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That Was Only Supposed To Be Made-Up Evil For Comic Effect, For God's Sake

China... hi. How you doing? So we've been arguing a little lately, because of our trade deficit and your relationship with North Korea and your recent military buildup and the status and treatment of dissident Chen Guangcheng and the occasional piece of tainted goods you send out, such as cabbage with formaldehyde on it.

We've had discussions over these things. We've been arguing a tad.

But you know what we really, really should not have to have a discussion about? This...

(AP) SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea has seized thousands of smuggled drug capsules filled with powdered flesh from dead babies, which some people believe can cure disease, officials said Monday.

The capsules were made in northeastern China from babies whose bodies were chopped into small pieces and dried on stoves before being turned into powder, the Korea Customs Service said.

The next paragraph in that article mentions that the customs officials don't want to say who the hell did this or where the dead baby flesh came from. Why won't they say? "Possible diplomatic friction with Beijing." Seriously. They're afraid you might be mad that someone has a problem with someone in your country chopping up dead babies and selling the flesh.

Fortunately, we have a Korean documentary team from the network SBS, who has already done the legwork and turned up a hospital that takes "mostly" abortions and stillborns- note the keyword "mostly"- and has a medicine company they're instructed to contact any time that happens. After that, choppy choppy. The documentary's set to air in South Korea on August 6; they've supplied a preview transcript here, albeit in Korean.

Seriously, China, what the hell? Besides the place the traffickers, the hospital workers in on this and especially the medical company are the going when they die.

Japanese Robot Update, Uncanny Valley Department

Would you like a bald, naked, vaguely human-shaped phone with its very own heartbeat?

Of course you wouldn't. But Japan has come up with one anyway.

Also it demands hugs.

Bling Fu Panda

We've spoken here before on some of the dangers of being a lottery winner: primarily, a loss of perspective and an inability to handle the money. However, before you can handle the money, you first have to get the money from the lottery people. The lottery people are going to want you to do a photo-op where you're holding a gigantic check and shaking hands with lottery officials.

Unfortunately, that's one of the single worst things you can do if you're hoping to live comfortably afterwards. Every time a what-to-do-if-you-win-the-lottery article comes out, you're told up and down to keep the news as private as you possibly can, lest you be inundated afterwards with relatives you never knew you had, business start-ups that Just Need A Small Investment, and every parent within driving range who has a child who needs cancer treatment. You're told every time that when you add up all the amounts people are asking for, it's going to come out to more than you won, and even when the money runs out, they're still not going to stop showing up because, after all, you won the lottery. You're set for life, right?

The statistic that one out of every three lottery winners go broke or bankrupt within five years just does not compute.

And then, of course, there are the people just looking to straight-up steal the money. They see a name, they see a face, they know who to pursue, or alternatively, whose family to threaten. The name, you can't do all that much about unless the place you live allows you to accept the money anonymously. The face, though, is another matter. Lottery winners in China over the years have come up with an idea: to protect themselves, they show up to the photo-up in disguise.

So if you were about to ask, 'What sequence of events led a man to decide that accepting a lottery prize in a giant panda costume was a good idea?', there's your answer.

Hatching Schemes

Do you remember Richard Hatch? The winner of the first season of Survivor? If you don't, the short version is that when he went on the show, he was a corporate trainer from Rhode Island, and that after he won the $1 million prize, he somehow failed to report his winnings to the IRS. His winnings that were announced on national television in what was not just a high-rated show but an American cultural event. After he was brought to trial for it, he attempted to go back and amend his old returns to reflect the winnings, only to find that you don't get to do that, or at least, you don't get to do that after they've already hauled you into court.

He served 51 months in federal prison. Which just proves that you can be an evil genius and still be really, really stupid.

Why do I bring him up? Well, first off, he's got this going:



Second, Hatch isn't being a very good spokesperson. First, when ordered to amend those old returns by a judge- the ones he tried to go back and amend after being brought to trial- he kind of didn't. The judge is still deciding whether to send him back to prison, but in any case, he's facing a 25% wage garnishment as a result. Hatch has asked that the garnishment be reduced to twenty-five US dollars for the month of January, claiming that since his release, he's earned only $500. The judge remains unamused.

Please note that this is a man who, in the All-Star edition of Survivor, smuggled matches onto the island in his ass, and is the reason why Survivor contestants are now strip-searched.

In conclusion, former corporate trainer.

Kinshasa VICE

The winners of the 2012 Webby Awards were recently announced. Spoiler alert: I didn't win. Also I never bothered to nominate myself.
The full list of winners is viewable here, but let's skip to two categories in particular,  'Documentary- Individual Episode' and 'News and Politics- Individual Episode'. We linked to one of the Documentary nominees back in December, VICE'S report on bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan, with Thomas Morton reporting.

That didn't win. VICE did, however, take the News and Politics trophy, for this report by Jason Mojica and photographer Tim Freccia, profiling life in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In case it's not clear, if you don't know about VICE yet, they're putting out some amazing stuff. The tone is pretty much 'Cracked.com's hard news division', so expect that- there's a 'NSFW' section and everything (spend enough time at VICE and, let's face it, you will see naked boobies)- but if that's not an issue for you, you'll see some outstanding reports if you're willing to dig through the odd college-student-ranting-type article and gratuitous set of boobs to get to them.

For example, taking from recent reports, here's Paige Aarhus reporting on a Kenyan secessionist movement. Here's Sharif Elhelwa filing a report after noticing an Al-Qaeda flag (yes, they have a flag) flying over a courthouse in Benghazi, Libya. Here's Andy Capper reporting on the homeless situation in Barcelona. (Capper in particular is pretty much VICE in a nutshell. If you look through his most recent stuff, it includes the Barcelona report, as well as several pieces containing graphic material from violence in Nigeria and interviews with ex-Liberian warlord Joshua Blahyi, and then further down you have quite a few contributions to the NSFW section.)

But back to the Webbys. The story that did win the Documentary prize comes from the Guardian, called 'Abandon The Knife'. The story concerns Kenyan girls who are fighting back against the long-standing practice of female circumcision. As a reward for winning, it is presented below. It's 32 minutes, so spare some time.

Name The Country

In suspending a foreign company's licenses for several coal-mining projects, one country's chief financial official was quoted as saying, "People demand the government does everything possible not to let one country dominate (the economic balance)." This country is particularly keen on limiting Chinese investment, fearful of how much China might end up influencing the country if they got too much economic control over investment in the country; the worry here is that China will bring far lower prices for the coal than they could get elsewhere.

The country has been at odds with China before and knows acutely how far China will go to press the issue should things come to blows. However, that does not prevent the legislature and the voters from wanting to take measures to stand up to the much more powerful Chinese, even if some of those voters are mining for and selling gold to China on the black market.

What country am I talking about?