Fears of a post-election dirty tricks campaign by Thailand's old guard appear to be coming true.
Having come within a whisker of an outright majority in December's poll, the party backing ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is facing an unusually high number of fraud complaints against its winning candidates, analysts said on Friday.
The Supreme Court has also agreed to hear three cases that could lead to the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP) being disbanded, or some or all of the poll results being annulled.
Of 83 candidates being investigated by the Election Commission (EC), whose five members were appointed by the army after the September 2006 coup, 65 are from the PPP.
Although there is no indication how many will end up disqualified, or "red-carded" as soccer-mad Thais like to call it, the high proportion of accepted complaints against the PPP and the EC's distinct lack of openness has raised eyebrows.
"The idea of 65 suspicious cases against PPP seems odd," said Kevin Hewison, a Thai politics researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"To change the course of the election you need between 20 and 30 red cards and that seems highly likely at this stage. They may well overturn the result." [via Reuters]
Sierra Tangos
- About 20,000 residents of Buri Ram province demonstrated on Friday against the Election Commission (EC)'s decision to disqualify three winning candidates from People Power Party (PPP). [via Bangkok Post]
- So as suspected, the Beach Road didn't close today but it doesn't mean it won't happen sometime in the foreseeable. Did common sense prevail or did the bus and taxi mafia drop a few unsubtle hints in the right ears.
- If you like good Indian food and don't mind the decor then Ahaar Indian Restaurant in Soi Post Office is for you. Bit of a transport cafe inside but the food and service are first rate.
- Heard a rumour today that Diamond Go Go got trashed last week when a fight broke out between rival groups of German's and Russians. There's been nothing on the boards so was it just a case of, "bloke down pub says".........
- Automaker Volkswagen said Friday it might build a factory in Thailand after the collapse of its efforts to enter the South-East Asian car market in tandem with Malaysian manufacturer Proton.
"We want to strengthen in South-East Asia," a company spokesman said at VW's Wolfsburg head office in Germany, hours after a trade magazine reported Volkswagen was competing for a Bangkok tax break for carmakers.
Auto Motor Sport said VW, Tata of India and Japanese makers Toyota and Mitsubishi were also seeking the Thai government's incentive. To qualify for the tax benefit, one of the makers must produce at least 100,000 vehicles annually at its new Thai plant and the fuel economy of the cars must not exceed 5 litres of petrol per 100 kilometres. Volkswagen said it was considering whether to invest about 600 million euros (870 million dollars) in Thailand, but a decision had not been taken yet. [via Bangkok Post]
- The Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 3 has been released a bit more than a month ago and is already beginning to cause problems for several users who applied the Service Pack. I would think that a Service Pack adds functionality and fixes security vulnerabilities. This one apparently blocks old file formats from being loaded by Microsoft Office applications.
Affected are documents that have been created with old versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Corel Draw and Lotus Notes dating back to the pre-Office 97 era. This won’t be a problem for the majority of users but some, like me, will question the purpose of blocking those old document formats. [via gHacks]
- As a general rule of thumb, you should never download freeware apps unless it comes from a reputable source. Otherwise you could be letting yourself in for a whole lot of trouble if that cool little freeware app happens to contain malicious code. However if you MUST try out a new program which has come from dubious sources, you can use a Windows feature to protect your PC.
When you have downloaded the program, don’t double-click to install it just yet. First, right-click on the program icon and choose “run as”. When the “run as” box comes up, you’ll see the box on the right.
Select “current user” and make sure the “protect my computer and data from unauthorized program activity” box is ticked. Then click OK. You can then do a limited installation of the program in “safe mode” so you can check it out. Having the “protect my computer” option ticked means that the Registry can be read by the application but the application can’t change anything in the Registry. So if there is any rogue code in that freeware app, it won’t wreak any havoc on your PC.
When you are convinced that the app is OK, come out of the safe mode and install the program properly. [via MakeUseOf.com]
- Jessica Cirio in Maxim
- A Thai stunner shopping in The Avenue today. She had the lot and I was trying to pluck up courage to ask her for a close up so you could enjoy her expansive cleavage but I bottled it...... I'm getting a bit pervy with the camera I got from Santa. Well, let's just say a bit more pervy than usual.....
- The theme of the 2008 Pirelli Calendar is "Pearls Of The Orient". It's not the 'pearls' I know and love......
- Jog A Dog motorised exerciser for dogs. Where's the shit go? Prices range for $1,000 to $3,000. Has the world gone mad? [via Born Rich]
- As Diane Ford (a very funny comic) once said about women, "We don't sweat, we don't belch, and we don't fart. If we didn't bitch, we'd explode."
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The Iowa caucuses were held Thursday after a year of non stop campaigning by the presidential candidates. Many Iowans are sad to see the circus end. After candidates leave, the farmers will have to go back to fertilising the crops themselves {via Argus Hamilton]
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As you may know, caucus is a Greek word which means, "the only day anyone pays any attention to Iowa." [via Jay Leno]
Perhaps you should have bought a pair of glasses instead of a camera as that "stunner" of yours is quite clearly a ladyboy.
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