This has absolutely nothing to do with finance or with anything that I usually tackle on this blog. The story was so repulsive to me though that I had to make mention of it.

I came across this horrid story during my headline scan. From Yahoo News/AFP we get word that South Korea has intensified a crackdown on the smuggling of capsules from China containing the powdered flesh of dead babies. According to customs officials these pills are taken by some (You have to be pretty messed up mentally in my view) as a cure for disease or a way to boost sexual performance.

I’ve read some pretty messed up things in my life but this one has to rank up in the top 10. In no way do I mean to offend the Chinese here and certainly there is no intent made to do so to my Chinese readers, (because I do believe that anyone with a right frame of mind does not partake in this sort of thing) but why do these stories always seem to originate from China? Is life in China really such where someone woke up one day and decided that this sort of junk would make a love potion? Give me a break!

I have advocated my whole life against harming children and protecting them from the garbage that society exposes them to. To read that this practice has actually been going on sent my ‘rage meter’ to 10! According to the story;

The gruesome practice came to light Sunday when Korea Customs said it had uncovered 35 attempts to import a total of 17,451 such capsules since last August.

The pills -- filled with the dried and powdered flesh of foetuses or dead infants -- were intercepted in the mail or in customs searches at airports.

The customs service said that apart from ethical questions the capsules were contaminated with "super bacteria" and other disease-causing organisms.

Most pills were sent from the northeastern Chinese cities of Yanji and Jilin as well as cities including Qingdao and Tianjin at the request of customers in South Korea, it said.

Some were hidden in packages of legitimate drugs to disguise their contents.

Of course, aside from the obvious ethical question that accompanies such a story, I’m curious as to why the report didn’t go one step further and investigate where they are getting these ingredients to begin with? Forget the fact that these sick individuals also ingest seal penises and bear gall bladders as male libido boosters (according to the same story) but where are these whack jobs getting the ingredients for these capsules? I’m both repulsed and outraged.

"It is a bizarre...practice, just like a belief that eating the penis of actively-mating seals or drinking the bile of strong bears will help your libido," Ha Ji-Hyun, a psychiatrist at Konkuk University medical centre, told Chosun.

"No government in the world could possibly understand the Chinese government for letting such an inhuman practice go unpunished," it said in an editorial.

"I'm trembling with shock that people who eat such stuff are my compatriots," one anonymous South Korean Internet user commented. Another called the practice "absolutely hideous".

Memo to governments around the world: Keep sending our jobs to countries that actually think that this sort of activity is even remotely humane. Give me a break. I was already in a foul mood when I came across this story. Take a guess how my mood is now!