The one thing people don't seem to understand about the very young Mr Kim Jong Un, President of the DPRK, is his stability. He has 500,000 rockets aimed at Seoul 60 kms away. Has he fired them? No. He has nuclear weapons. Has he used them? No. He will develop capacities to fire the nuclear weapons at Japan...for what Japan did to Korea, both North and South, remains one of the truly great crimes against humanity...and no one, except the West, is capable of just forgetting that. Koreans, both North and South, have very vivid national PTSD dreams about that evil time. He will develop nuclear capacities aimed specifically and especially at US Military Bases near and in Korea, and US nuclear armed ships off his coast line...and anyone with any sense would. Every year, March April, the US has its live fire military drills planning for the invasion of the North,just next to the North, and every year the big US nuclear bombers buzz the border. This happens every year and this hasn't provoked Mr Kim into doing anything except preparing his military assets and being very good at brinkmanship rhetoric. He is a bad guy, although not as bad as the Japs were. He has massive weaponry but hasn't used them the way the US has used theirs around the world with no provocation at all. He is not a mad guy. He is a tactician studiously working on the survival of his regime.

Korea 101

Korea remains the only 'tectonic' plate that could bring about a war between basically everyone who has weapons and so it is very important that North Korea not be provoked. Mr Kim knows this better than anyone and is a great player of this game, and will succeed with this game. it is his game. he is only young but has learnt the trade and the game very well.
One day Korea will be reunited, but only when the US, Russia and China are not involved at all. That's common sense...and certainly Japan cannot be involved at all, ever. The last time Japan was involved, the stench of Korean bodies, still alive and lit by diesel in the streets, was all that could be smelt for decades.

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Iain Mac Giolla Padraig
3 mins · 
You will find that, at present, as the US nuclear armed fleet moves towards North Korea, that the Chinese People's Liberation Army will be increasing its numbers significantly on the border Yalu River between China and DPRK, whilst the Russian army will be massing near their border with DPRK, and the Russian nuclear navy will be prowling around too in the same sea as the uS Navy and as China's brand new Navy...includign China's very nifty small nuclear attack submarines that the USA still can't find under the water due to their advanced designs etc.
Now, neither the Chinese army or the Russian army are there to protect the interests of the USA or of South Korea. North Korea is of fundamental geopolitical significance by its position, it has a huge work force and abundant minerals etc..and nuclear weapons already if it needs to protect itself.
We don't want to see a war and a massive power grab between the 3 powers, the US, Russia, and China at all.
The problems of Korea need to be solved by the people of Korea and no one else. Adding a Japanese military component as the US is doing will simply make it all much worse...both North and South Korea despise Japan for very good reasons.
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Iain Mac Giolla Padraig
31 mins · Balwyn North · 
I note the US is still saying they wish for a diplomatic solution with North Korea, whilt maintaing the notion that the US will not actually talk with them at all. . Not so bright. Not a great plan. At some point diplomacy is based upon interactions and even human respect or at least acknowledgment as to the human nature of borh sides. Refusal to discuss anything is not usually effective as a way to diffuse a situation.

Old memory...being 25 and a state government bus driver in Sydney, living at Manly but 'driving' from Waverley Depot, on the other side of town, split 8 hour shifts...but never more than 8...never a need for overtime for everyone who wanted to be employed was employed...so I'd wander down half asleep to the Manly Ferry Wharf, past Ben's bakery cooking up the most amazing vapours...and get on the first ferry to the city...and set off across the Sydney Harbour in winter, and I'd be wrapped up pretty well in the good government issue of good dark blue wool pants, socks, shoes, shirt, wool scarf, jacket, and thick full length dark blue pure merino wool coat, and hat... and I'd sit on the cold ferry bench and nod off as we crossed the grand harbour at sunrise. The split-shifts were hard and so we were compensated by having, for the interim hours, a fair bit more pay, a gym at the depot, a free coffee shop canteen, and a bar. We were well paid and fully employed in those long ago days. Imagine that, for the common man now...and people bark about social progress now, and the improvements...but just look at us now. We've lost more than we gained, and we are the poorer for these modern times. these may well be modern times, but there is not one thing about them that is enlightened in any way.

In England I believe that it is very difficult to maintain sex during an election.

"Sunset time. Sagas of remnant blue. It was time for him to clean up his Writing Room, and to place his notes here and there. He was not writing today. It was enough to have the sky dutifully scribbling away."

Step-daughter has been chosen to do the sound-engineering for a film to be made in Nepal in June. She's great. That should be a remarkable experience for her, to be back in or around the Himalayas. Being Chinese she has been to Tibet, so this will be looking at the giant mountains from the other side, I guess. I recall flying from Asia to Beijing once, over the grand mountains and being amazed that even from a high plane, the sharp mountains were so high, as if in deep conversation with the sky. Looking up in this remarkable 'outback of the world' I saw 12 planes criss crossing the sky, to my left and right were also planes just higher and lower, criss-crossing, all off to places. Looking down I saw wondrous rivers and occasionally the glint from the tops of high speed trains here and there. It is so interesting to live in these times.

Melbourne does turn on some beautiful weather, today being a good example. There is something very nice about these old houses, the yards, the trees, the un-mown lawns. End of the day, and it is generally quiet, apart from the dubbed rumble-clatter of the regular trams on their steel tracks...off to town and coming back. The neighbour's magnolia tree is in flower and the huge blooms point up to the sky and later tumble onto the grass. The leaves of half of the trees are going brown and yellow as the sun moves slightly away as a prelude to the seasonal mood inviting a winter. The shaded spaces become open and the sun pools on the floorboards outside. Bird song, subtle, and poignant, flows across the grass like a simple wave. I recall someone once describing 'birdsong' as a form of 'liquid arrogance'. I agree.