Nearly everyone has got a few of I need your help emails. They are clearly bogus to all but the most novice of Internet and email users. So if you have ever thought about where these scam artists are, you may be a bit surprised.

This ripoff has been going for about as long as email has been around. Governments with agencies like the FBI  have been involved in nailing these people down. Some older but unverified information Connecting the Dots has is that emails coming from certain countries or places are flagged or marked and eventually result in raids to catch the culprits.

So now after a few raids and some jail time being dispensed by the courts, a countering tactic is being used by the scam artists. That tactic is to fly to other countries where they can stay for an extended period of time on a tourist or other type of visa. As it would be Thailand is one of the places that now inadvertently hosts these scam artists.

Our information comes second hand but non the less we feel it is accurate. Many of the scam artists are hanging in and about Internet cafes in and around the Nana area of Bangkok. Recently there has been a huge influx of people from the originating countries that the scam artists come from, and apparently they have set up shop blasting out their scam letters.

There is a growing community of crime being setup in a small two block area that caters to people from the Middle East and some African countries. In fact a nickname has been given to Sukhumvit Soi 3/1 as Soi Al Qaeda as there has been at least one high profile arrest in the area associated with terrorism and dozens of fake passports.

The Nana area of Bangkok is a tourist area as well as the location of several embassies. It is also an area that part of Bangkok’s naughty nightlife can be found with several venues including Go-Go bars and beer bars. It is a very mixed community with dozens of countries represented.

Stopping the scam artists becomes a much more difficult task than catching a greased pig. They are part of a well organized network. The person that contacts you is apparently just a fisher. Once they get a bite the communication is handed off to someone else who may be called a milker as they search for the potential victim’s soft spot. This person is likely in a different location near to where the potential funds will be sent to.

So until a money transfer has been made no crime has been committed. The fishers for the most part although are involved in organized crime are breaking no laws and thus nearly impossible to stop. They do not get the money directly so no crime is committed by them. They simply have passed along information about a person.

There is one website / blog that encourages people to engage these scam artists eating up their time and reducing the list of their potential victims. If you have the time and are looking for a new hobby, play this game stringing the scam artist along as they open their bag of sob stories. As long as you know the game, you can keep them tied up for months with leads that look promising to them but are ultimately dry wells.

The number if instances of banking fraud in Malaysia is on the rise. So much so that some American banks have pulled the plug on allowing ATM and debit card transactions from there.

So here you are on a wonderful holiday away from home, and you have decided to explore southeast Asia as a getaway. The wonderful charming cultures of the region can certainly help round out life’s experiences and enrich your wisdom. That is until you discover your ATM card does not work even that the ATM machine is sporting the proper banking network logo. That can very quickly cause panic, particularly if it was not expected and your wallet is empty.

The cases of banking fraud have risen dramatically in the last few months. So much so the banks have simply gotten tired of getting ripped off. So in one painful mouse click, Malaysia was removed from the family of working ATM machines and card readers /scanners.

This does not mean all American banks will be disabled. Each bank has the ability to disable a country. But that does leave a dilemma if you discover this after you arrive. People have grown accustom to just finding an ATM to access their money, and the days of American Express travelers checks have passed into obsoleteness or so one would think.

In recent months Thailand has been on a serious crackdown on banking fraud. Particularly so when an influential Thai was ripped off for millions of Baht. And yes Thailand too suffers from the same painful bank mouse click if you care to check. So what this suggests is the crackdown is working in Thailand, and the criminals have moved to the next best neighborhood being Malaysia.

However all is not lost. Some banks have been busy refining the options on that painful banning mouse click. If you plan to travel to a blocked country, simply check with your bank’s fraud protection department and see if they can add your account to an exempt list. This will allow your card to function normally with all the fees banks like to charge. Your other option would be the good old fashion travelers check.

This does not mean you will be free from risk. The bank may ask for some sort of waver of responsibility should you become a victim in a blocked country. So the suggested plan is to learn about how bank fraud is being done.

In Thailand it was false faces on ATM Machines to capture PIN numbers. So selecting an ATM that is not in a secluded place was part of the suggested self protection measures. Now the ATM machines have been fitted with some sort of devise that makes the false face very obvious to the untrained eye or impossible to install on an ATM.

The bottom line is check with your bank before your grab your passport and fly off as it could keep your getaway a dream and not a nightmare.

From time to time there is a story that pushes your buttons and just makes you angry. Ripping off people is bad enough, but when a reputable hospital starts ripping off sick patients, that just makes people angry.

Imagine if you would that you have some sort of medical condition that forces you to take some medication. Take for example insulin to help treat diabetes. A diabetic person is forced to refill their prescription regularly as insulin has a limited shelf life of about a month. Typically an established diabetic patient who knows how to handle their diabetes would be required to see a doctor once or twice a year. This is normal and does make all the sense in the world when you come and think about it.

What is happening as Connecting the Dots has investigated at least one hospital in Bangkok is forcing their diabetic patients to see a doctor at every refill. What that simply means is added costs to the patient from 10% to 100% depending on the cost of the prescription refill.

The hospital has decided this is necessary but in fact it is not. If you make enough noise or simply threaten to change hospitals, they will refill your prescription without seeing the doctor. However they will also try to slip in some added fees like nursing charges, and if you make noise about them as well they also will disappear.

From the outside it sends a bad message about the doctors who work their. It suggests that they are a bunch of inept fools if they can not make a proper diagnoses and need to see people for every prescription refill. The need to see them without reason tends to significantly erode respect in their ability and that of the hospital as well.

Connecting the Dots by chance talked to 5 people who had the same experience, and that was enough to fire-up the keyboard and write this post. We did not look past diabetic out patients, but in the sense if it is good for one then it must be good for all. So with that you can make your own assumptions as to how wide spread this rip off tactic goes.

The Hospital at the center of this is Bangkok Nursing Hospital (BNH), as there is no need to be anonymous with this. It is very clear this decision to rip off the sick is coming from non medical people. Very simply doctors would never deliberately dirty their own face by showing they don’t know what they are doing. The fact is the doctors at BNH are qualified, but someone looking to fatten their wallet at the expense of the sick is at the center of this scam.

There has been suggestions that this practice is seen in other hospitals. So the way to find out if you are being ripped off is simply check around both inside and outside of Thailand what is the norm for maintenance of your condition. If you discover that the frequency of doctor visits and tests do not match, it is suggested that some action be taken privately and publically. Medical tourism is a big part of Thailand’s self marketing. So of the government gets wind of this through very public means being the media or other, the practice will very quickly come to an end as this also dirties the face of Thailand as well.

Discovering That Thaksin was using different names in his stack of passports was news but yet not unexpected. Typically criminals do try to hide their identity to avoid capture.

Reading between the lines, this simply says Thaksin’s life is no where near as rosy as he tries to make it out to be. He is doing what common criminals do by pretending to be something else. This is nothing new anyways, as cases in the court pertaining to Thaksin’s billions have the same situation being what is on paper does not match reality. Simply Thaksin lies regularly about nearly everything. If he were Pinocchio he would have a nose miles long by now.

The name change now has other problems. It will be very easy to put an end to the royal pardon petition if you think about it and there would be little fuss that could be kicked up by pro Thaksin protesters. Thaksin changed his name so very simply the petition is invalid.

Looking into the true life of Thaksin you will find that nearly 100% of his waking time is involved in buying and manipulating people. So changing his name on passports is just part of that game.

How this will play out amongst his lesser educated supporters remains to be seen. Certainly it will make them think as to why Thaksin is doing that. No matter what they finally conclude it most certainly  will be more negative. The first obvious thought would be if he is accepted by heads of state as he claims, why does he need to hide who he is? When you couple that with his traitor image you can start to see popularity erosion on the logical thinking level even in the lesser educated.

This exposes the key to finally root Thaksin’s support out. Loss of image and face, coupled together with a new and better source of prosperity and Thaksin will simply be a memory no less significant than a wonderful meal.

This also invites the ‘Give Thaksin a Name’ game. It is easy to play and most certainly will be a popular drinking game. After all Thaksin himself has given people the idea. So aside from names that portray his physical characteristics, there certainly will be a creative selection to be joked about. So Connecting the Dots asks what name would you give Thaksin?

Unfortunately for Thailand, fraud, piracy and scams are the norm. and as it would be, Thais are not the only culprits. There are plenty of non Thais playing the game. But when it comes to the need of finding western professional help particularly when it comes to mental health, identifying the real deal can be a bit of a problem.

There are some jobs that are for Thais only and you can not get a work permit even if you are fully qualified. Doctors are just one such job. A non Thai doctor simply can not work as a doctor in Thailand. Although they make the option available, there is a written test that must be taken, and it is all in Thai. And even if you do manage to pass the test, granting a work permit is discretionary and not guaranteed.

Generally speaking in the medical field this is not a problem. An infection is an infection, a broken bone is a broken bone, and an inflamed appendix is an inflamed appendix no matter what language you speak or what color your skin is. The treatment is the same so in this case medicine becomes universal.

However when it comes to mental health it becomes another story. psychiatrists are doctors and the same Thai only laws apply. That is because psychiatrists are the only people in the mental health field that can prescribe medications. Psychologists and others can not, even if that person holds a doctorates in psychology. So once the psychiatrist gives you the psychiatric medication you are quickly off to your new private world masking all the problems.

Psychologists, clinical hypnotherapists and other such mental health professionals simply work with the grey matter between the ears. However as each country has different electric voltages, so do the way people think. When it comes to counseling or various forms of psychotherapy, if the counselor and the client do not have common ground being life experiences, it becomes difficult or impossible for the counseling/therapy to move forward. That is because talking about life experiences to use as examples during counseling is a necessary tool. To talk about sick buffalos or a poor rice harvest as a reference point when you are more use to dealing with rush hour traffic in New York, you can quickly see the problem as to how therapy can quickly stall and you begin to think this professional is a nut case. Because of that there is a need for western mental health professionals in Thailand.

Because this profession so closely mirrors a Thai only job, the need to hide or be deceptive about credentials is a necessary evil to get a work permit. A person who holds a doctors degree in psychology or clinical hypnotherapy may need to hide that fact if their additional qualifications come to close to that Thai only job. Because of that, it adds to the difficulty of identifying a qualified western mental health professional working in Thailand.

In places that have high foreign populations like Bangkok, Pattaya and Chiang Mai, there are plenty of people who claim to be mental health professionals but are actually not qualified at all. Then again there are some who are qualified but are not allowed to work because they lack a proper visa and work permit. So this leaves a person in need with a real dilemma.

but as it would be it appears help is on the horizon. Connecting the Dots was made aware of a seed that is being planted that will hopefully provide an answer. International schools in Thailand have the need to send some of their students and perhaps the entire family to counseling if a situation is having a negative effect on the student. So they have requested from the real counselors that some sort of self governing body be created to insure the best possible professional help is available.

Eventually this new body looks to be available to the general public some time in 2010. Perhaps you could call this the ‘Seal Of Approval’ and should set you mind at rest that the people listed have been checked out. There is little more than a single web page announcing this at the moment, and you can see it here and it is worth bookmarking. But no matter how you look at it, this eventually will be a good thing for ex-pats in Thailand.

Deliberate misrepresentation of healthcare reform just to kill the bill is just immoral no matter how you cut it. Whoever is sowing this misinformation is doing so to serve themselves and not the American people.

Few things in life are as important as one’s health. Without good health the quality of life is reduced. So to spread misinformation to scare people away and to change opinion resulting in attacks on politicians who truly have the peoples best interest in mind, is down right immoral as well as unethical. To deliberately deny someone their health, amounts to passive murder if you come and think about it.

One bit of false information being spread was euthanasia is part of the healthcare reform bill. The simple fact is it is not, but tricking people into thinking there is euthanasia in the bill is actually euthanasia itself. If the bill was passed sick people would be allowed affordable healthcare, without it self elected euthanasia becomes their only choice.

Why someone would do this is answered by looking at who is doing it. Connecting the Dots does not want to name names simply because we are not exactly sure who started it, but we do know who is expert at planting the suggestion as covered in a previous post.

A picture of President Obama touched up to make him look like Adolf Hitler is part of this misinformation campaign designed to scare people, there is no other reason.

President Obama spent a significant amount of time and effort to debunk these lies. So to tie up The President for over 10 days simply shows the effort being put into perpetuating these lies.

Americans simply need to understand they are being manipulated and to stop reacting to the manipulation. What they need to do is go after the manipulators in no uncertain terms and deal with these people who would sacrifice the health of countless others for their own self serving reasons. As raw as it is, it seems a good old fashion lynch mob may be the correct medicine for this ailment to send the proper message. To spread a lie that may inconvenience people is one thing, to spread a lie that may kill them is quite another. So in this case a lynch mob seems to be balanced as the people who are creating these lies that may make people needlessly sacrifice their lives have essentially chosen the strength of the medicine.

If you have ever taken a child shopping, they would very quickly load up the trolley with everything that caught their eye if you allowed it. So paying respect to your wallet and not looking to spoil the child, the word ‘no’ is frequently used. But when an adult is told ‘no’ on one of his personal selections, it clearly shows something someplace is terribly wrong.

In Iran the President is allowed to pick his Vice President, or supposedly to at least give the appearance of democracy. But when Ahmadinejad selected his Vice President, he was promptly told to put him back and select another. This simple event sheds a lot of clarity and opens the door for many paths of debate. Some of them if not all of them are an embarrassment to Iran.

Some of the possible debates can be that Ahmadinejad is a complete idiot and is not capable of making his own decisions. This can be supported by his demonstration of failed history lessons on the Holocaust. That along with other rants that make absolutely no sense at all lend support to that theory.

Another possible debate is this is just further evidence that the recent Iran presidential elections were nothing more than a farce, and the outcome was established before anyone went out to vote. So the person who decided on who the president should be, is also deciding who the Vice President should be. This is also another path of debate, but it is not an either or choice where both could be true.

So once again it brings up the point of the protests in Iran. Apparently there is cause and effect here. So as to properly resolve the problem, the cause must be eliminated so as to stop the effect. The outcome of the presidential elections was clearly an effect. The cause is the country’s dictator hiding in the robes of a Cleric calling the shots.

With that scenario, it seems to be wasted energy at this point fighting over the puppet position of President of Iran. To allow the false democracy that is portrayed in Iran to be real, the dictator must be addressed and removed from power. Only then will the voice of the people be heard.

Once again the people of Iran are showing the world that not all Muslims are bad. The fruits of that image are already being felt around the world. The desired portrayal of hardline Muslims that all Muslims are of the same hardline breed is being quickly shattered by the events in Iran. In short, the protests in Iran are globally undoing all the stereotype damage cause by Muslim hardliners and Muslim terrorists that the world has been watching for decades. For this there is little doubt that Muslims around the world are grateful for what the Iran protests are doing.

When it comes to dealing with Thaksin Shinawatra, nothing is face value. There are layers upon layers of deception when it comes to sorting out the truth.

When dealing with Thaksin in a business venture, it is almost certain the venture will be investigated. This is because of the increasingly obvious method of how Thaksin makes deals. Thaksin has managed to call attention to himself in the western world’s business circles, and what was once a Thai only problem has now spread to other countries.

With Thaksin’s track record, it seems impossible for him to do anything straight forward over the table. There is always some shady under dealings that allow Thaksin to reap financial benefits unseen. Last year Connecting the Dots did a story called “Thaksin’s ‘Hide the Real Owner’ game with Manchester City begins.”  What was reflected in our story nearly a year ago, is now being seen in the news article below.

That story was followed up later with “Manchester City sale ruse” and once again you start to see the dots talked about in the story below.

Although the sale was said to have been completed, something did not sit right as it did not fit Thaksin. As a result Connecting the Dots mostly took a wait and see position on this, and did not accept the face value of the sale.

Quoting the Nation;

Thaksin ghost haunts Premier League again

Thaksin Shinawatra’s shadows continue to loom over the Premier League and may cause the football governing body to block Sulaiman al-Fahim’s supposed 60m-pound takeover of Portsmouth despite his installation as the club’s chairman yesterday.

The Guardian’s website reported that the takeover is being subject to more investigations because of fears Thaksin might have a hand in it.

Reports in the Gulf claimed Fahim had completed his takeover and they were fuelled by the Pompey chief executive, Peter Storrie, who yesterday implied on Portsmouth’s website that the club had exited a formal takeover period. Fahim has passed the Premier League’s “fit and proper person” test and is now permitted to take a position on a club’s board.

However, according to the Guardian, despite his being installed as chairman, the paperwork that will formally give him ownership of the club has not been processed and the Premier League will seek to ensure that he is not acting for any third parties before allowing the deal to go through. It said yesterday: “As with all changes in club ownership, the Premier League will continue to monitor any material changes in circumstance.”

“The league’s caution is understandable since it must be satisfied he is not acting as a representative for Thaksin Shinawatra. The former Thai prime minister is understood to be living in Dubai and described himself last month as a “close friend” of Fahim but he would not pass league governance tests having been found guilty of corruption in absentia and sentenced to two years’ jail in Thailand last year,” The Guardian said.

Thaksin’s long-term adviser, Pairoj Piempongsant, was reportedly involved in the introduction of the two men. Fahim’s initial admission that his Al Fahim Asia Associates investment instrument had backers from the Gulf and the Far East prompted scrutiny of his relationship with Thaksin.

Fahim has since claimed he is the sole shareholder of Al Fahim Asia Associates, with Thaksin distancing himself from involvement at Portsmouth, The Guardian said.

The league is under pressure to uphold its ownership regulations, with a report from the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force stating last month: “Many clubs are financially in bad shape and their financial trouble could urge football clubs to accept funds from dubious parties.”

It added: “Football clubs are indeed seen by criminals as the perfect vehicles for money laundering [and] criminals often seek a status outside the criminal world, and football can offer the opportunity for acquiring such a patron status.”

Fahim, 32, becomes chairman of a heavily indebted club with only 14 outfield players in the first-team squad. However, he has persuaded Paul Hart to accept a two-year contract as manager and Storrie, who is among the highest-paid executives in the Premier League, remains as chief executive.

The democratic protests have fallen mostly silent in Iran for fear of unthinkable punishment. The seeds of democracy in Iran seem to have failed. But not because they were wrong, it is because they can only grow in the soil of a true democracy.

Stepping back and looking at the big picture, Iran has a dictator who has been hiding in the robes of religion. The position of President of Iran is actually only a facade that gives the illusion of democracy. Iran’s dictator will only allow a person who shares his views to hold that post. So with that thought, we do not see an election that was tainted, we actually see an election that never was.

What the people of Iran were protesting for is turning out to be a hollow shell, and that simply meant whatever loss of life there was during the protests, was for nothing.

This power structure in Iran was no secret, the Clerics behind the scenes were always seen as the power brokers. The position of President was created mostly to keep problems at bay both domestically and internationally. It allowed certain international privileges to be reaped because Iran was seen as democratic, while at the same time gave the people the illusion that they had a voice in the direction of their country.

Now that this farce has been exposed, what was once tamed with the illusion of democracy has now been aroused to anger. New tactics will be used, and with the bulk of the population young and eager to deal with this dictator, a top to bottom cleaning approach will be the task and not just the facade post of President.

To the west and particularly the US, this simply spells the start of allies inside the border of Iran. A growing undergrown movement will eventually take root being sooner than later if it has not started already. But those in Iran must reach out, because the US can not reach in.

The ramifications of this with the nuclear issue in Iran have changed the playing field, but it is too soon to say where all the pieces are.

Diplomatically other countries can look to bypass the President of Iran as it is clear he is just a puppet with a mouth who failed his history lessons on World War II. They can look to deal directly with the dictator. Before other countries had to deal with the facade, but now this provides the excuse not to. This will have the effect of showing the worlds discontentment with the violent events of a dictator securing his grip on power.

It is entirely possible that the position of President of Iran could be discontinued after a while seeing that the true reason it existed no longer exists.

Change is still coming in Iran, but not the way originally advertized. The people of Iran who truly want to change their country, have many more friends beyond the border of Iran than they realize. But these friend can only stand behind them as each country must fight its own battle for freedom.

It does not take a political scientist to see that what is going on in Iran is anything but democratic. For there to be this much effort put into silencing the voices of the people, it can be called anything but democracy.

There was very obviously an illusion that there was some form of democracy in Iran. The illusion could only be propagated if the political candidates fell within the liking of the ruling Clerics. Those that do not meet with their liking would be subject to what we are now witnessing with very clear election fraud. Of that there is little remaining doubt.

Looking at how the United States would see this, even if both political candidates were hostile to the US, the process of free democratic elections would be US supported for both candidates. Dealing with the hostile winner is for another time.

It is very clear the majority of people in Iran do not approve of the direction their country is heading. Each person has their own personal reason for wanting change. The most probable reason is to become more in line with the world. There are numerous benefits to not be seen as hardline extremists.

On a very positive note, the events as terrible as they are in Iran, completely shatter the illusion that all Muslims are like the ones we read about daily in the news who are associated with terrorism. There really could be not a better example than this. It also shows and reminds us that good news does not sell papers. Papers survive by digging up the dirt and tabloids survive for just that reason.

So now that the illusion has been exposed, the ruling Clerics are actually seen as dictators and not like religious leaders. Whatever the circumstances that placed them in power, have to be looked at by the Iranian people and be dealt with. It is hard to see that there would be any remaining respect for the ruling Clerics except by hardliners. They may have to take on a lifestyle closer to that of Saddam Hussein just to avoid being killed. That is particularly so as the kill people of their own country. Simply put Iran has a dictator hiding in the Shroud of religion.

It is too often that people who live in a truly free and democratic country forget that there is a price for that freedom that lets their voice be heard. From time to time someone will try to take their voice away or other parts of that freedom. When that happens people have but 2 choices. They can either accept that their voice has been silenced, or they can fight to keep it. The people of Iran now face just such a time.

It does not take much of an education to see that the logistics of counting 35,000,000 paper ballots will take days to do properly. When the returns came back in 3 hours, it was a clear sign of fraud. It is this fraud that has taken the voice from the Iranian people and caused the massive uprising.

On Friday June 19, 2009 Iran’s hardline Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei simply told the people to accept this clearly fraudulent election or face the wrath of violent suppression. A quick analysis is that the alleged winner of the fraudulent election is hardline where the loser is more moderate. So simply the position Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took is for self survival.

That has set the stage for what will happen next. The Iranian people will either choose to fight, or surrender their voices. From a simple patriotic point of view, people of every country can relate as to what is about to unfold. The desire for freedom is universal, but on the same note not every country is ready for democracy. A good education is required to allow democracy to grow and prosper. Without that education people are too easily lead astray. The uprising in Iran suggests that critical level of education has been reached, and the people want to move away from the hardline towards the moderate.

As Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has sided with the fraudulent winner, he has taken himself from his high untouchable perch and made himself fair game. Because of that, the stage is set for a possible revolution where not just the presidential seat is being battled for, it is the entire system that governs decisions in Iran.

Connecting the Dots does not know what will happen, but we have heard reports of cracks in the strong arm of the hardliners. Meaning there is a chance of a successful revolution as some of that strong arm will no doubt side against the hardliners.

If conflict erupts, there will be lives lost, but simply that is the price to pay for freedom. The world is watching as the events in Iran unfold, and all bets are off as to the final outcome.

As per usual, everyone gets sick from time to time. Sometimes it is your common cold, and sometimes it is a bit more involved. But when you go out to see a doctor and get medicine to deal with the illness and you don’t get better, some of the most freighting thoughts come to mind.

It truly can send you into a panic if you are not getting better after taking medicine. One of the first thoughts a person would have is thinking that they were HIV positive, and there was not enough left of their immune system to deal with the illness. This certainly would do anyone’s head in. The second thought maybe they have been expose to some super bug that can fend off the strongest medicine. In either case, they are starting to panic.

Then after you finish your medicine you go out and get more hoping for the best. You go to a different store and get the exact same medicine. Shortly after you start taking the second batch you start to improve. Suddenly you conclude the problem was not with you, but the medicine you were first given was a dud.

It is not uncommon to see quality control asleep at the wheel in Asia. After all China is now paying a huge price nation wide for poor or no quality control. But when it comes to medicine that can save a life, and it turns out to be little more than a placebo, that qualifies as a crime. And if a person dies from not getting the life saving medicine, that may qualify as murder in some cases.

This is much more common than you think. In fact it may compare to raw herb medicine that can very in strength depending on the health and age of the plant. Medicine in a pill form was meant to be a standard dose and strength. When it is not, then there is a problem.

Certainly there are counterfeit drugs for sale. One of the biggest counterfeit markets is for drugs that assist in making your female partner smile, otherwise know as Viagra. There are plenty of knock off drugs that have little or no active ingredient. They can commonly be found at border crossings in no mans land between immigration points. Unfortunately there is little that can be done as many know going in to buy the drugs at a fraction of the market price, may only have a fraction of the active ingredient. Deliberate or just bad quality control, the end results are the same.

So the true concern here is this lack of quality control is more than a pain in the ass, it can take a life in short order by under dosing when the full dose is needed. Even bith control pills have shown problems, and that can be a big problem for some when it comes to unplanned children. There is no easy answer here and the government is the true body that must step in. Similar fallout as China is experiencing may be the shock therapy needed to fix the problem. No matter what is done, there is a problem and it could cost you your life. It is not local to any one country, but the countries that do produce the drugs need to be on top of this or they risk major consequences fed by a weak global economy. Just ask China.

There are a few telltale body language signs that say what is going on. Cutting past the political posturing, it seems there may be a bit of an outbreak of stained underwear in high places in Iran.

For Iran to lash out at the US strongly suggest things are not going well in Iran. This was never expected by the government, but because of the intense motivation of the opposition, it strongly shows what the government media censors have been trying to hide over the years. It also shows the government may have been believing its own propaganda.

The reaction is that of a cornered animal. There is no other comparison. If the comment is addressed at the US government asking Twitter to hold off on maintenance so the Iranian protesters could better communicate, it becomes even more obvious that there is panic in the Iranian government.

It is uncertain if it is fear of the world looking on, or fear of the protesters getting the upper hand. It is likely a bit of both as it tends to stop the Iranian government from getting like the Chinese did in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

It is obvious to see the US and much of the world would like to see a change of power in Iran because of their nuclear weapons goals, of that there is no state secret. So to take sides passively with the team that was cheated out of victory is nothing new for the US. So with that thought, the Iranian government should know better than to bark at the US as it may only show the world the US is right in the eyes of the world as well as the eyes of the Iranian people.

If you have been following the events in Iran, you may have heard the short messaging service Twitter is playing a key roll in communication between the protestors. Although Twitter is relatively new, it is quickly becoming part of the global culture.

So as things are playing out in Iran, it would seem evidence clearly points to the election being rigged by the sheer impossibility of counting 35 million paper ballots in about 3 hours. For a visual that is a stack of paper roughly 8750 feet tall or 2.66 km tall if you prefer the metric version.

So the attempt by cheater in chief to block communication has been thwarted by Twitter and at least 1 other popular web based network. So now what next.

Twitter is new to Connecting the Dots, but we did indulge recently, and we do like one thing in particular, and that is the real time posting. People who subscribe to our RSS feeds must wait for the feed spider programs to crawl our latest entry, and we have seen that can be up to 4 hours after the fact. Although our posts go out between midnight and 12:10 am Bangkok time, we do not start seeing reads until the crawls have completed.

It is that real time posting that is helping the protesters who’s votes were apparently stolen by the cheater in chief. This is a big problem and it is looking more and more like the People Power movement in the Philippines that sent president Marcos packing. The same scenario played out where Marcos rigged the elections.

So what will happen next depends on how nasty the cheater in chief gets, and considering if he plays hard and loses, he will never get out of Iran alive. Of that we are almost certain as there will be no grey area in this dispute.

If you want to check Connecting the Dots out on Twitter, our name there is ‘ConnectingDots’.  The link is:

https://twitter.com/ConnectingDot