Daily Mail on top form

From The Daily Mail:

A British woman faces death by hanging after being charged with murdering her allegedly abusive husband with a kitchen knife in their idyllic Malaysian retirement home.

Petite Samantha Jones, barefoot and wearing an orange prison suit with the words 'Police Lockup' emblazoned across it, appeared sombre and nervous as she was formally charged with murdering husband John, 63, in Langkawi on Tuesday.

Samantha was charged with murdering her husband between 1am and 3am on October 18 at their £200,000 home overlooking paddy fields in a quiet village on the island.

Fun Online Polls: Flight MH370 and British troops in Germany

The results to last week's episode of We're all experts now:

Where, if ever and anywhere, will they find [the wreckage of] Flight MH370?

The Asian mainland, probably somewhere ending in -stan - 35%
Some remote island - 4%
Arabian Sea - 0%
Bay of Bengal - 4%
Andaman Sea, Straits of Malacca - 3%
Gulf of Thailand - 3%
South China Sea, Java Sea - 0%
Indian Ocean - 27%
Other, please specify - 24%

I set up the poll last Tuesday morning and my initial expert opinion was Indian Ocean, which now appears to be the consensus. I'm surprised that so few other experts went for that one.

All very sad.

What is interesting about this story is how all these countries were so unwilling to admit that they spy on each other using satellites and radar, it took Thailand, PR China, Australia etc. days or weeks to come up with a cover story and only then did they drop some vague veiled hints about where they might just possibly happen to have spotted the flight, entirely coincidentally of course, rather then passing on the information straight away.
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From today's Daily Telegraph:

Britain should make a “military statement” to Russia by retaining 3,000 soldiers in Germany in a reverse of planned defence cuts, the former head of the Army says on Monday.

Firstly, that's sort of up to the Germans and secondly, does anybody seriously think that the Russians could care less whether how many soldiers the British Army has in Germany in months' or years' time?

If Ukraine invited NATO to man up and station half a million troops in Ukraine, together with tanks and planes, plus a few battleships and aircraft carriers in the Black Sea, then yes, it might put a dampener on Russian expansionism in Ukraine, i.e. discourage them from annexing the eastern half, but an extra 3,000 Brits, thousands of miles and two or three international borders away..?

Methinks not. If you want to "send Putin a message" you might as well use the Royal Mail.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll, vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: BMW drivers and Flight MH370

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Which car drivers are the most inconsiderate? Multiple selections allowed.

BMW - 47 votes
Audi - 28 votes
Mercedes - 24 votes
Porsche - 14 votes
Volkswagen - 7 votes
Other, please specify - 17 votes

To be honest, I like the way the French deal with the BMW problem: they have a law that BMW drivers on the motorway have to keep their headlight on, at full beam, at all times to alert you that there is a complete idiot coming up behind, thus giving you more time to take evasive action. If this isn't enough, they also have to turn on their left indicators once they are within striking distance, just as a final warning.

It's a bit like being forced to carry L-plates for the rest of your life or lorries which Beep While Reversing.
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We're all experts now.

Where, if ever and anywhere, will they find [the wreckage of] Flight MH370?

Cast your vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

"Where's that confounded bridge?"

Continuing my occasional series of posts on land values with titles swiped from Led Zeppelin song titles or lyrics from their albums "Houses of The Holy" and "Physical Graffiti", emailed in by Lola from Money Week/The New World:

... on 17 November, the Penang marathon took place on Penang Bridge for the last time. From now on, the annual competition will take place on the recently completed Penang Second Bridge, which, at 24km, is the longest link in Southeast Asia. The first bridge, which was state of the art not long ago, can’t handle the volume of traffic.

Since the announcement of the bridge project in 2006, land prices in Batu Maung have leaped from RM50-60 per sq ft to around RM250-300 per sq ft. New apartments, which used to cost between RM250,000-300,000 each, now cost between RM700,000-800,000. And there’s a lot more to come from the infrastructure boom in this part of Asia.

The article doesn't say what the new bridge cost to build, but let's pencil in RM2 billion as a reasonable guess (three times as much as the old one).

That means that the bridge could have been funded by collecting the land value uplift on 209 acres (one-third of a square mile) or on 4,200 apartments.

The size of area and/or number of actual or potential apartments which will benefit is of course a huge multiple of that - probably several hundreds of times as much.

So as per usual, the question is... who paid for the bridge and who will benefit most?

"Australian woman killed by pygmy elephant"

Spotted by JuliaM in The Guardian:

A pygmy elephant has fatally gored an Australian tourist in a remote Malaysian wildlife reserve on Borneo island.

Jenna O'Grady Donley died of injuries from the attack on Wednesday at the Tabin wildlife reserve, the first known fatal attack (1) in Malaysia's eastern Sabah state, said the region's wildlife department director, Laurentius Ambu.

The wild male elephant had been roaming alone around a mud volcano when Donley, a friend and their Malaysian guide saw it while trekking near their resort, Ambu said.

Donley, 25, a vet, (2) is believed to have gone within 10 metres of the animal, which might have charged at her because it was alarmed by the unfamiliar humans, Ambu said.

Rangers had not seen the elephant but planned to drive it back into the forest, Ambu said. (3)

1) Ha! That's what the Malaysian tourist board would have you believe.

2) She's a vet? She's used to dealing with animals and merrily approaches a wild elephant?

3) How does that work then:

"Hey, fellow ranger, have you seen a wild elephant roaming around?"

"Nope."

"Right, shall we drive it back into the forest?"

"Why should we drive it? Can't it walk?"

Another one of those holes that has mysteriously appeared

From The Metro:The article ends in fine style: "But since no one has yet come up with a definitive explanation as to the appearance of the hole, officials continue to look into it."

Unclean! Unclean!

I wonder how long it will be until The Righteous are up in arms about this story, as reported in The Metro:

Beyoncé branded ‘immoral and unclean’


Beyoncé has been branded 'immoral and unclean' after announcing plans to take her bootylicious world tour to Mormon Utah.

The singer, who was denied the chance to hold a concert in the state in 2007 after protests from conservatives, should be banned from perfoming, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the LDS Church) said. "We oppose the holding of such concerts and we will take action to prevent it," a spokesman said. "Her skimpy attire and behaviour onstage are immoral and lead to unclean behaviour."

Beyoncé, 28, has vowed to go ahead with the October 25 'I am...' tour date in Salt Lake City. The LDS Church has in the past forced Gwen Stefani to cover up on stage. Her saucy act was "not suitable for Christians", it added.

Victimhood Poker: The World Series gets off to a flying start!

Ross has a closer look at the Malaysian government's decision to prevent Muslims from attending a Black Eyed Peas concert.

Beyoncé Knowles - champion of human rights

The Mad Mullahs Of Malaysia told Bouncy that she wasn't allowed to wear her skimpy outfits.

Unlike the delightful Gwen Stefani, who wimped out and covered up, Bouncy told them to get stuffed and is doing a concert in Indonesia (also a Muslim country, but nowhere near as strict) instead.

Bouncy, you rock!