"To be a really good country, first, we have to stop being a really bad country."

This upcoming USA Presidential Election is, to me, as a foreigner, watching from a long way away, remarkably good television. I don't share the views of Doomsayers or most Western News broadcasters regarding America's descent into hades with Trump as President simply because the powers of the President are quite limited when it comes to real change, as the Obama years have shown. Yes We Can! Simply ended up 8 years later as No We Can't! ON ASIA: I think it would take Trump, as very much an Outsider, about 4 years to try to work out the US Government bureaucracies so I don't think more wars would be possible in that period. I believe his policy of removing US troops from Asia and thus reversing Obama's Pivot To Asia would be very good for Asia, for peace in Asia, and would save America trillions of dollars. So on that point alone, and taking into account the fight he will have with the US bureaucracies, this could be a very peaceful time for the world indeed...something we haven't seen for decades. Asian countries would HAVE TO work with their difficult neighbours and make real decisions and real arrangements with each other. As it is, all negotiations are stymied by most countries having to wait for the US to tell them what to do...Japan, South Korea, the Phillipines in particular. ON THE MIDDLE EAST: The fastest way to end a war is to lose it. The long hand of American administration of the Middle East is very very expensive and never has, can, or will bring back to the tax payers in the USA what is spent and wasted on bombing people with intelligent weapons and white phosphorous for their own good. If one is to invade a country, then one needs to colonised it for at least 50 years as the US did with Germany and Japan. Make it a semi-State of the Union...like Israel. You just can't go around destroying civilisations and just go home. Not even the Romans were that silly. ON AMERICAN DOMESTIC PROBLEMS: The problems are real in terms of inequity, race and gross dissatisfaction and the best thing a new President could do would be to fix that up...and that will take a good decade, before dreaming of overseas conquest. Nations, and civilisations, do expand and do contract and the US is contracting. The best thing to do about reality is to first respect it...and then look to the core of the problem...Domestic USA...and do what is best for most Americans by number not by bank account wealth. ON CLINTON AND SANDERS, I think it is a great shame that Bernie Sanders isn't the Democrats choice. With a contracting economy and a contracting world 'footprint' what America really needed was someone to do the good hard yard work at home. Clinton isn't interested in that at all. That work is too hard for her to do. She would have to be a servant to the people and she just is not that kind of person.

This upcoming USA Presidential Election is, to me, as a foreigner, watching from a long way away, remarkably good television. We don't get a lot of good American television shows anymore.

I don't share the views of Doomsayers or most Western News broadcasters regarding America's descent into Hades with Trump as President simply because the powers of the President are quite limited when it comes to real change, as the Obama years have shown.

Yes We Can! Simply ended up 8 years later as No We Can't!

ON ASIA:

I think it would take Trump, as very much an Outsider, about 4 years to try to work out the US Government bureaucracies so I don't think more wars would be possible in that period.

I believe his policy of removing US troops from Asia and thus reversing Obama's Pivot To Asia would be very good for Asia, for peace in Asia, and would save America trillions of dollars. So on that point alone, and taking into account the fight he will have with the US bureaucracies, this could be a very peaceful time for the world indeed...something we haven't seen for decades.

Asian countries would HAVE TO work with their difficult neighbours and make real decisions and real bi-lateral arrangements with each other. As it is, all negotiations are stymied by most countries having to wait for the US to tell them what to do...Japan, South Korea, the Phillipines in particular.(At the moment the Phillipnes is pretty well annoyed with America telling them what to do with the US military bases there, and delving into Philippine domestic politics with a remarkable moral viciousness aimed at unseating the democratically elected government there).

ON THE MIDDLE EAST:

The fastest way to end a war is to lose it. The long hand of American administration of the Middle East is very very expensive and never has, can, or will bring back to the tax payers in the USA what is spent and wasted on bombing people with intelligent weapons and white phosphorous for their own good. If one is to invade a country, then one needs to colonised it for at least 50 years as the US did with Germany and Japan. Make it a semi-State of the Union...like Israel. You just can't go around destroying civilisations and expect to just go home. Not even the Romans were that silly.

ON AMERICAN DOMESTIC PROBLEMS:

The problems are real in terms of inequity, race and gross dissatisfaction and the best thing a new President could do would be to fix that up...and that will take a good decade, before dreaming of overseas conquest. Nations, and civilisations, do expand and do contract and the US is contracting. The best thing to do about reality is to first respect it...and then look to the core of the problem...Domestic USA...and do what is best for most Americans by number not by bank account wealth.

ON CLINTON AND SANDERS, I think it is a great shame that Bernie Sanders isn't the Democrats choice. With a contracting economy and a contracting world 'footprint' what America really needed was someone to do the good hard yard-work at home. Clinton isn't interested in that kind of deplorable job at all...that would be very much beneath her grace and dignity.

Fascinated by America, as a foreigner, I think that it would be a good thing if Trump won...for America, not for anyone else. I think Mrs Clinton will win, on the numbers...but this will just delay real change for about 2 years or maybe three.

a hummingbird...a heart beat of one thousand times per minute, wings beating at 60 times per second...weighing as much as a paper note of money...a creature designed by such a magnificent Creation...a brief life...and all for a littlest taste of honey, and for the tiniest imaginable child that can fly.

Wow, the blog readership is up. There's a lot of people interested in North Asia...not people in Australia (a bunch of babies) of course, but in Russia, the US and Europe. Cool. Nice to see. It is, after all the only place on earth where any war could ever mean anything to everyone. The importance of the Middle East means less to everyone everyday in terms of the real impact.That's a good thing. That's realistic. Real war in the Middle east...Israel, Palestine, Saudi, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Iran etc...war doesn't mean anything...except for what can be destroyed...but in North Asia with Russia, China, The Koreas, The US, and Japan, Peace means Everything That Exists in the Present and in the Future, for Everyone. Anyone can and does fuck around with the Middle East...obviously...Americans break a cease fire to kill Syrian Soldiers they are not even at war with, and no one cares...but very few fuck around with North Asia. We are not that stupid. North Asia is far too important to us all.

I think the best advice I could give to Hillary Clinton is that she really has to talk to working class men in America, unemployed or working for $7 an hour and being honest with telling them what she will actually do for them...and why the present and past governments haven't done anything for them... American white working class men are the Deplorables she speaks of...the Unredeemables...and theres a hell of a lot of them...far too many millions for such a rich nation...but this time, for the first time ever, they will bother to vote...simply because things have got so bad for them and their families...and they really dont like her at all.