This exhaustive article goes through the chronology of how two Canadians aroused worldwide suspicions that China is killing members of the Falun Gong and selling their organs, corneas, et. al. to the highest bidders. The only thing new and the reason I link to it is the transcript of phone conversations the Canadians held (or allegedly held) with the gatekeepers of China’s organs-for-sale industry.

As part of their report alleging that China was executing Falun Gong prisoners and harvesting their organs for transplantation, Canadian lawyers and human rights activists David Kilgour and David Matas included transcripts of telephone calls made by Mandarin Chinese speakers from North America to hospitals and other institutions in China. The callers inquired about the availability of organs from Falun Gong prisoners. The caller below is identified only as “M” to protect his or her identity. Excerpts from English translations of some of the transcripts follow:

From a call to “Li” at the Mijiang City Detention Center in Heilongjiang Province (June 8, 2006):

M: Do you have Falun Gong [organ] suppliers? …

Li: We used to have, yes.

M: What about now?

Li: … Yes.
…
M: Can we come to select, or you provide directly to us?

Li: We provide them to you.

M: What about the price?

Li: We discuss after you come.
…
From a call to Shanghai’s Zhongshan Hospital Organ Transplant Clinic (March 16, 2006):

M: … So how long do I have to wait [for organ transplant surgery]?

Doctor: About a week after you come….

M: Is there the kind of organs that come from Falun Gong? I heard that they are very good.

Doctor: All of ours are those types.

Read the article to see just how much credibility this story has gained, and to see how poor a job the Chinese government has done in disproving the charges.

In a phone call, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Li Jianhua, also called the allegations “totally fake” and said the Chinese government had already investigated the claims and found them meritless.

But by immediately dismissing their report “out of hand,” Kilgour and Mr. Matas said in a reply, the Chinese government has admitted that it has conducted “no investigations to determine whether or not what the report contains is true.”

Come on – at least pretend to hold an invstigation, and then announce that all the allegations are false. This sort of cavalier dismissal only increases suspicion.

Yeah, war is hell and all. But when you read an article like this, you have to wonder how we ever plan to be seen as Iraq’s liberators (a notion that by now seems quite antiquated). The implications are staggering, and will most likely not help to garner additional warm and fuzzy feelings for the American liberators.

Four soldiers from an Army combat unit that killed three Iraqi men in a raid in May testified Wednesday that they had received orders from superior officers to kill all the military-age men they encountered.

The soldiers gave their accounts at a military hearing here to determine if four colleagues should face courts-martial on charges that they carried out a plan to murder the three Iraqis, whom they had seized after an assault on what they were told was an insurgent stronghold northwest of Baghdad.

Their testimony gave credence to statements from two defendants that an officer had told their platoon to ‘kill all military-age males’ in the assault, regardless of any threat they posed. That officer, Col. Michael Steele, has declined to testify, an unusual decision for a commander.

The four soldiers charged in the case, from Company C, Third Battalion Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division, said they fired on the three Iraqis after they broke loose from plastic handcuffs, attacked two soldiers and tried to escape.

Military prosecutors accused the unit’s leader, Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard, with orchestrating a scheme to cut the men’s’ handcuffs, shoot them as they fled and then have two soldiers inflict injuries on each other to cast the killings as self-defense.

Sergeant Girouard and three other soldiers – Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, Specialist William B. Hunsaker and Specialist Juston R. Graber – are charged with murdering the three Iraqis. In his testimony on Wednesday, Pfc. Bradley Mason of Company C said that on May 8, the night before the raid, Colonel Steele told soldiers to ‘kill all of them.’

Kill all the men old enough to fight. Create a staged escape to justify murder. These are time-honored techniques mployed by genocidists the world over. That we might actually have such a policy in parts of Iraq…well, it’s just unthinkable. Or at least it should be. The only encouraging aspect of the story is that the military, at least in this instance, still has the integrity to police itself. It forces me to wonder yet again what good can come of this venture.

Why do liberal people who are really smart sometimes do things that defy common sense, throwing red meat to the wild-eyed right-wing hyenas? That’s exactly what Jane Hamsher did today, offering herself to Michelle Malkin on a silver platter. Stupid. Her site is on my blogroll because I’ve often enjoyed her coverage of Plamegate and other issues, but I really have to wonder what was going on in her head. Maybe you can rationalize the PhotoShop, arguing that Joe Lieberman has pandered to his black audience. However, one needn’t be a seer to realize it will ignite instant and terribly negative controversy, making the poster (Hamsher) look God-awful. Which it did. We’ve got to do better than this. We can’t keep handing the Malkins of this world the rope they need to hang us with.

Very interesting. The Quacking Canards come out smelling like a rose.

..and these pictures aren’t even new (though they are to me). Still, they are breathtaking.

I have to get back to Guilin. Is there any place on earth more beautiful?

(Click to enlarge.)

Via…well, I forget, exactly, but I think I got pointed toward the photos startting from this post.

New levels of self-congratulatory pomp were reached today by a People’s Daily editor who was either being wickedly cynical or was sniffing glue. Never have I seen so many “scare quotes” in a single graf, along with so many examples of tortured syntax and bureaubabble. The theme is how other countries casually and erroneously refer to “the China threat” at the drop of a hat (true enough), and how China is, in reality, a friend to all the world and doesn’t have a threatening bone in its body (debatable). Anyway, just a very small sample:

Needless to say, those developed countries are always suspicious and cautious with China’s fast growing economy and society and continuously gain comprehensive national strength. This is the root cause of the “China threat” of all kinds, from “threat of democracy” and “threat of human rights” in early years, to “threat of Chinese textile dumping”, “threat of low labor costs”, “threat of energy demand”, “threat of food supplies”, “threat of financial risks”, etc. later on, to gossip-like “threat of Chinese singles” (it means the future large disproportion between Chinese males and females may cause crises to Chinese people’s marriages, resulting in posing a threat to China’s neighboring countries), to “threat of investment” and “threat of national securities” (for example, the bid of China National Offshore Oil Corporation for purchase of Unocal Corporation of the U.S. and U.S. State Department’s restrictions on use of desktops produced by Lenovo Group, a Chinese corporation). These different variations of the “China threat” can help these developed countries to win public support for their stronger measures for safeguarding their global political, economical and military interests and at the same time, they can contain China by setting barriers to China’s road of building power and enhancing international influences.

However, China’s sincerity and practices of commitment to peaceful development is widely recognized in the world and foreign hostility against China is gradually diminishing, thanks to China’s great efforts in diplomatic affairs. Besides, through frequent multi-lateral communications and bilateral exchanges, many countries have received a refreshed picture of China which does not only stick to her own road but also keeps striving to get close to international rules as much as possible, and meanwhile attaches importance to and makes active response to outer concerns. To put it simply, China’s international environment for reform and opening up campaign is becoming better and better.

Everything’s always coming up roses in these editorials. Except for the tortured souls who actually read this smothering nonsense.

It’s about time someone exposed the myth that the war in Iraq moved Qaddafi to get rid of his nukes. That’s pure Bush fantasy.

A Choice for the Rogues
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: August 2, 2006

I seriously doubt the Bush team will succeed in curtailing the Iranian or North Korean nuclear programs until it resolves a contradiction that has been at the heart of this administration from the beginning: Is it for a change of regime or a change of behavior in Iran and North Korea? Because the Bush team has refused to make up its mind, it’s gotten neither. All it’s gotten are two better-armed rogues.

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MoDo takes on Mad Max.

Mel’s Tequila Sunrise
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 2, 2006

My mom always warned me to stay away from tequila.

She would have given the same advice to Mel. She loved Mel, and always thought he would have been perfect for the role of Michael Collins, the romantic fighter for Irish independence who came to a bloody end in a roadside ambush in 1922.

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Oops, Charles Johnson won’t be happy to hear this:

Naveed Haq, now widely portrayed as a Muslim American so angry at Israel that he shot up a Jewish charity in Seattle, had recently converted to Christianity. His conversion is perhaps the most startling contradiction in a puzzling life.

He had a degree in electrical engineering and was the son of a successful engineer. But he couldn’t hold a job and recently worked as a security guard and retail clerk in the Seattle area. His father was a founding member of the Islamic center here. But the son was rarely seen at a local mosque for more than 10 years.

Haq, 30, told a ministry leader that he saw too much anger in Islam and wanted to find a new beginning in Christianity. He converted to Christianity, but, as with many other endeavors in his life, drifted away from the faith.

Of course, Michelle was revelling in her certainty that the killer was a Muslim, and Chuckles was even giddier. They insist it was an act of “Islamist-inspired” terrorism, a part of the jihad. Seems to me more like the sick and twisted act of a mentally ill and deeply troubled drifter. Islamism and terror had as much to do with it as his Christianity, i.e., nothing. Keep scrolling through Malkin’s hate site to see how frantically she’s been fanning the flames of this story to convince us it’s part of the vast Islamofascist conspiracy. Once again, she looks foolish and hysterical, choking on her own noxious hatred of swarthy brown people. I’m guessing she’ll make a Gobineau-esque argument that Islam is genetic, and once a Muslim always a Muslim.

It’s going to be the only Chinese airliner listed in Hong Kong, Shanghai and London. Before you invest, be sure you read this.