NORTH KOREA STILL SIMMERING: The United States has been expecting North Korea to conduct its sixth nuclear test any day now, an act of defiance that could provoke a U.S. response. Instead, the North today put on a show of its long-range conventional artillery, which it has long held as a threat over Seoul, the South Korean capital, located just 30 miles south of the DMZ.

The massive live-fire exercise, near North Korea’s east coast, was conducted near the eastern coastal town of Wonsan and came as Pyongyang marked the 85th anniversary of the founding of its “People’s Army.” In many ways, it’s those old-fashioned big guns that pose the biggest threat to the South. “I think North Korea does not, at least not that I know of, have the capability to sink a U.S. aircraft carrier with a single strike,” Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger told CNN yesterday. “But they do have the capability to frankly unleash hell on South Korea. Their conventional artillery, more forward located, this stuff is actually built into mountains that can pop out and shoot and pop back.” South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported the North Korean exercise involved 300 to 400 artillery pieces.