A ceremony to mark the production of trucks and tractors is underway at Kimilsung Square in Pyongyang on Dec. 7, 2017, in this photo released by the (North) Korean Central News Agency on Dec. 8. (Yonhap)

I find it amazing that this guy was given a command of any unit considering this outrageous behavior with a subordinate officer:

Neuhart testified Tuesday and Wednesday that they discussed having sex at her house before they left the hotel. He said he “waffled” about it because he is married, with five children, and because he was her superior officer — a violation of military fraternization rules.

Tag said the hotel video showed Kristin repeatedly pushing Neuhart away, including keeping her arms up between her body and his as they kissed. Neuhart testified that he recalled “her resting her arms on his chest” in a tender way.

He also said he asked Kristin if she wanted a “safe word,” which he understood would mean that she was feeling safe as their flirting led to sex. Neuhart said she told him “no,” which he took as the safe word she had chosen. He said that in the context of their time together, “no” meant “yes.”

After letting Neuhart into her house, where they kissed and hugged, she ordered him out. He went around to the back door and set up his cellphone to record on video his repeated efforts to get inside again. Neuhart testified that he did so to have proof that, if they had sex, it was consensual.

When the video was shown to jurors, Neuhart is shown loudly knocking on the door and tugging on the handles while Kristin yelled at him to stop and go away. But, she eventually let him in and could be heard crying and screaming for him to stop.

A neighbor who heard her called 911. As San Diego police arrived, Neuhart ran out the back and into a canyon, with his still-recording cellphone in his pocket. He fell — fracturing his leg. Officer caught him and arrested him.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but anyone who has sat through US military sexual assault training knows that no means no when it is said.

Let me guess he probably ran all the way up the mountain in record time and then swam completely around its icy cold lake before skiing back down the mountain and shooting targets depicting evil Yankee imperialists all at the same time:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has scaled the country’s highest mountain to emphasize his military vision, Pyongyang’s state media reported Saturday.

Kim climbed Mount Paektu with ranking military officials, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, adding that he recalled “the emotion-charged days when he realized the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force,” after reaching the peak.

North Korea last month claimed that it has successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-15, that is capable of hitting anywhere in the U.S., and declared that the launch marks the completion of its nuclear armament.

North Korea considers Mt. Paektu a sacred site. The KCNA explained that it is associated with the “revolutionary careers of the great leaders and serves as the mental mainstay of the invincible DPRK.” DPRK is the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

It is amazing to me that people continue to think humanitarian aid will be distributed in North Korea transparently and to the people who really need it:

Humanitarian aid for North Korea should continue to better connect the people in the country with the outside world despite heightened missile threats by its regime, civic activists said Thursday.

“North Koreans should be informed that the outside world actually cares about them,” said Kenneth Bae, president of the Nehemia Global Initiative who was once detained in a North Korean labor camp. “Helping North Koreans open their minds to the outside world is critical to prepare for a unified Korea.”

Kang Young-sik, secretary-general of the humanitarian aid group the Korean Sharing Movement (KSM), added, “Humanitarian assistance still does the role of enhancing North Koreans’ human rights. As long as transparency of the distribution process is secured, it should be further facilitated.”

These views were shared during the International Forum for One Korea sponsored by the Global Peace Foundation (GPF) and the U.S.-based think tank the EastWest Institute.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but any aid to North Korea will be considered tribute to Kim Jong-un.  Additionally every dollar of aid to North Korea is one more dollar they can invest in their military.

.@andreilankov named a Global Thinker 2017 by Foreign Policy https://t.co/BONcWOsaDv @nknewsorg

— Peter Ward, 워드 피터，皮得 (@rpcward89) December 5, 2017

The daughter and grand-daughter of Megumi Yokota, abducted from Japan when she was 13, taken to North Korea, never seen again https://t.co/EB9BkA7Bm1 pic.twitter.com/ks5EEx25IV

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) December 4, 2017

Condolences to the friends and family of the USFK soldier killed in a recent traffic accident in South Korea:

A U.S. soldier was killed when a truck slammed into a military ambulance and a car that had pulled over to the side of a highway after an earlier collision south of Seoul, officials said Friday.

The Eighth Army confirmed that a 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade soldier died of injuries suffered in a vehicle accident. The soldier was not further identified pending family notification.

“Medical aid was provided on the scene until the soldier was transported via ambulance to the Good Morning Hospital,” the 8th Army said in a statement. “The incident is under investigation.” (…..)

The deadly chain of events began when a car rear-ended the U.S. military vehicle on an interchange, prompting the soldier to get out to examine the damage. An 8-ton cargo truck then slammed into them, according to the regional fire service.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but imagine what the response would have been if it was a US soldier that killed a Korean civilian in a traffic accident?  The usual suspects would be protesting and demanding apologies from the US President.

This seems like a pretty odd thing to say unless the US has some kind of intelligence that the North Koreans are going to commit some kind of provocation during the Winter Olympics:

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in an interview with Fox News that her country’s participation in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics next February was an “open question” due to security concerns over North Korea, stirring worries in South Korea Friday that the Games could flop.

South Korea’s Blue House scrambled to rebut the idea, saying U.S. President Donald Trump had “promised” President Moon Jae-in during a recent phone call that his country would participate.

During an interview with Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” on Wednesday, Haley said the U.S. government has not decided yet whether to participate in the games, adding, “What we will do is make sure we are taking every precaution possible to make sure” that American athletes are “safe and to know everything that’s going on around them.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans have not committed any provocation nearly as bad as what happened before the 1988 Olympics in Seoul when they bombed KAL Flight 858 killing 115 people.  Despite that provocation the US still participated in the Seoul Olympics.

It appears that 2019 is the timeframe that the Moon administration will push to get a freeze deal agreed to with North Korea:

South Korea should push for a summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the first half of Moon’s term, a senior ruling party lawmaker said Thursday.

Rep. Lee Hae-chan of the Democratic Party made the suggestion in a speech set to be delivered at a security conference, saying 2019 will be good for a summit because the year is meaningful as the 100th anniversary of the 1919 nationwide uprising against Japanese colonial rule and the establishment of a provisional government.

“If possible, it’s important to push for a South-North summit in the first half (of Moon’s five-year term),” Lee said during the conference organized to mark late former President Kim Dae-jung’s winning of the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize following the first inter-Korean summit ever earlier that year.

“If a summit takes places in the second half, it would be difficult to guarantee its effectiveness,” he said.  [Korea Times]

That last sentence leads me to believe that the Moon administration has little confidence that what they have planned will be popular enough with voters to elect another liberal President to follow through with whatever is agreed to at this summit.

Here is yet another good idea fairy in regards to defeating North Korea’s ICBMs:

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., raised more than a few eyebrows (and drew a few rolled eyes) when he suggested in November that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter could intercept North Korean missiles headed for the United States. Hunter cited analysis from Los Alamos National Labs and other sources, according to Inside Defense.

Turns out the F-35 may be an ICBM buster after all, or at least be helpful toward that end. On Tuesday, Northrop Grumman called a small group of journalists to its offices in Linthicum, Maryland, to show the results of a 2014 experiment conducted with the Missile Defense Agency, or MDA.

The U.S. has no foolproof way to down a North Korean ICBM. Physics says the best opportunity comes during “boost phase,” as the rocket is leaving the launch pad. But DPRK anti-aircraft defenses make it difficult for the U.S. to get a weapon close enough to do any good. That’s why the Pentagon is looking at elaborate, futuristic concepts like arming drones with missile-killing lasers.

But the F-35 is studded with sensors like no other aircraft, including the Distributed Aperture System, or DAS, a half-dozen 17-pound electro-optical and infrared sensors. These feed a helmet-mounted display that allows the pilot to effectively “see through the plane” and spot incoming aircraft and missiles.

In October 2014, Northrop and MDA launched FTX-20, an experiment to see, among other things, whether the DAS could track an enemy ICBM. They took data from the sensors, ran it through algorithms developed by Northrop and MDA’s Enterprise Sensor Lab, generated a 3D-moving picture of the missile’s trajectory, and conveyed it over the Link 16 tactical data exchange. This kind of targeting data can help cue the U.S.Navy’s anti-ballistic missile destroyers or short- and intermediate-range missile defenses like the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile battery deployed in South Korea.  [Defense One]

You can read the rest at the link, but feeding data to Patriot, Aegis, and THAAD systems will not defeat North Korea’s ICBMs.  These systems are not designed to intercept ICBMs, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system is.  That is why people who understand missile defense would have rolled their eyes at Rep. Hunter’s claim.

Additionally even the feeding of data to these systems to help with cueing the sensors to North Korean launches is of little value considering the US already has two AN/TPY-2 radar sites in Japan that provide much better cueing data.  This all adds up to limited value of the capability the F-35 provides in regards to North Korea launches.