In my opinion proclamation like this to the media are unhelpful because it is almost creating an expectation of Kim Jong-un to do something or appear weak for not conducting a provocation:

North Korea is likely planning something very provocative around Columbus Day next week, which happens to fall the day before the anniversary of the founding of the North Korean communist party, a top CIA official warned on Wednesday.

“We are concerned…that risk exists at any time on the Korean Peninsula,” said Yong Suk Lee, deputy assistant director of the CIA’s Korea Mission Center, while speaking at a conference at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. “I told my own staff, October 10 is the Korean Workers Party founding day. That’s Tuesday in North Korea, but that’s Monday — Columbus Day holiday in the U.S. — so stand by your phones.”

“North Korea is a political organism that thrives on confrontation,” Lee added.  [Newsweek]

You can read more at the link, but it has been quiet recently and it seems like we should not be encouraging the Kim regime to break the quiet to conduct more provocations.

I think this may be a case of a cultural difference because I have seen kids left unattended in vehicles in Korea quite often where in the US this will land you in jail like this Korean couple visiting Guam have found out:

A South Korean judge-lawyer couple has been accused in Guam of child abuse. They reportedly went shopping on Monday with their two children locked in a car in sweltering weather.

U.S. law punishes parents who leave minors unattended inside a car as child abuse.

The children, aged six and one, were found “slumped forward” in the car parked near a shopping center Monday afternoon.The engine was off and the windows closed.

Two people noticed the children and called police after failing to find their parents. Police rescued the children who had “sweat streaming down their foreheads and the sides of their faces. ” They are now recovering, according to local media.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

If you are in the 2nd Infantry Division and expect to receive mail, you will now have a new postage stamp to see:

Army postal workers near the Korean Demilitarized Zone are celebrating the 2nd Infantry Division’s 100th birthday by stamping the unit’s distinctive Indianhead logo on incoming mail.

Camp Red Cloud Post Office in Uijeongbu City — just south of the tense border with North Korea — unveiled the new postmark on Monday.

The mark, which invalidates postage stamps on incoming mail, includes the words: “Honoring our past, inspiring our future,” and “Celebrating 100 years of history” beside an Indianhead like the one on 2ID’s well-known logo.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Aiming for Unification: Korean Nationalism & Nuclear Crisis w/ B.R. Myers on 10/17/17 @DukeU https://t.co/FVhuLGgV4s pic.twitter.com/C0ELyU2Z3l

— Sino-NK (@Sino_NK) October 3, 2017

The CIA concurs with what I have been saying for a long time, that everything Kim Jong-un has been doing from his perspective make rational sense.  He has been playing a delicate balancing act of consolidating power internally while conducting provocations and developing his ICBM and nuclear weapons programs to deter external foes:

President Donald Trump has depicted the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a “madman”—but U.S. intelligence officials do not agree.

According to Yong Suk Lee, the deputy assistant director of the CIA’s Korea Mission Center, the young North Korean ruler is actually a lot less erratic than he is often portrayed.

“Beyond the bluster, Kim Jong Un is a rational actor,” he said at a conference on the CIA at George Washington University on Wednesday, quoted by AFP.

Trump and Kim have reguarly traded insults but despite the latter’s threat to the American president last month, the North Korean ruler does not seek a military confrontation because he is more interested in ensuring his regime’s survival and stability.

“We have a tendency in this country and elsewhere to underestimate his conservatism” Lee said, adding “He wants to rule for a long time and die in his own bed.”  [Newsweek]

You can read more at the link.

It appears that anyone can start tracking US Navy vessels online whenever they are traveling through congested waters:

Naval enthusiasts are tweeting what they believe are U.S. warship positions after commanders ordered the vessels to activate their beacons while in congested waters to avoid collisions.

The order to turn on the Automatic Identification System (AIS) locators, reported by National Public Radio on Sept. 29, follows a series of collisions that have killed 17 sailors in the Pacific in recent months.

However, it appears that the new procedure is also allowing people to track the warships online.

A tweet posted on Sunday that maps the location of a “US GOV VSL” approaching Hong Kong reads: “Reason to believe this is USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76).”

The aircraft carrier and the guided-missile destroyer USS Chafee anchored near Hong Kong on Monday, a Pacific Fleet statement said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like if you are a Captain in the US Air Force and have not had any legal issues you will be promoted to Major regardless of performance:

Most Air Force captains can count on automatic promotion to major after Dec. 1, the service has announced.

“Beginning December 2017, the pool of line officers considered for promotion to major will have a 100 percent promotion opportunity,” said a statement issued last month.

The move addresses a shortage of 1,555 pilots and manning shortages in other jobs usually filled by majors that have ballooned in recent years as officers opt for commercial aviation jobs, Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson said earlier this year.

Just under one in 10 Air Force jobs for field-grade line officers, whose main job involves commanding troops, are vacant while about one in four nonrated field-grade officer jobs are unfilled, the statement said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Aiming for two rocket landings in 48 hours this weekend https://t.co/C1CZW2cQgv

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2017

Statues symbolizing comfort women are being moved from a bus to their temporary location in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Oct. 2, 2017, prior to their transportation to regional towns to signify their homecoming for the Chuseok holiday. Donga, a bus company, has been operating five buses since mid-August that carry the statues symbolizing Korean women who were sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers during World War II. The statues will be taken to different towns, including Suwon, Daejeon and Jeonju, on the occasion of World Comfort Women’s Day. (Yonhap)

If this report is true the US President has plenty of different options to choose from if military force becomes the only way to deal with North Korea’s nuclear and ICBM programs:

US defence chiefs have drawn up nine options for military action against Kim Jong-un’s North Korea to destroy its nuclear weapons threat, the Evening Standard has been told.

They escalate to different levels of intensity and could be pre-emptive or retaliatory, and could be ordered by Donald Trump in response to an attack on the US Pacific naval base on Guam or American allies such as Japan or South Korea.

However, all of them risk triggering a devastating response by Pyongyang against South Korea, using conventional weapons. At least one senior Whitehall figure is concerned that there may be a shift in Washington towards military action.  [Evening Standard]

You can read more at the link.