Sure, the world is actually getting better in terms of poverty reduction, and every day, that's true, and at a faster rate than the world has ever seen before......but none of that has come through war at all...but rather by better design...surely the best way to speed this excellent process is to stop bombing the fuck out of people whose only crime is to think as they choose to do.

it is hard to find great fault in families who look after their own....whether the family is in Sudan or Manunda or Mosul or Washington or Pyongyang...these are the same human families and of the same remarkable value. It is best not to bomb them for their own good. Family alliances long out weigh the value of military alliances, by thousand of years.. Not many families like to be bombed for their own good.

There are about 7.5 billion folk in the world at the moment, and they will mostly continue to live reasonably long lives, and many of them, long beyond our own mortal lives, as they should. That's true. Every one of those characters is our equal in every way. There is actually less poverty in the world than there has been, and, mostly, not due to Christian charities, or globalisation, over 500 years, but due to Chinese thinking and acting over the last 40 years. I wish us all well. The world, as it is, has a lot of really good things going for it now. So, on we go, together...on we go. It is working. The good ideas are working. Family is working.

next week, due to various connections, a china envoy to the UN is having dinner here. This was my idea, and so I am cooking. his wife is my wife's friend, and they were coming here anyway, so i thought, well, why not invite him and her home here rather than have some 'Welcome' chinese meal somewhere in Melbourne Chinatown...here...some rib fillet, cooked on the bbq fast, some potatoes, for Ireland, and a small salad, and some okay red wine from victoria...after that, the next day, we can go together and see the Van Gogh exhibition, and the penguins, as we wish...but the true art of any kind of human welcome is that is a real welcome to anyone and it starts always in our own home. A true welcome means that you cook for them because you want them to be with you. This is what food is for. This is what food means. Food means 'welcome'.

you have this life, have various thoughts and concerns and you have some children and they grow and you kind of hang on to them through hoping they will be ok although you have no control of that; all you had control of were a certain few years and some of that time you did well and other times not and then you get to the end of that, and you look about the place, sometimes in the day or in the night and most things are alright. most of the challenges you faced already, and in some you did yourself proud, and in others, not so, but it is alright. you proceed into the day without ambition, and you wonder what happened to ambition. it was important once, but that importance has gone. i spent a lot of the time just practicing writing, so I have still some things to complete because of that drive, but I don't have that drive now. i expect that through this process I began by choice when i was 12, the remaining books i write will be quite good, i guess...they will be good for me.

Donald Trump...Making America Grate Again.

Understanding between Trump and Turnbull

Mr Trump: "So, the Deal is... that we take bunch of genuine, proven, legitimate refugees from Iraq and Iran...people that Australia currently locks up on god forsaken islands...because Australia won't live up to its ethics or international laws......and you will take a bunch of Central American drug runners who we have rejected as refugees, as genuine refugees into Australia; is that it? It is a swap then?"
Mr Turnbull: "Well, we can't actually say we are taking the Central Americans..."
Trump: "But that was the Deal with Obama..."
Mr Turnbull: "Well that's true, but its a quiet truth...it is a truth that will take some time to evolve...after our next election, I guess."
Mr Trump: "and, you are using this same intellectual brilliance in out-smarting China in terms of your trade deal with them, as well?"
Mr Turnbull: "Well, yes..."
Mr Trump: "Who the fuck are you?"