there? It is effort all for nothing. If they wanted to ditch the aircraft, it could be done easier in any part of the South China Sea. And if the plane has ditched in the water, the black boxes would be beeping and this would be picked up by the satellites long ago, or by the Aussie planes in the area.
 
The fact that the hijacked aircraft was flown from where it was means that they wanted to bring it to a place of their own choosing. And they are not going to dump it anywhere. There are 239 lives on board, including the hijackers, and could be more. So far there has been no indication of the hijackers intending to kill themselves or the passengers.
 
To find the aircraft in the Antartics would be the most baffling thing and defy all reasons and logics. Still I can be logically wrong. Yes I can be logically wrong and cannot rule this slim possibility out.

Hays – Contract jobs benefits employees

Hammering the new moral code into the heads of daft Sinkies. Yes, this is what an article posted in TRE was all about. They are telling the Sinkies that contract jobs is good for them just like living in mickey mouse flats will not affect the quality of living. And permanent jobs are reserved for foreigners and locals, meaning PRs. Sinkies are being brainwashed daily to downgrade their lifestyle and expectations as progress and good for them, taking public transport, owning smaller size flats, and now to live with contract jobs. Sinkies with a big housing mortgages and family commitments cannot afford to work on contract basis. This is like living dangerously. This must be stopped. To rub salt into their wounds, companies are giving permanent jobs to foreigners, which should be the other way.
 
According to Hays reports, it conducted a survey of 2,600 employers for the 2014 Hays Salary Guide. The report said ‘that 43 per cent of employers use temporary and contract staff for special projects or workloads, and a further 24 per cent employ them on a regular ongoing basis…
 
Chris Mead, Regional Director of Hays in Singapore & Malaysia, explains…, “Candidates are gaining more confidence and acceptance of temporary roles, aided no doubt by the higher compensation package they offer.”
 
“This is a fortunate trend since more employers are turning to a flexible staffing approach and almost one quarter now use temporary and contract staff on a regular basis. Temporary assignments are no longer seen as simply a quick fix, but a long-term staffing solution that also offers headcount flexibility.”
 
According to the recruiter, there are many benefits of temporary assignments – for both employers and candidates….
 
“And for candidates, temporary assignments offer exposure to varied workloads, systems and industries, allowing them to expand their skills base. Candidates also make valuable new contacts while on assignment, and often improve their work-life balance through the flexibility of their working arrangements.”…. And certainly, not all Singaporeans are getting a “higher compensation package” by accepting a “temporary role”.
 
Engineer retrenched from $60,000/yr permanent position works as contract technician at $1,600/mth.’
 
So Sinkies are being prepared to be contract workers in their own country while foreigners are getting all the job securities, career development, promotions and benefits as permanent staff. What is happening? Is this what Sinkies bargained for? Is this their country or foreigners’ country?
 
Should Sinkies continue to tolerate this kind of discrimination and live with it? What should Sinkies do to change their fate from owners to squatters and lepers in their own country?

Buffett lost nearly $900 mil

Buffett lost nearly $900 mil in one bad investment. He liquidated to cut his losses. Is losing $900 mil a big sum or is it just peanuts to some? Or would someone be saying, ‘What is $900 mil?’ For sure, Buffett did not think it is a small sum and is very grouchy about it. He must have felt bad that he had let his investors down. From his comments he came out very apologetic and assuming the responsibility for making a wrong bid. Well he wins some and loses some but overall he made a lot of good calls.
 
In the same thread posted in TRE, a blogger posted this:
• Say NO to GAMBLING:
 
March 18, 2014 at 11:33 am (Quote)
How can we be sure that the “SURPLUS” on accounting is still there in reality?
To prevent further gambling losses, all CPF should be returned to citizens when they turn 55.
 
Now who is gambling and why such a comment? The very reason to keep the money in the CPF and delaying withdrawals and all the minimum sum schemes is to prevent the CPF savers from gambling or squandering away their money. CPF is very safe. And I can quote Lim Swee Say for it. Why would bloggers make such a comment as if the CPF money is at high risk from gambling losses?
 
Can someone explain this to me? I still have some money caught in the CPF that I cannot afford to lose. I need to know that my money is safe.

MH370 – Calling the bluff

We are now on the 12th day of the MH370 disappearance and no one is wiser. What is funny is that everyone seems to have seen the aircraft either on radar screen or with their naked eyes. The latest ruse came all the way from Maldives where some islanders were swearing that they saw a low flying aircraft in the MAS colours of red and white. Of course it is now confirmed that it was another imagination of the people eager to locate the aircraft.

There are still many bluffs hanging in the air. If one is to look at the effective range of a long range surveillance radar, the radar at KLIA cannot see the aircraft from where it was reported missing unless they locate the radar on top of the mountain range in central peninsula. Neither can the Thai military or civilian radar see the aircraft at the same location. Both sightings can be ignored as spurious and red herrings.

The only possibility for Malaysian and Thai military radars to see MH370 is for their radars to be located near the east coast of the Thai Malaysian border. Did the Malaysians have any military radar there when they kept quoting KLIA? Did the Thais have any military radar in the Pattani region? If both answers are no, then, like a judge in a court would to say, please ignore all radar sightings of MH370 claimed by the Thais and the Malaysians in that area.

The sightings nearer to Butterworth and in the Straits of Malacca are within the range of Butterworth military radar. It is credible but the information given has to be reliable and not another cooked up story or imagination. The Thais are unlikely to see anything in the Straits of Malacca except those that came within the range of air traffic radar in Phuket. All must remember that the Malaysian govt has not confirmed anything but said the radar blips could be MH370. It could be anything else.

The claimed sightings in the Maldives are likely to be a case of putting 1 and 1 together to get 2. In the case of MH370 landing at the Maldives, it could fly like a normal civilian aircraft at normal height without anyone knowing there was something unusual as long as the air traffickers are under the command and control of the hijacking team. There was no need to fly low level except to make a landing in a remote airfield. Gan comes to mind as it is at a small island at the tip of an atoll and could easily be isolated and concealed or the aircraft kept out of sight of the islanders.

We have ruled out a crash or an explosion after the first few days of search. Now we can rule out the radar sightings in the north eastern cost of peninsula Malaysia. The last clue, if real, was the sighting around Pulau Perak heading northwest. If this is eventually proven to be false, we are back to square one and the last quarter that has been ruled out is east of the South China Sea.

Hope they could find something in the Maldives or Mauritius, or even central Asia. This jigsaw puzzle is still missing alot of pieces and no clear picture has taken shape.

What the authorities should be doing now is not to search for a crash site but a landing sight. The probability of the aircraft being hijacked is now very high. They should be thinking like the hijackers and looking at possible landing sites be it on land or in the sea where the aircraft could ditch safely. It is obvious that the hijackers are not going to kill themselves or the passengers. Where would they bring their aircraft to should be the starting point for this phase of search. The Australians searching near the Antartic is simply unthinking. They are still thinking of a reckless crashing of the aircraft.

Kopi Level - Green