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This was some smart thinking by this 9 year old Korean boy on vacation in Hawaii with his parents when he was kidnapped as part of a car theft:

A 9-year-old boy from South Korea and witnesses helped lead Honolulu police to the man who allegedly stole a car with the child inside in Kailua late Thursday morning.

Police said officers arrested a 35-year-old Enchanted Lake man on suspicion of kidnapping, auto theft, theft of property and two warrants after he allegedly stole a rental car with the boy inside.

Police gave the following account of the incident: The boy’s parents, visiting from Korea, left the child inside the car with the air conditioning on, and stopped near the Kailua boat ramp to take pictures of the scenery. At 11:23 a.m. near 729 Mokulua Drive, the suspect jumped into the car and drove off with the boy inside. The boy, who speaks English, asked the man to drop him off at Kalapawai Market and the suspect complied.

The child was able to give officers the car’s license plate number and a description of the vehicle, police said.

Witnesses called 911 and police located the car, which had collided with another vehicle at the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Mokulele Drive in Kaneohe.

Police said the driver got out and ran on foot, but officers captured him a short distance away. The suspect had personal property from the vehicle on his person, police said.

The suspect was taken to Castle Medical Center with minor cuts to his hand received in the accident. He was later taken to the Kaneohe station for booking.  [Star Advertiser]

Via a reader tip comes news that Kyunghee University professor Emanuel Pastreich has written something controversial in the Korea Times again.  In the past he has accused President Trump of governing like Kim Jong-un and believed that the United Nations should be moved to South Korea.  Well now his latest article in the Korea Times is an article high critical of incoming US ambassador to South Korea, Admiral Harry Harris:

Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the US Pacific Command in Hawaii, was slated to start work as ambassador to Australia this month. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Trump White House announced on April 24 that Harris would be assigned to South Korea.

The assignment was unprecedented at multiple levels. Assigning a military officer as ambassador to Korea when Seoul is trying to develop peaceful ties with North Korea, and the rest of East Asia, is extraordinary. Assigning a military officer who has close ties with the far-right in Japan is also extraordinary granted the sensitivity about Japan’s colonial domination of Korea.

The fact that Harris was born in Japan to a Japanese mother is not a reason to oppose his appointment. Yet his being awarded the “Order of the Rising Sun” at exactly the same moment he was assigned at ambassador to Korea was extremely odd.

And then there is that matter of his role at the Guantanamo Prison camp at the time that torture and abuse were carried out within a carefully constructed legal limbo. In normal times, Harris’ role in that blatantly illegal operation would be enough to end a career, at the very least.

But these are not normal times.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but his article reads like he received his talking points straight from Beijing.  He made sure to bring up Admiral Harris ethnicity just like Beijing and he even tried to equate that Admiral Harris was running a Unit 731 like operation at Guantanamo Bay.  Talk about hyperbole when three terrorists getting waterboarded is equated to 3,000 mostly Chinese being used as human lab rats for biological weapons testing by the Imperial Japanese.

He even made sure to call him names just like Beijing by calling him Dirty Harry in the article.  Probably the most ridiculous thing was to claim that Admiral Harris was put in charge of Pacific Command to stop global warming initiatives with China.  He even claims Admiral Locklear was replaced “unceremoniously” by Admiral Harris two months after giving a speech about global warming at Harvard.  Admiral Locklear had long been scheduled to be replaced by Admiral Harris, but was held up because of the accusations made against Locklear in the Fat Leonard Scandal.  Admiral Harris was the Pacific Fleet commander prior to taking command of PACOM making him highly qualified for the job.  He was already selected for the PACOM job before Pastreich’s claim of Locklear being “unceremoniously” removed.  Plus the Secretary of Defense Ash Carter came out to Hawaii to give remarks during the Change of Command ceremony held for Admiral Locklear.  A big ceremony with the Secretary of Defense presiding over it does not seem like something that is “unceremonious” to me.

Another incredible claim in Pastreich’s article is that he equates the 12 nautical mile exclusive economic zone around Hawaii with the artificial islands being built in the South China Sea:

“Freedom of navigation” is a catchy way of saying that the U.S. is obligated to send military vessels into the waters surrounding the islands claimed by China in the South China Sea regularly, often intentionally crossing over the 12 nautical mile EEZ (exclusive economic zone).

This is a needless provocation (imagine how the U.S. would respond if Chinese ships regularly sailed close to Hawaii) became central to the planning in the Pacific Command.

First of all it is nothing new for Chinese Navy ships to sail by and stop at Hawaii.  So his analogy is not even true.  Secondly a better analogy would be if the United States started dredging up a bunch of sand and built an island off the coast of China and militarized it because that is what the Chinese are doing to their neighbors in an attempt to consolidate control over the South China Sea.

Admiral Harris is well known for being tough on China because of this and thus why the Chinese have used everything in their propaganda apparatus to discredit him and it appears Pastreich believes this propaganda.  The Chinese government have even asked the US government to fire Admiral Harris.  However, history has shown that Admiral Harris has been right about China as they continue to bully their neighbors and intensify building artificial islands in the South China Sea in their attempt to claim the entire body of water.

Here is where out of no where Pastreich goes into an anti-military screed:

American politics is incomprehensible because, at the moment that the military is playing an increasingly central role in the administration of the global system set up by the U.S. after World War II, military officers, whether fighting for justice or indulging in corruption, are completely inaccessible to the population and almost never the subject of investigative journalism.

The guidelines issued to military officers direct them to avoid social exchanges with ordinary citizens, and even with other branches of the government, or with other branches of the military.

This is quite the accusations being made here that the military just likes to indulge in corruption and directs its personnel to avoid social exchanges with civilians or even other branches of the military.  This is beyond stupid considering that for officers to get promoted to senior ranks they have to have joint time serving with the other branches of the military.  The command Pastreich highlights in his article, PACOM is a joint command with its headquarters at Camp Smith, Hawaii filled with officers, NCOs, and servicemembers from all the branches of the military.  As far as interacting with civilians this is actually promoted in the military.  For example USFK has its own Good Neighbor program that encourages US servicemembers to help out the surrounding Korean community.  The ridiculousness goes on and on in Paestrich’s article such as calling Chelsea Manning a “legend” and Admiral Harris a Chinese “warlord”.  Overall Paestrich is extremely uninformed about the US military and how it works.

To me it seems that Admiral Harris is heading to South Korea for the simple reason that he is someone that the President fully trusts to promote his policies on North Korea.  Admiral Harris’s command, PACOM was responsible for the executing the “maximum pressure campaign” that many have credited with helping bring North Korea to the negotiating table.  Putting Admiral Harris in charge of the US embassy in Seoul, along with putting John Bolton in place as National Security Advisor, and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State signals to the Kim regime that President Trump has strong advocates of his policies across the US national security apparatus at a time of upcoming tough negotiations with North Korea.  Using Occam’s Razor the simplest reason is usually the right one instead of wild global warming, military cabal, military industrial complex, etc. conspiracy theories.

Here is a strange sexual assault story involving a Japanese woman running a boarding house in Hawaii:

A Manoa woman who recruited exchange students from Japan raped one of her clients as many as 10 times while he was bedridden with an injury, police allege in court documents.

Police said she also threatened the victim, a 16-year-old Japanese national, if he went to authorities, saying she’d accuse him of rape if he reported her.

The suspect has been identified as 36-year-old Rika Shimizu.

She’s been indicted on five counts of second-degree sex assault and four counts of fourth-degree sex assault. She remains in custody on $600,000 bail.  [Hawaii News Now]

You can read more at the link.

I think someone is definitely helping the North Koreans with their missile technology, but blaming Ukraine sounds like a Russian information operation:

Ukraine’s top diplomat in Seoul on Thursday denied allegations that North Korea might have obtained rocket engines used in its recently tested long-range missiles from Ukraine.

Charge d’Affaires Taras Fedunkiv, the acting Ukrainian ambassador to Seoul, still suspected that North Korea could not have been able to advance its missile technology “without outside help,” calling for an international probe to find “who was responsible.”

“The production lines for building these types of rockets in Ukraine were decommissioned in 1992. The expertise cannot be carried in the heads of rogue scientists. The instructions are included in complex manuals locked in top-security facilities guarded by our security forces,” he said in a written interview with Yonhap News Agency, citing Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin’s recent op-ed in The New York Times.

“Not only would it be virtually impossible for criminals to access these manuals, but also any effort could not go unnoticed by our government,” he added.

Citing a study by Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the New York Times reported on Aug. 14 that North Korea could have got its hands on technology needed for the success of the recent missile launches through black market purchases of rocket engines from Ukraine.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if it was the Russians helping the North Koreans master their long range rocket technology.

She may be quiet, but it appears Siti Aisyah is no longer innocent:

For those who have met Siti Aisyah, the notion that the 25-year-old woman from Serang, Banten, might have been capable of allegedly taking part in a vicious plot to murder a high-profile figure in a foreign country is hard to swallow.

Siti, who is believed to have been arrested in Malaysia for her alleged role in the murder of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has been described by her neighbours and relatives as a “quiet and innocent” girl.

Siti once lived in a house located in a small alley in the densely populated quarters of Tambora district, West Jakarta. There she resided with her former husband Gunawan Hasyim and former father-in-law Liang Kiong, known as Akiong.

To her neighbours, Siti is just one of millions of Indonesians looking for job opportunities in neighbouring Malaysia.

 “She rarely mingled with others. [But] I’m sure that it is her. I recognise her from the picture and I had seen her often back then,” said one of the neighbours named Anisa Fitri as quoted by Antara news agency. “She is a quiet and innocent person from the region,” she added.

Halimah, another neighbor who has lived in Tambora since 1969, was stunned by the news, saying that “[Siti] is poor; it’s a pity that she has been dragged into the case. She once lived next door to me before she moved [to her then father-in-law’s house],” she said.  [The Star]

You can read more about her at the link.

I love these comments from Admiral Harris:

U.S. Pacific Command Commander Adm. Harry Harris says those who served during the attack on Pearl Harbor never failed to stand for the national anthem.

His remarks at today’s ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack generated a lengthy standing ovation from the crowd, with people whistling and hooting. Thousands gathered for the event, held on a pier across the harbor from where the USS Arizona sank during the 1941 attack.

“You can bet that the men and women we honor today — and those who died that fateful morning 75 years ago — never took a knee and never failed to stand whenever they heard our national anthem being played,” Harris said to nearly a minute of clapping, whistles and whoops.

“Hearing the words ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’ means something special for every American, every day,” Harris added. “But today, on Dec. 7th, it takes on extraordinary significance, as we’re joined here in this hallowed place by World War II veterans and survivors of the attacks on military bases all across Oahu, including right here at Pearl Harbor.”

In recent months, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and others have knelt through the national anthem to protest police brutality and the treatment of minorities, drawing criticism and acclaim alike. Athletes from many sports, from youth to professional levels, have followed Kaepernick’s lead.

Reached later, Pacific Command spokesman Robert Shuford said Harris’ comments “speak for themselves.”  [Star Advertiser]

You can read more at the link.

I guess it is okay to wear the uniform to support social causes now:

What was supposed to be a photo to decorate the 1st Armored Division’s room for nursing mothers has gone viral online.

The photo, taken Thursday at Fort Bliss, Texas, shows 10 soldiers in uniform breastfeeding their children.

“We are officially trending on Facebook. It’s crazy,” said Tara Ruby, the photographer behind the image and a former airman who is married to a soldier.

“Today I believe we made history,” Ruby wrote on her Facebook page. “To my knowledge, a group photo to show support of active-duty military mommies nursing their littles has never been done. It is so nice to see support for this here at Fort Bliss.”  [Army Times]

You can read more at the link.