Categories
FYI

Body Snatchers?

A multi-​province illegal trade in cadavers has been uncovered in China. “Between 2015 and 2021, Li Zhiqiang, a doctor at The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, allegedly sold around 10 cadavers to Shanxi Osteorad, with the price ranging between 10,000 yuan ($1,395) and 22,000 yuan ($3,070),” The Epoch Times tells us.

“This is something very strange,” explains U.S.-based China commentator Tang Jingyuan, quoted in the article. “In theory, even if the cadavers were from organ donors, Li doesn’t have the right to decide what to do with them, they belong to the families.…

“What’s more, Li dismembered the bodies, froze body parts, and sold them illegally and in secret. Both the bodies and their death were suspicious. How did they die? Why there were no families to claim the bodies?” 

But this appears to be not a story of just one culprit: “Between January 2015 and July 2023, Shanxi Osteorad Biomaterial Co., previously a state-​owned company, and an affiliated firm, allegedly acquired more than 4,300 human cadavers from several funeral homes, a transplant center, and a medical university, to make bone grafting materials.”

Life may be cheap in China. But death apparently pays — third parties?

Note: Image, above, from Robert Wise’s 1945 motion picture, The Body Snatcher, starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Categories
Today

Vietnam

On August 11, 1972, the last of American ground combat troops exited South Vietnam.

Categories
Thought

Tim Walz

And for one thing, don’t ever shy away from our progressive values: one person’s socialism is another’s neighborliness.

Minnesota Governor Timothy James Walz on a group fundraising chat dubbed “White Dudes for Kamala Harris” (July 29, 2024). Gov. Walz is the recently-​selected running mate of current Vice President Kamala Harris, who usurped the re-​election campaign of President Joe Biden. All three belong to the Democratic Party and both candidates on the current slate appear to be socialists of some sort.

Categories
Update

Big Story: Body Cam

Since Paul Jacob’s Wednesday column, “Unburdened by the Leftism,” in which he mentioned the big story sidelined by the Democrats and media, more information about the July 13th attempted assassination of Donald John Trump — said “big story” — has come out.

One significant revelation has been the body cam footage of the local police who had encountered someone “on the roof” that the head of the Secret Service was “too steep” to place a sniper upon. The policeman caught on vidcam complains that he had warned the Secret Service before the event that the building should have been protected by a sniper:

“I (expletive) told them they need to post the guys (expletive) over here. I told them,” one video records a local police officer saying. “The Secret Service. I told them that (expletive) Tuesday.”

Body cam footage from Trump assassination attempt: ‘I told them … Tuesday,’ says police officer,” Deseret News, August 9, 2024.

Paul has advocated for body cam usage since the Ferguson shooting, and this footage from the local police may be crucial to unraveling the mysteries of July 13th.

Categories
Thought

Walt Whitman

Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself (1855; 1881)

Categories
Today

Independence

On August 10, 1809, Ecuadorians attempted independence from Spain with the Declaration of Independence of Quito, but failed with the execution of all the conspirators a few days less than a year later.

Independence was finally achieved in 1822.