In other blogs (April 18, 2010 edition)

• Joshua at One Free Korea has a must-read overview of the options in front of the South Korean government as it decides what to do if North Korea is responsible for the sinking of the Chonan, especially if we want to avoid a wider war. I had thought about quoting part of it here, but the entire thing deserves a read.

• Justin Nalepa has a travelogue on the Ch'ujado Islands, around which a ROK military helicopter crashed recently while searching for submarines.

• Writing about OC denizen Kyle Nachreiner, Marmot at The Marmot's Hole is stealing my Orange County Crime Story of the Day idea, with an update to the infamous (if you're from OC) gang rape case perpetrated and videotaped by the sons of friends of our county sheriff.
  
  Here's his post ("And the Worst Person in the World Award Goes To…"), and here's my post from June 2006, where I mentioned it as a reason for not voting to re-elect the guy (who later was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison on corruption charges). My reasoning back in 2006:
  
  
  

  For some reason in Orange County our sheriff and coroner are the same person. That should make for interesting plot lines when they start to make CSI: Orange County. This was actually the race that was getting the most press because of the scandal in which the incumbent, Michael Carona (Carona the Coroner...nice ring to it) and his cronies found themselves. Both opponents focused on this, and one of them demanded that Carona resign.
  
  Essentially, both of the challengers were running on a platform of not allowing their friend's son to rape 16-year-old girls.
  
  Carona said in his bio/platform that "residents of Orange County are safer today than they were eight years ago" when he took office. I know I'm safer, but that may be because I live in Korea.
  
  One of his opponents, Bill Hunt, says that violent crime in sheriff-patrolled areas (i.e., areas not part of some city plus areas where policing is contracted out to the OC Sheriff's Department) skyrocketed 30% (he doesn't say from when...could be from 1850 when we achieved statehood, or 1890, when OC broke off from L.A. County) and homicides have increased 26%.