Given how tense things have been on the Korean peninsula lately, it would be hard to imagine how the perilous North Korean/American military standoff could get any more dangerous. And then a headline like this comes along: "U.S. Reroutes Warships Toward Korean Peninsula in Show of Force."

Just to get everyone up to speed, here's the story so far (in Star Wars opening scroll form, no less!):

The Korean peninsula is in crisis! The evil General Jong-un, angered by the Empire's Foal Eagle, has threatened a "super mighty pre-emptive strike" against the forces of Emperor Trump. Grieving for his fallen grandfather, Jong-un displays his most fearsome papier-mâché weapons. Emperor Trump consorts with Grand Leader Xi of Planet ChiCom, plying him with enchanted Mar-a-Lago cake and enticing him to join the Empire with a truce in the currency war. Then, word comes that the Emperor's armada is bearing down on Korea...

That's right, after a decade of disquiet over North Korea's nuclear program (thanks, Donald Rumsfeld!), years of fears over rising defense budgets and military exercises and armament upgrades, months of melodrama over North Korea's missile launches, and weeks of worry over North Korea's annual military parade and South Korea's political turmoil, the US decides to ratchet the mayhem up to eleven by sending a freaking armada into Korean waters!...

...Or at least that's what we were told. By The New York Times, no less. And they're the infallible, unimpeachable, venerable paper of record, so it must be true! As always, they were first out of the gates with their crack reporting on the fearsome armada: "The commander of American forces in the Pacific has ordered an aircraft carrier and several other warships toward the Korean Peninsula in a show of force by the Trump administration just days after North Korea tested another intermediate-range missile."

There's only one problem with that story: It was totally false. Completely wrong. Fake news. It turns out the armada was 3,500 miles away from Korea and heading in the exact opposite direction when the MSM started flipping its lid over this "incredible escalation."

The false flag Syrian chemical attack and the subsequent "frightening" (that turned out to be rather harmless) missile attack against the Shayrat air base in the Homs Governorate launched by the US Navy could remind an impartial analyst a chess game on Trump's part that was thought over in advance. It's clear that Trump aims at trampling Syria's sovereignty in bid to show that Bashar al-Assad is no more than a pawn on the Syrian chess table.

Tim Nolan, the former Campbell Co. District Judge who is currently serving as a school board member in suburban Cincinnati, has been charged with felony human trafficking of a minor, felony inducing a minor to engage in sex and a third count of giving alcohol to a minor.

According to the indictment obtained by River City News publisher Michael Monks, the sex trafficking allegedly occurred in August 2016 while Judge Nolan was serving as the chair of the Donald Trump campaign in Campbell County, KY. Trump beat Hillary Clinton 59% to 35% in the county while voters also elected Nolan, according to RawStory.

The "outspoken and controversial" political figure was lead into court wearing handcuffs Friday afternoon.

WKRC describes Judge Nolan as an, "outspoken supporter of the local Tea Party."

Following a close presidential runoff in Ecuador, the nation's media regulator has imposed fines on a total of seven media outlets for failing to publish a story about opposition candidate Guillermo Lasso, who lost by a narrow margin.

"It is an act of censorship designed to give the government the role of editor of all media, deciding what to publish or not,"said Cesar Ricaurte, director of the Fundamedios organization that advocates for freedom of the press.

The scandal centers on an article published on March 15, 2017, before the presidential runoff, in the Argentine newspaper Pagina 12 entitled, "Lasso: Offshore tycoon." The article alleged that Lasso was involved in a tax evasion scheme in the Cayman Islands, Panama, and Delaware.

Easy and fast solution to fighting terrorism: Stop hopping into bed with Saudi Arabia

On the same day that Rex Tillerson thanked head-chopping Saudi princes and slave-owning businessmen for their "strong partnership" with the United States, the State Department released a press release denouncing Iran as a "leading state sponsor of terror, through many platforms and methods".

This should only surprise you if you honestly believe that the United States is genuinely interested in fighting terrorism.

CLASS! In that both belong to the Upper Class. And both only serve the interests of their class--whatever they may tell their "deplorable" voters. Yet neither is a Class Act like Vladimir Putin--the strong but compassionate, true Christian President of Russia.

Trump and Clinton both belong to the Upper Class. They move in the same circles. Their daughters, Chelsea and Ivanka, are best friends.

So when The Donald invited the Clintons to his lavish wedding reception at his lavish Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005--this time with Melania as his bride--of course, ever social-climbing Hillary leaped at the chance and dragged Bill along.

Just look at Hillary's utterly enraptured smile as The Donald regales Bill with how he groped Melania the first time they met. Do you know how much a man must be worth for Hillary to smile at him like that?

I'm joking, of course. [He could be worth a million less; and she'd still smile like that.]

Last week The New York Times ran a big piece on Syria titled, "As Atrocities Mount in Syria, Justice Seems Out of Reach." It asserts that Bashar al-Assad is responsible for 100s of 1000s of deaths of civilians, and that the evidence of his crimes is as strong as that at Nuremberg for Nazis.

This week the Times ran another piece putting the deaths in Syria almost completely at Assad's doorstep. Anne Barnard writes about a level "of state brutality not seen in decades," from which the U.S. holds itself "at arm's length."

It is hard to escape the sense that Western fears of Islamist terrorism have grown so intense that many are willing to tolerate any number of deaths of Arab or Muslim civilians, and any abuses of state power, in the name of fighting it.

Robert Fisk (born 1946) is a household name among foreign correspondents. We harbored some faint hope that this occasion might arise. And it did. Meeting Robert is like being transferred back in time to a novel from the Cold War days. Aside from our initial projections, Robert is quite down-to- earth. We met him at a seaside café in Beirut on a sunny day where he shared his experience with us. At once close to and remote from the current drama in the neighborhood of Lebanon.

KULTURVERK: Amidst all the carnage and conflict you have experienced, what truly inspires you to go on? What is the guiding light in your life?

Robert Fisk: Well, I suppose at the end of the day, I realize that I am watching History. Which is quite a privilege. A cursed privilege in this part of the world, but it is still a privilege. I think it has a lot to do with my father who was a soldier in World War One. And in the seventeen months after this war, the victors, who were primarily the British and the French created the borders of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and the Middle East.

And I spent my entire professional career in Belfast, in Yugoslavia, ex-Yugoslavia, and in the Middle East watching the people in those borders burn. I think that this is a great tragedy of history, and a tragedy of great history. And the knowledge and understanding of that must lie at the centre of any reporting and analysis you write about this region. Because the people here know the history very well. We do not know it that well.

The empire is on the rampage across the planet. World War 4 is intensifying with disastrous results for the world. The US has expanded it's aggression against so many countries at once that it's hard to keep up.

North Korea is under threat of an unprovoked attack. However North Korea is prepared to defend itself and Trump will probably be forced to back down. In fact he already has made a fool of himself with his ghost armada. In Afghanistan he dropped a MOAB bomb on Torah Bora suffocating and incinerating untold numbers of Afghanis. In fact he plans another pointless surge in Afghanistan when everyone knows the war is lost. Yemen which has already known untold suffering in the 2 year long war will now suffer even more as the US expands it's role in the conflict attempting to rescue the genocidal Saudi royals from a humiliating defeat at the hands of Yemen's people. The US is expanding it's decades long war on Somalia. In Ecuador the US is trying to undermine the election of Lenin Moreno. NATO is cementing it's ties to the fanatical bloodthirsty royals of the GCC countries (the Saudis, Qataris, and other tyrants) thru the NATO-Istanbul cooperation Initiative which means NATO and Al Qaeda are basically officially allied as if it wasn't already obvious after the horrifying wars on Libya and Syria.

In other words Trump is massively expanding every dirty war and destabilization campaign the Empire is involved in and doubtless in future months we will learn of countries now peaceful being thrown into chaos as a result of CIA/NED operations now being launched of which we have no idea. We can only hope that Russia and China are working on some plans of their own.

For now however I must focus on the two countries which are among the most important fronts in World War 4: Syria and Venezuela. Thankfully the initial attack on Syria was far from the all out war I feared. Brave soldiers and civilians were killed but the Syrians were able to get the air base back online the next day. However it sets a dangerous precedent for the US to attack Syria whenever the NATO death squads are loosing some battle. In Venezuela there is yet another attempt to overthrow the government and install US puppets. The Fascist opposition in Venezuela have been rioting revealing their true character with the evil and stupidity of their antics. However the people of Venezuela have taken to the streets to oppose the latest plots against their country.

As Britain's coal use runs down and natural gas use increases, Britain will have to turn to Russia as North Sea gas reserves run down.

Britain has just experienced its first full day of electricity generation without coal since 1882.

What is interesting about this development is that the way in which Britain has moved away from coal for its electricity use is little discussed. An article by the BBC published in 2013 however provides the explanation.

The article begins by making the perfectly valid point that Britain uses energy more efficiently than it once did, and that total energy use has fallen

.....we consume less energy in the UK today than we did in 1970, and this despite an extra 6.5 million people living here.

The reason is very simple - we are more efficient both in producing energy and using it. The rise of the less energy-intensive service sector at the expense of industry has also played a part.

Households use 12% less, while industry uses a massive 60% less. This is largely offset by a 50% rise in energy use in the transport sector, due to the huge rise in the number of cars on the road - more than 27 million today compared with 10 million in 1970. The big increase in the number of flights is another important factor.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) forecasts that energy efficiencies will continue to offset population growth, so that we will use about the same amount of energy in 2030 as we do today. In other words, the UK will use less energy in 2030 than it did in 1970.