Number six is the first par-five and it's certainly reachable in two. Decisions to be made off the tee do you go with the driver? Would you play an iron and see if you can get there with two long irons? Five bunkers down the left, 270 reach the first one. Certainly if you hit it down there you're almost certain to find one. Down the right side, still watercows. Isn't that a beautiful scene? But you don't want to go down there because you're never going to see your ball again. One of the real problems on this hole, as you walk down here you've got to pick your line as you're walking off the tee to look up here to see where the flag is in relation to the TV town because once you get in this driving area you can't see nothing. The players are scratching their heads because they don't know exactly where the flag is. It's very important here to pick the line as you're walking off the tee. Well from here you see virtually nothing up the bank it goes you know you've got to be a little bit left of the flag to let it run round. But have a look from here, up in the sky gives you a much better perspective. What a spot this is and anyone would take an advantage to get a good scene from here and this seagulls doing just that. Magnificent. I'm on the 7th tee at Pebble Beach. This is one of the most famous holes. It's a very short par 3 downhill. Let's have a quick look at the green. Surrounded by bunkers and the green's not much bigger than a postage sample so if you miss it and pitch one of the traps the ball may plug. If you look down there right down at the bottom there there's a white square on the green. Let's go and have a look at that and see why I put it there. On a day like today finding this 7th green is not too tricky. It's only going to be a sort of three-quarter wedge but with a bit of breeze about turning and swirling, club selection a little tricky because it's such a small putting surface and I put this towel right in the center of the green. Now if you hit it here every day the longest putt you're going to have is to that cup there which is no more than 18 feet and most of them you're only one, two, three yards away. But if you start chasing flags, see this one you don't have a two-yard putt, one, two, but you start chasing the flags with a bit of breeze about and you push it or pull it, you find one of these tiny weeny bunkers like this. The ball might plug. So chasing the flags here has its problems. If you can play at the center of the green there and find that towel you're in the perfect spot. But when you stand on that tee with a little three-quarter wedge you can't help chasing the flag. It's irresistible. The Power 4 8 428 yards strategically a very, very interesting hole. First of all the fairway is unsighted so you have to pick your line on the distant villas and then you've got to choose what you're going to hit off the tee. So let's just have a quick look at it. This is the tee down here, the fairway and the green over here. And you run out, you can only go a maximum of 260 yards there. So ideally you want to hit it in here about 240 yards and no further.  And when I say run through the fairway, come and have a look what I mean. This is spooky. If you run through the fairway here you don't go and look for your ball. So you can't hit it down there. But what a spectacular second shot. Jake Nicklaus said this is one of the best second shots in golf and you can see why. There's a bit of breeze about just the tiniest, tiniest stamp of a green. Little down change in elevation. This is a fantastic hole. You've got to be so careful. Lots of things to take into account. And a four here every day ace. Beautiful down here. The beach at Pebble Beach that runs alongside the eighths, ninths and tenths. It's lovely. Beautiful sunny day. And here's the ice plant. This is a famous thing around here. It looks absolutely beautiful unless you find your ball in it. And then it's totally unflammable. Lovely wild flowers. The roaring of the ocean. People enjoying the sunny day.  It is really something special. You can smell the fresh air. But it's a big problem if you're playing the ninth hole. There is Tiger on the ninth green. If you leak three yards right of the putting surface you're into the penalty area here. Although it looks absolutely magnificent. If you're trying to find your ball it is off. I want the ninth green. And to the right of the ninth green is one of the biggest penalty areas in the world of golf. The Pacific Ocean. Small putting surface. You don't want to go over there. Have a look at this. On the front left of this green you can't see it yet can you? Have a look at this. A chasm of a pop bunker sits there. From the green you can't see it from when you're playing your second shot from down the fair where it stares at you. This big blob of sand. You don't want to go right and you really don't want to go short and left. Pin is often tucked beyond it. And have a look. Just have a look at the height of the lip. Amazing. Sometimes on TV it just doesn't give you any sort of perspective. I'll go in this bunker. And the lip must be three feet above me four feet above me. So this this bunkers practically eight or nine feet deep. So down here you can see absolutely nothing.  This is a brilliant brilliant hole the ninth. Tricky small green. Pacific one side. And this baby on the left. Oh it's a toughie. The 10th is the longest par 4 on the T's way way back in the distance there. But the fairway at number 10 has got a huge really quite violent slope from left to right. Let's just see how that ball runs across. Tigerwood says this is one of the very few holes on the course. Ideally you want to hit a drive or with a bit of draw on it. A lot of players hit three woods. My goodness. It is deep isn't it? It's going to get away from it. Watch out boys. Coming through. Second shot ball below your feet. It just keeps trickling trickling trickling. Is it going to make it? Not quite. The seagulls quite enjoy it may do. It just gives you an idea how steep the fairway sloped. Big slope from left to right. That ball's run about 60 yards. Didn't quite make it into the hazard. What a tee shot this is. You've got to be so careful particularly a left to right wind. Otherwise you'll find your ball on the beach. You've got to love the 14th here the par 5. It really is a classic. The green is unique. A very small putting surface if you're going for it into. Very tricky. The front left and really the front of the green is guided by this huge trap. And the area you can cut a hole. A hole location is in this area of orange circles. Virtually half of the green you can't get a flag in. And here it is. It's about 15 yards by 8 yards deep. Very small indeed.  If you come up short.  The ball might plug in that bunker. And if you come here on the right side the ball just pop them down here. Let's see what happens. Little bluff. A secret little bluff at the front of the green. The ball's just come trickling trickling down here. Here they come. You thought you played a perfect shot. Got a little bit too much backspin on it. Perhaps the flight was a little bit too high and they all come trickling to the front of the green here. And it leaves you a very awkward spot. Magnificent green. Full of intrigue.  Really tricky. What a green. What a hole. Absolutely superb. The 18th of Pebble Beach is something special. It really is. The tea sits out into the ocean. You can hear the waves crashing around you. You've got a decision to make. Can you reach the green in two? Do I have a go for it? Are you going to hit a bit of a draw and work it towards the water?  But the tree which is on the right side of the fairway here is the pivotal point. Can I get past it? Do I play left of it? The tree is about 265 odd yards off the tee and the fairway to the left of it is only about 20 yards wide. Let's just measure it out. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. From 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. 23 yards wide left of the tree. But if you miss on the left when you're trying to hit this big tee shot with a draw you're in the sea or in the rocks. Occasionally someone bounces out but you can't go down there.  If the breeze is helping you can certainly reach for two. Breeze against the trees in your way. So what are you going to do? You think am I going to be brave and have a go for it? It's one of those tee shots. Actually now that it's in range for two for more players it does go to you to have a go and brings this ocean into play. Brilliant, brilliant hole. It's just fantastic.  Can I make a four? If I don't I could win all sorts of trouble. It is fantastic. Small greens here but quite big slopes and it's key on every one of your iron shots to try and place the ball under the cup so you're putting up the hill. Let's have a look at this green here. Let's try this part here. The slope on this green is from back to front. You just watch how they break and they're not this one up. Look at that. Big carving break and from beyond the cup you can see this is a little down the slope but it's a bit quicker than you think. Watch this one ran out. You think it's not going to keep going but he does. He just keeps trickling, trickling, trickling, trickling. This one downhill from right to left. Really, really awkward. It's going to dive to the left. Just a little nudge and she's gone. Look at it gone. The only putt you can leave yourself to give yourself a real genuine chance is to find the uphill putt. They'll have that on their yardage books which is the best angle to putt from. Let's try this one up the slope. This is the slow one. Easy to leave it sure. Up the hill she goes. From there you've got half a chance. If you can get the ball in the right spot on these greens you've got a chance. Get it wrong you've got some awfully tricky putts. Fast ones, side hillers. They're beautiful greens but they're tricky. I just love bunkers and there's some absolute beauties here. There really are. 118 on this golf course and just have a look at some of them. All different shapes and sizes. Some are wider, some are little gullies. Look at this one. It's like a little trough. At the back of it's the long rough it's an absolute doozy.   And this is one of my favorites. Look at this little gully one here. Let's tiptoe through it no one will notice. This little avenue here. You're never going to get a flat by through here.  Such a lot of variety. This is an absolute honey of a bunker. Don't go in there though it's good to look at but impossible to play out of. A larger one here like a big jigsaw piece. Little tongue sticking into it. Now look at this for a bit of character. Looks like someone's boot. Little tongue runs in here. You just never know. The ball can go in. You're never quite sure where they're going to finish. But these bunkers at this golf course well they are magic. Magic to look at, they look right, they play right. But really you want to avoid them because whenever you're in them. Pebble Beach isn't the longest course in the world and it's quite narrow so there'll be a number of holes where you'd like to take an iron off the tee. Well you bomb one down the fair when it runs and runs and runs and gets you into the perfect spot. But look what happens if you push it in the rough. You've taken an iron for safety and the ball just nestles in right at the bottom of the grass. No run out so suddenly you're 30 yards behind where you ought to have been. Now look at the ball's line. It just settles down this stuff. It really is dense dense dense rough. Let's just chop a bit off and see what it looks like. Not quite at the bottom. Out they come. There it is. Three inches long, three and a half inches, four inches long but plenty of it. And it's been watered so it's quite dense, rich and vengefully thick I'd have to say. So if you take an iron off the tee and you find the rough you're in all sorts of trouble. This rough this week is nasty. Keep out of it. I'm on the 17th green. It's fairly typical of all the greens on the golf course. Fairly small and the rough around it. Quite dense. There's sort of foot of very short rough and there's stubbly stuff which all can sit down on. Then into the slightly thicker stuff. Let's just have a look at the typical sort of lies you're going to find if you missed the green. So they're just nestled down at about four inches long, settled down tricky and this one's in well in spinach. And you've got to practice them. There's always a little bit of element of luck when how they come out. Open the clubface and just up there is where Tom Watson played his famous shot from. Open the clubface and block it forward and hope. That ain't too bad. You're never quite sure how they're going to react. See how it's slipped underneath that one. And this stuff, I mean this is hitting hope. Grass lying against you. Oops, she's gone a country mile. So missed the green, you're only, you know, three foot, four foot off the edge of the green. You're in some real thick stuff where the green is often sloping away from you. They're very, very tricky. It's so unpredictable how the ball is going to come out. Been a magic stroll around the golf course this afternoon. Sun started to set and as I've wondered around, I've noticed quite a number of the tee shots of this golf course are left or right shots. They're fade. So I've put my bones down here. These are all the holes. One to 18. Just to analyze what's what. Well, we can take the par three's out because you can probably put any type of shot you like to those. So which are the fades? One is a fade for certain. Two is certainly a fade. Third is probably a little draw shot. Four's a fade. Six is a fade. Eighth's a fade, just to land it softly on the fairway. Ninth is probably a fade, too, to work it down the slope. Ten's not there. Eleven a fade. Thirteen the slopey fairway. Fourteen is probably a fade as well. 15, 16, and 18. So there's only three holes. The third, the tenth, and the 18th that favor the right to left draw. The rest all favor the fade. So if you have a cutter at the board, you can work from left to right with confidence. Your natural shot, it's going to be invaluable this week to hit those little fades and land them on the fairway. And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 holes of your tee shots favor that left to right shot. The bread and butter, the cutter. I was wondering the ground the course this morning and I started to think, do you ever get a flat lie on the golf course? And as we went round, I realized the 18th fairway is quite flat and there's a little bit on the 15th that is flat. The rest, you're always playing off a bit of a tilt.  There's always something there in every single fairway. Just let's take a look at this bit here, here's a bit here. Ball's going to be above your feet. And from there you're going to swing a little bit flat and the tendency is perhaps to overdraw it. So you've got to guard against that. Just not far away. A slope going the other way. Which one's this way? This is mainly a down slope, but again the ball below your feet so you're likely to cut it. So all the way around here, club selection, but how's the ball lying on the turf? Is it an up slope, down slope? You've got to counter that the whole time. It's one of the engaging things about Pebble Beach that you don't often see on the TV or you can miss it, but it's there every single hole. Is the ball above your feet, below your feet, down slope, up slope. You've got to counter it. It really is a special feature. For the modern tour professional, a key thing is of course 14 clubs, but Annie's Yardage Book. And I've kept very nearly all my Yardage Books, all the different courses I've played and they've changed so much over the years. It was really here when Jack Nicholas played in the USM and he used the Yardage card that it started to become popularized. And have a look at these Fjordys. There's some beauties. In the early days we had to do our own Yardage Book. This is for Rawls and St. Ann's when I played my first Ryder Cup in 1970-70. You see it was all hand done marked out. You paced it out one, two, three, four. It took a long while and of course you made some mistakes. And they slowly moved on. This was from the Green Brass, similar sort of thing. But it was your own work. Then suddenly some of the caddies started to do them for us. Bruce Edd was there. Creamy Caroline used the Caddy for Arnold Palmer. And Angelo used the Caddy for Jack Nick. Because they produced them and he used to buy them. They made life a little easy for ourselves. But look at the modern ones. Here's 85 I played the last time at the Pebble Beach in the Crosby. And they were quite good then. They did them quite nicely. But fairly simple. If you had all the basic yardage, you'd put your own marks on it. But now, this is this week's one. 2019 US Open Pebble Beach Championship Yardage Book. Look at the detail. Slopes on the greens. Every single sprinkler's marked. All the runouts, all the different carries. It really is amazing. Look at that one. Hey, you've got to be a mathematician to use that. So the modern yardage books got everything. And the current player can hardly manage without them. You still need that touch and feel. But this yardage book is absolutely critical. You'll see them in those back pockets. Slightly warm at the end of the week. They've been used a lot.


All right, gee, you want to start it off? Sure, so, uh, welcome to, uh, Defcon Safe Mode. So, you know, Badge Life at Blue Team Village this year, a little bit different, uh, since we're all kind of separate, but, but together we thought we'd make Badge Life reflect the extreme social distancing that, uh, you know, we're practicing this year.  Why don't we do something cool with them? So, we've been putting together a bunch of different examples of stuff. Deserts got, um, been building, you know, a kind of mass level 1, we have some mass level 2 stuff. It's pretty cool that he'll be streaming the, uh, the builds on later this weekend. You know, then the really, we just want people to have fun. You know, if you're, if you're into like wearable electronics, doing stuff with like neopixels and like voice modulators. Um, you know, really kind of the sky's the limit. Um, thought that was, see, see what cool stuff people can come up with.  Oh, I was just going to say, I'll be, I'll be showing people on a stream tomorrow how to take this mask and put LED sequins like.  And then Saturday, I will be doing more with the. Neopixels like these, and I will actually be a fixing it to the inside of this mask along with a microphone and making it voice activated. Nice, I may jump in on some, some build streaming as well. I was, uh, was able to build mine due to a, we got hit by the, uh, the hurricane a bit. So I've been cleaning up my house. So, not, not a lot of time to solder stuff, but I, I got some time car better than the weekend. So, so really, you know, going into the weekend, just things to keep in mind. Anything you do must conform to DEF CON and blue team village acceptable, you know, contact policy, nothing, nothing crazy in there. Stay safe. Don't, don't do anything that's going to exfix gate you electrocute you or otherwise harm yourself. Just be careful, especially if you're, you're selling around, you know, lithium batteries. I think, I think when we were prototyping stuff, we might have had a mishap.  I got myself pretty good when I was prototyping. Yep, we've been tweeting out there. There's a kind of an FAQ that as kind of full contest details, we won't read them verbatim. We'll send that out again right after this. Just so that's more easily accessible.  You can, you can customize a pre made one. It is really whatever you want to do with it. You can incorporate whatever artwork or, you know, iconography that you want to. And they don't necessarily have to have the electronics either. You know, they could just do really cool artwork. Just showcase whatever your creation is.  It's, it's non prescriptive really. At the end of all of it, the, we have some contest categories that will, again, they're in the FAQ. There's a whole bunch of different ones and, you know, whenever we go through judging one ounce winners on Sunday. Really, the idea is, you know, have fun with it and we'll have some swag for folks who win contests and we'll, you know, so if you're, if you're submitting there's a Twitter hashtag that you can tag us with it's in the FAQ. That's just hashtag BTV mask on. And I guess just be prepared to, you know, if you want swag, we'll need a mailing address to send it to don't care if it's yours. Don't care if it's your neighbors. Don't care if it's a dead drop somewhere in, you know, the middle of nowhere. Just give us, you know, a postal address where you can pick it up. That's all. That's, that's really it. Like I said, do you have anything else you wanted to clue people in on. Um, let me check something here. Well, we could talk probably about some of the categories as well, you know, just to give like a brief overview of what we have. I've actually got the FAQ up so I can just go ahead and read those off. We're going to have, right now we have nine categories, possibly might add more, but right now we have the BTV organizers, arbitrary choice. So it's as a group, we will decide which one we like the most. That will be a contest winner. We're going to have community choice individual and community choice family. So what we mean by that is, you know, with us all being at home, we thought it, well, G actually had this idea. He thought it'd be cool if people got their kids involved.  You know, this is pretty easy. It doesn't require a ton of skill. You'll see tomorrow. I am a awful seamstress. I'm terrible. I'm very bad and I can make a functional mask. So, you know, it's not terribly difficult.  And tag us in it. Let us see it. So the community choice will be ones that y'all pick. And then we also have a most cohesive family effort. So something that, you know, you the whole family gets together, even if the kids are growing like glue and like macaroni to the mask and paint that all up all cool. We'd like to see it. It's the mask equivalent of, you know, wearing your matching t-shirts. Yes, exactly. And then we also have the most elaborate incorporation of electronics.  Probably stand a pretty good chance if you built that. We'll have the most elaborate non-electronic wearable mask, which will also be BTV chosen, which will be very cool. And the most elaborate incorporation of theme work and artwork. I'm excited for that one because I love seeing people's cool art because I have zero artistic skill myself. Then we also have subjectively the best couples effort and the best kids effort. So, you know, get your kids in there, let them build their own thing and they might win some cool swag. And I think that's all the contest categories we have so far. Yep. We also have some example masks that you can, if you want to, want to kind of build your build yourself, we have some example ones out there that run affiliated with any of the makers that have put those out there, but their patterns that we know to actually work. So they're starting point. We was linked some basic electronics tutorials if you want to take a spin through those before desserts streaming the build process tomorrow. And like I said before, this does require zero skill. I'm terrible at sewing and I managed to take this mask and some thread and make a functional light up mask. So if I can do it, you can definitely do it. I'm God awful at this and I've never even thought of trying to do something like this before, but we had to adapt to the environment that we were given. Yep. The theme for 2020 really cool. I I think that's all we got. Yeah, there, if you have any questions, the, I think we have a mass con channel in the, the discord that you can drop, drop questions in. We'll try to work in there. Feel free to tag either one of us if you have questions that, you know, we're kind of more burning. So we do have a bit, you know, we're trying to pay attention to a bunch of other stuff as well. Feel free to tag us. We'll drop in and happy to answer any questions or help. Yeah, I'll be in there all night. I don't have much going on. So I'll be on the on the discord most of the evening. So if you have any questions, just go ahead and tag me. I'll be happy to answer anything I can. Great. Take care.


I welcome you in the course of Leadership Emotional Intelligence and the CNMaking. This is module number 53 and we are going to talk about to be real, act with authenticity and we are going to talk about the leadership vision. We have taken up this module from the book of Total Leadership written by Stuart D. Friedman. When we talk about total leadership, there is a very famous quote which is saying that preserve we are in the face of adversity. We should have this capability that we can be persistent, be able to face the difficulties and to face the difficulties we need to have resilience, we need to have emotional intelligence, we need to have mindfulness, we need to create all these things. Now when we are talking about leadership vision, the leadership vision is basically talking about a compelling image of achievable future. Now in this one sentence, there are certain key words that we need to highlight. For example, compelling, the image, the achievable aspects and obviously the future. When we talk about compelling in this vision, the compelling would mean that you are going to write, you are going to develop a compelling story which is actually engaging other people. The compelling would also mean that it is developed in association with the other people. The compelling would mean also the focus of attention. And compelling may be the fourth important thing that is that you should be able to come up with highest aspiration source of motivation and it would be difficult for them to actually follow you and trust you. The second important thing, the second important word actually which was discussed in the vision was the word image. And the image would mean that you have to create certain terms, a kind of concrete terms that are easy to visualize and remember that what when why how you are saying anything. The second important thing would be that everyone can pick up that and know what it mean because it would be difficult for them to remember that what were actually your sayings. The third thing discussed was that the vision should be achievable. And to achieve it, remember that we have to change the meaning of impossible from our dictionary. And when we change the meaning of impossible, the word will be the same but it would become that it is possible I am possible. The second thing is that when you talk about this achievement, you have to define the things in smart fashion. And the smart would mean that the things are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-framed. And the third important thing would be that you have to sometimes create a strategic fit and a strategic stretch because it would be certain instances when the things are getting difficult for you. So you have to sometimes come up with your full stretch, you have to come up with creation of the fit so that your internal forces are able to balance with external circumstances. The third expression that we saw in leadership vision, that was the key word future. And when we talk about the future, remember that out there should be reachable. The second thing would be that you have to inculcate the sense of urgency. You have to put the people in a circumstance in which now and never the situation will create. And now and never how we want to create so that we can bring their enthusiasm, their encouragement to the people. And the third thing would be that we have to keep on giving them motivation, encouragement so that they are there to work, they are there to find out self-efficacy, which means that yes, I can do it. Now to create leadership vision, remember one thing, that the vision is always rooted in your past. Then it is dealing with today, we cannot ignore the present and then it moves on to the future. So you have to live in the present and keep an eye on the future. So that would be the thing which allows you to associate your leadership context with your followers. Now remember that inspiration is a function of aspiration. And that is the quote which a leader must always keep in their mind. Now there is an exercise which we are going to do now. For this exercise, it is suggested to you from the author that describe the kind of leader you want to become by writing a short story of your life between now and 15 years in the future. We discussed in the last module that we have to write a story about ourselves. And now we are talking about a leader who is our self-image. And we want to see our self-image from today and from today and from 15 years later, we want to see where do you want to see yourself after 15 years. So that you can do your planning, you can comprehend yourself, what are the perspectives that you have to work on to achieve success. If we conclude all of this, dear students remember that we have to be self-aware, we have to be self-conscious and it is not just that we idealize certain leaders other than ourselves. We have to sometimes idealize our own self as well. We can see ourselves as a leader in the future. And we will definitely have to plan for that. Thank you.


Welcome back to ThinkTech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Global Connections. And today we're going to talk about weather and to the extent it's time to watch for the growth of Southeast Asia. Where is it going in today's geopolitical and very complex world? With Carl Baker, Senior Advisor to the Pacific Forum. Welcome to the show, Carl. But to be back, Jay, always fun to talk about Southeast Asia, a place that I've been spending more time in than recent years. So it's an exciting region. It's a growing region. There's still a lot of kids that are running around the streets in Southeast Asia. So it's somewhat refreshing when you see the dynamism that's going on in the area. Yeah. It's interesting that we don't talk enough about Southeast Asia because it's a juggernaut of activity and possibility. And I think one thing that has to be said is that China is the capstone of Southeast Asia geographically, economically, physically. And so much happens in Southeast Asia that depends on what China is going to do as an attempt to deal with China. It's an expression of the relationship these countries and leaders with China, which is actually, it hangs over them in the sense that I think they'd be doing more and better if China wasn't such a depressing effect on the individual countries. Do you agree? It depends on whose perspective you're looking at it from. I think from Southeast Asia perspective, they don't see it as being a depressing effect as much as they see it as being a very economically dependent effect. And so the people in Southeast Asia see China as the economic engine and the stop, full stop right there. Yeah, security is a problem, but we have the United States as sort of that security guarantor in the region, and we're pretty comfortable that we can manage to play China and U.S. off against each other to some extent. But we really think that China is an important economic driver. And that's Southeast Asia perspective, I think. And it's across the board, not just one or two of the countries, but I think all the countries recognize that they need China for the economic engine. Now the United States is trying to fix that as far as the United States is concerned with the Indo-Pacific economic framework. But the Southeast Asian states are pretty committed to their trading relationship with China first and the rest of the world takes a second seat to that. Well, let's look at the map and identify what's where and what's who and sort of rank them in terms of their progress and their potential. And so in this map, there are various countries and we should identify which ones are the ones that count, the ones that are really in Southeast Asia, because I think sometimes we confuse who the members are and into that matter the parameters by which we judge them to be members. So let's look at the map. Yeah. So I mean, when you look at the map, Southeast Asia is somewhat arbitrary how we define what's in Southeast Asia. But if you look at it, there's 10 countries in the ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, 10 countries with obviously the big lead Indonesia, the largest population by multiples. Next you have Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and then you get to continental Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and then finally, Brunei, which is a little sliver off Malaysia there. And so those are the 10 countries that are normally considered Southeast Asia. Obviously there's interactions with China, as you can see, because it's the big brother to the north. And there's also interactions with Taiwan. Taiwan has a lot of industries that have branched out into Southeast Asia. But primarily what has been the growth engine for Southeast Asia is building components being shipped to China. And they are by far the largest trade partner for all the countries in the region and certainly for the region overall. There's been a free trade agreement between China and Southeast Asia since the 90s. There's the regional cooperation economic initiative, ARSEP, which has been in place, which is again the Northeast Asia countries, China, South Korea, Japan, along with Southeast Asia and Australia, as well as Australia and New Zealand as well. And then there's also the comprehensive and progressive Trans-Pacific partnership, which of course was started by New Zealand and United States, and then ultimately some of the Southeast Asia countries participated in that free trade agreement, and they are still part of that. Of course the United States withdrew. And then finally you have the Indo-Pacific economic framework, which includes seven of the Southeast Asia countries. The ones that aren't included are Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. All the others are part of that IPATH that the United States has been working on, which is not really a trade agreement as much as it is a rules of the road for economic engagement agreement. That is making some progress on supply chain resilience and green energy and things like that. The trade pillar of that particular agreement has not gone very far, mostly because the United States has continued to maintain its position that it won't accept any trade that trade favors as part of it. So there's no trade concessions by the United States to give market access to the U.S. market. So that pillar has not moved very far in the Indo-Pacific economic framework, which is being led by the United States. Would you say that Southeast Asia, maybe it's just, you know, you can't lump them together really in terms of where they're all going because they're different. And I've asked you before and other shows whether there will come a time when they all get together and be closer politically, geopolitically. And the answer to that is? The answer is probably not. It's a consensus. It's a consensus-based organization. As you can see, there's countries in there that are large. Indonesia, over 200 million people. And Brunei, which is a couple million. And so, you know, Singapore, a couple million. And so, you know, so the numbers are vastly different. Religions are different. Economic positions are much different. Singapore is as much a leading economic economy as a leading economy versus a place like Laos, which is very rural, very underdeveloped. Myanmar, of course, which has is going through a revolution right now. It's run by a military junta, you know. And so there's a lot of different political systems. Vietnam is a completely communist country where Indonesia just had its latest election fairly successful. Philippines, of course, has always been a democracy. And some people's minds, too democratic and has had problems because of that, because of the open press and all that. So vastly different economies, vastly different political systems. And, you know, they try very hard to work on consensus. But of course, the downside of consensus is that it takes a long time to get agreement on something. And when you do get agreement, it tends to be a very, very bland, very anodyne sort of agreement that everybody can say yes to, but everybody also can use to their own benefit. And the common denominator is China and to a certain extent the United States. And I read recently that, you know, Australia wants to get more involved in trade. Australia, you know, allocated something like two billion dollars to encourage trade with Southeast Asia. So, you know, they're on board, too. And you have these competing countries that want to open those markets. Can you talk about that?  You know, Japan, Japan has actually done more infrastructure development in Southeast Asia than China by far. And so Japan is the other big fact. They're the ones that have have a lot of economic activity. They have, like I said, they've built a lot of infrastructure in the region. They are the go-to people for looking for support for maritime security. They've they've built up the coast guards in several of the countries that all the all the countries in Southeast Asia speak favorably of the of the security cooperation with Japan, probably primarily because the security cooperation with Japan is very focused on building local capacity, where the United States tends to be more military to military engagement. But increasingly, Southeast Asia sees that as as a hedge against China. So Japan is certainly the bigger, bigger player. Australia economically, not so much Australia has certainly has a reputation for trying to engage Southeast Asia. It sees Southeast Asia as important, but it's really more on a basis of security rather than just pure economics. Because in some ways, Australia competes with Southeast Asia for natural resources going into into China and Northeast Asia more generally. Yeah, and Australia is to some extent driven by its relationship with the US in a certain way. It's kind of a proxy of the US. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, somewhat disparagingly, people used to talk about Australia as the American's deputy sheriff in the region that Australians don't take very kindly to that sort of characterization.  And and also they've also been a very strong security partner with the Philippines, you know, again, which plays into into that characterization that they're very much a partner with the United States, because, of course, United States has the strong security partnership with the Philippines, which under the current Marcos administration has certainly grown. You know, prior prior to Marcos, President Duterte had tried to establish a relationship with China and was largely unsuccessful. You know, he had made sort of big promises about all the economic benefits that they were going to get from cooperating with China on infrastructure and quite honestly, China sort of dropped the ball and didn't deliver all the money that the the Philippines thought they were going to get out of China. And so a lot of those big infrastructure projects have gone by the wayside. But today, you know, the Philippines is working very closely with Japan to improve its public transportation, which if you have been to Manila, they you understand that that is a big problem. And Indonesia the same way. Indonesia has, you know, probably a little different story where Japan and China have competed in Indonesia to build infrastructure. And and China was successful in building a high speed rail network in on Java, which is the main to the main island where where the largest amount of population is. But Japan has also been involved with with building building infrastructure in in Jakarta and the rest of Indonesia. So there's a little bit of a competition between China and Japan in specifically Indonesia and certainly in in Vietnam. Japan has been very active and even even in Myanmar, where, you know, the United States is very much withdrawn and is is has put a lot of sanctions on Myanmar and Japan is still there. They're still engaged economically in Myanmar, trying to trying to maintain some some level of engagement during the current Fonta era in in Myanmar. Yeah, really, you have to admire Japan for their soft power, their trade power. They do they do better. They do better than we do in so many ways. But let's talk about security. You've touched on that a couple of times here. And I keep thinking of the Sierra Madre, which was a supply ship that was, you know, supplying a Filipino outpost in the islands there. No, Sierra Madre is no Sierra Ma, sorry, sorry, Jay. Sierra Madre is the ship that they grounded on Second Thomas Shoal and they've been trying to resupply that. That's that's their claim for. Oh, yes. Right. Sierra Madre itself is the ship that sits out sits out on the sandbar and they're trying to resupply this year. I mean, yeah, it's a strange arrangement.  Yes. And and the Filipinos were trying to resupply the the grounded ship Sierra Madre. Yes. So that, you know, that's been a bone of contention. And through 2022 and 2023, there were all these incidents with the Chinese or the Chinese Coast Guard, which I must say is, you know, is is it's not like the American Coast Guard. It's not out there to save lives. It's out there to establish domain and sovereignty for China. It's out there to to get in the way of other ships to establish territoriality and sometimes to ram other ships, which it did with some of the ships from the Philippines. Really aggressive stuff and not admirable. Also, you know, China has refused to accept the International Court of the UN in its determination of the domain over the South China Sea. And I understand that the Filipinos are going to go try another case in the Hague. Unsimilar grounds that the Chinese are outside that they're the illegal parameters in the South China Sea. But meanwhile, you know, it's very contentious and it's it's not close to violence, it is violence. And the Chinese keep doing it. You know, I mean, there are commentators who believe that the Filipinos are winning this contention. But in fact, the Chinese have not paid attention to that. The Chinese keep on pushing them around in the South China Sea. Them and others, it's not just the Philippines. So can you comment on what's going on there and where it's all going? Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's complicated for sure. First of all, let's let's be clear that that the basis for all this activity is the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea. It's not it's not being driven by the by the courts or by the International Court. It's being driven by tribunals based on on clause. And so that's that's the basis. And of course, you know, the immediate reaction you get from everybody is, yeah, the United States talks about it, but it hasn't signed on clause yet.  And to his credit, Deputy Secretary Campbell, who in his confirmation hearing said, yes, it really is important that the United States should sign on clause so that it was better grounded in its criticism of people who don't abide by on clause rules, just to make. OK, thank you. Thank you for that. But I think that's an ongoing matter. We haven't finished with that and the Filipinos haven't finished with it. And China keeps ignoring it. Yeah, yes. And so on to you on to the rest of your story. Yeah, the United States or I'm sorry, China has been very aggressive, not only with the Philippines, with with Vietnam as well. I mean, don't forget, Vietnam still claims the Paracel Islands, where the where China has now built an administrative headquarters. So it has it has completely taken over the Paracel Islands. There's no there's no doubt that the Vietnamese have just accepted that. But in the meantime, they've also they've also intruded into Indonesian waters up around the Tuna. If you go back and look at your map, they're in the very far south of the South China Sea, they've also confronted the Indonesians. And the Indonesians have been much more aggressive in some ways because they've simply have taken those fishing boats and burnt them up. I mean, they have they have literally burnt Chinese fishing vessels. And they've also been very, very aggressive with the Chinese trying to patrol areas where there are there are gas fields up in the Tuna area. So so the Indonesians have also felt the felt the the aggressiveness of the Chinese maritime fleas.  It's not just the Coast Guard. It's also these these maritime militia boats, which really have no purpose other than to support Chinese claims in that area. And what and basically the way it works is China pays these these boats to go out there as nominally as fishing boats. But in fact, they're they're really military militia who are used to to make claims of Chinese sovereignty in that whole region of the South China Sea. So yeah, China has been very aggressive and actually what's happened since the Marcos administration is the Marcos administration has very much sided with made made a commitment to its alliance with the United States. It's it's increased its defense cooperation. And I think that it sees this as a way to be more aggressive against the Chinese intrusions in the region. And that's why you see more in the Western media these days about the confrontation between the Philippines and China, because because the Philippines has taken the position that we are going to take a stand. We are going to we are going to fight back to these these aggressive actions by by the Chinese in these areas. And what the Chinese are doing is they'll swarm a bunch of boats and and sort of try to intimidate the Filipinos and the Filipinos have actually responded by by saying we're not going to be intimidated. We're going to continue to build on these islands. And so they've improved their runway on the one on the one runway they have in the region, the Vietnamese have also done a lot of work on their islands where they've improved the infrastructure on their on their claims in that region. So everybody is engaged in this in this capacity building out in these, you know, land features in the South China Sea. And and more than before, more than before. I mean, they seem to be coming together and resisting the Chinese aggression more than they were. And and I'm I'm wondering why that is. Are they are they coming together? Are they having meetings? Are they deciding they need to collaborate? Is the United States involved in in incentivizing that collaboration? Well, certainly, the United States is encouraging it. I I I don't know how much actual collaboration is going on. There's talk about the Philippines has talked about that ASEAN should develop its own convention in that in that area or their their own code of conduct that that would help ASEAN. The ASEAN states better resist China, but there's not a lot of agreement there. You know, this goes back to this whole problem with consensus is even the maritime states in Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam have differences on what they think should and should not be done vis-à-vis China in the maritime spaces. And then, of course, you have the land based countries, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, which are very much influenced by China, which prevents any larger ASEAN commitment to to confronting China in a meaningful way in the maritime space. So there's there's hints of it. Certainly, the Americans aren't discouraging that level of cooperation. But it the United States is somewhat limited in what it can do to facilitate that beyond, you know, build capacity for the coast guards, build build some resilience in the in the naval forces, conduct exercises and things like that. And it's doing big exercises. Sama Sama wasn't it last year? Huge big exercise organized by the U.S. You know, unprecedented in scope and scale. It's very interesting how the U.S. is is bringing them together through these military exercise. Well, but China has also done China ASEAN exercises. I mean, this is sort of the way ASEAN is, is that if if we do it with the one, we're going to do something with the other because because ultimately, their interest is to protect their capacity to act independently by each country. So, you know, so ASEAN isn't isn't a multilateral organization in the sense that these, for example, European Union is, you know, there's no there's no big headquarters that that puts out directions that individual states have to follow. It's all bottoms up in ASEAN. So everything has to be done by consensus. And so, you know, so in ASEAN, you always have this this this movement at the local level, but it's all kind of designed to protect national interests first and regional interests second, even even in the context of of a somewhat belligerent China in that region. The regional organization is always trying to facilitate national interests first and regional interests second. In that regard, you mentioned oil and gas in the South China Sea. I guess that's the south part of the South China Sea or the southwest part. And and we have what? Indonesian, you know, Hawaiian electric gets its low sulfur oil from Indonesia. That's a source for our, you know, generating power here. And I think you mentioned that Vietnam also had some oil and gas offshore. How does that play into this? Because the Chinese have tried to interfere with that. But both of those countries, the countries have resisted it. And they are, in fact, taking oil and gas from the South China Sea. How does that play for their economies? How does that play for the defense issue? Well, all the all the all the littoral states have have gas and oil extraction operations in the South China Sea. The, you know, the Chinese have tried to do cooperative agreements with with some of the individual states, for example, the Philippines. Back in the early 2000s, there was an agreement to do joint exploration, which ultimately failed because China demanded that the Philippines recognize Chinese sovereignty if they were going to do that. And so so it ultimately failed. But even even Malaysia and Brunei have have gas exploration, gas gas extraction operations in their claimed areas in the South China Sea. And China hasn't really aggressively stopped the existing operations. What what you're referring to, I think, is when they when they moved one of their exploration drills into Vietnamese territory. Then they became aggressive when the when the Vietnamese tried to try to get them to move that that exploration, Derek, out of there. But, you know, but they haven't really tried to force these people to stop doing their exploration in in their coastal waters. They they they they make sovereign claims, but they haven't really tried to enforce those sovereignty claims as much as they have with especially with fishing, where they they have moved fishermen and tried to extract marine resources for for the for the fishing. But what I get is this kind of manifest destiny mindset from China. I want to take, you know, on historical claims, they want to take as much territory as they can in the South, in and around the South China Sea. I guess that's not a big change. But the change seems to me would be that the the neighboring countries in Southeast Asia are actually pushing back a little bit.  At the same time, you know, I think China is always going to be busy trying to push the envelope, always testing. And for example, we had a show not too long ago about Fiji and the Chinese presence in Fiji, they're all over the place. In Fiji, who would have thought this is like World War Two island hopping, not from the east to the west, but from the west to the east. Trying to get as much presence in as many islands, you know, in the Pacific, they possibly can. And of course, you can connect the dots or connect the islands, as the case may be. And it just looks like they're moving east. Am I right? Well, I mean, that's very much an American mindset. Is that is that the Chinese are doing this for security purposes? That the ultimate goal is what? To invade Hawaii?  Certainly, they want to maintain economic engagement in the Pacific islands. Now, we're moving beyond Southeast Asia and into the Pacific. But I think it's mostly for extraction of resources again, you know, where they see very much of benefit to their benefit to engage these blue economy countries in the Pacific Islands. I mean, if you if you have to feed over a billion people and they like to eat fish, you know, it makes sense to go where the fish are. And so I think I think it makes economic sense for for China to try to exploit its relationship with those countries to to be able to go in and extract marine resources from those areas. I don't think I don't think it means that their island hopping, trying to control territory as as an expansion of empire. I think it's more of a more of being driven by by economic realities that China needs to continue to to find new fishing areas. And yeah, we are they they are definitely they they have exploited over exploited the South China Sea, just like all the other countries have with with over exploited the fishing fishing resources in in that area. So I think it's natural that they go and look in the Pacific to to maintain a relationship with the country. So for economic reasons, I want to move back to the area around Thailand, which we haven't talked about, you know, all that much. And I think of Thailand, I think of the Mekong. When I think of the Mekong, I think of the environment. And when I think of the Mekong and the environment, I think of degradation and I think of climate change and environmental degradation, query whether the countries, the members of these organizations in Southeast Asia are doing anything are conscious about climate change and environmental preservation. Are they? Well, yes, they are, but they're not doing a very good job. You know, and certainly the Mekong is the lifeblood of continental Southeast Asia. And yes, there's a big problem with damming the upper regions of the Mekong, which is choking off resources in Vietnam and Thailand. So it is a big problem.  There's the old Mekong region commission, which is run by the Southeast Asians. And the Chinese have come in and they've simply overtaken that initiative with their Long Song Mekong initiative. And they are now trying to control those resources. For a while, there was a cooperative agreement between China and the Mekong regions to patrol the Mekong, which fell apart because the Chinese tried to dominate it and tried to try to control access to the Mekong with the countries that the Mekong runs through. You know, so yeah, it's a big problem for them. And they've tried to talk about conservation efforts. The United States has developed a couple different initiative with the Mekong region, I think somewhat unsuccessfully. You know, we've started and stopped. And, you know, it kind of depends on which administration is in office how much money we put against it. And so, you know, the Mekong region has suffered. I think our relationship with the Mekong countries have suffered a little bit for that. You know, but certainly they're they're trying to maintain the Mekong and just river, river resources in general. And it's been a real struggle because there hasn't been a full commitment, a regional commitment. And so you've got Laos, you know, letting the Chinese build river, river dams and the lower region suffer. Yeah, speaking of Laos and Cambodia, there was a very interesting play at Manoa Valley Theatre last year involving the Cambodian rock band, which was just an entry point to understand, you know, what has happened in Cambodia, the killing fields and the like and what is happening there now and what kind of, you know, level of development they have. What kind of westernization, if you will. And I walk away, maybe it's my mindset problem, I walk away thinking a lot of these countries are really not westernized and they're not really democracies and they have baggage like Cambodia does that they haven't really overcome and they're rural, as you said, a lot of these places are quite rural, living in the 19th century. And so, query, you know, how is that going to work out? I think it's an uneven level of development between some of the countries. I mean, I've been to Bangkok, it's a modern city, there's, you know, this huge rail program and so, you know, up-to-date shopping centers and everything. But if you go to some of these other places, it's really country and its way back. So do you agree with me that there's an uneven level of development and some of these places are really not developed and are not likely to develop? Yeah, I sure, that's, you're absolutely right, that there is a huge, huge disparity in levels of development. And you mentioned Cambodian Laos and Myanmar, and those are the three that, you know, are really, really behind. Now, Cambodia, you know, remarkably as much as as much animosity as there is between, you know, Cambodia and the United States.  So Hun Manet is a former graduate of the US military academy. And they've done, even the United States has done a lot of work with Cambodia. But Cambodia has also been very influenced by the Chinese.  You know, but they but they put in a lot of capital and they've built a lot of tourist facilities in Cambodia. And they they're building apparently a navy, some kind of a navy shipyard in in Cambodia. So they've they've had a lot of influence. And Cambodia has in some ways carried China's water in in the ASEAN meetings. You know, back in 2012 famously, the Cambodians refused to refuse to to acknowledge culpability on the part of China in the South China Sea. And it ended up that there was no joint agreement at an ASEAN meeting, which for ASEAN, that was a big deal. And it was because the Cambodians were very deferential to the Chinese.  And the United States has kind of used that as a as a benchmark for for their willingness to work with Cambodia. You know, but yeah, the economies are certainly vastly different in terms of the amount of development, the amount of exports that they have, the amount of rural, rural electrification. You know, when you go into Laos and Cambodia, there's still large swaths of the country that aren't aren't electrified. Well, you know, seems to me that some of these other countries in the area would would be interested in tourism into Southeast Asia, including the rural places. And then, you know, developing businesses. I mean, for example, I have a friend in Singapore and, you know, he's into agricultural entrepreneurship and he's always traveling to places in Southeast Asia trying to start companies up. And I imagine the same thing happens with, you know, capital concentrations in Australia, New Zealand. But of course, I think China, as you said, is the big the big kid on the block and they would be interested in infrastructure and business of all kinds. And it takes me to whether the United States, not Singapore, not Australia, not China, not New Zealand, has a presence in terms of business to build up business, to, you know, deal with that disparity you mentioned, to bring tourism in to bring capital in to Southeast Asia. Is it happening? Can it happen more? How do we make it happen more? Certainly, the United States is not a main player. In Southeast Asia in general.   And so I would be surprised America maybe even after Australia in terms of tourism in Southeast Asia. And I don't see I don't see a lot of a lot of incentive for the Americans to get more involved because they the the Southeast Asian countries really cater to those tourists. They cater to the Chinese, to the to the Japanese in the past and Koreans today. And certainly, like I say, there's a lot of Australians that travel to Southeast Asia and spend their vacation time in Southeast Asia. And the Americans, it's just never been a real attractive area for Americans to go if it's because of lack of infrastructure or the lack of the lack of advertisement or what, but there just aren't a lot of American tourists in that area. But tourism is alive and well. I mean, you've got Angkor Wat and, you know, other other historic sites in Southeast in mainland Southeast Asia that are big tourist destinations for other Asians. Yeah, you know, we talk about in our shows, Carl, we talk about the glory days of the Peace Corps back when back when. And you know, it's interesting, you find people that you like and lo and behold, you find that they were in the Peace Corps years and decades and generations ago. And they're enlightened because of that experience. It's sort of a citizen diplomacy, which is, you know, what you do. And I think there's a tremendous benefit to them and to us for having launched them into, you know, these developing countries over the years. I don't think it's safe to go to Eastern Europe for somebody who wanted to have that experience right now. I don't think it's safe for that matter to go to the Middle East. It hasn't been safe in most places in the Middle East for a long time. But query, you know, is it safe? This is out of the marathon, man. Is it safe, Carl, to go to, you know, Southeast Asia and go, you know, with a backpack to go as a citizen diplomat, to go as an air sauce Peace Corps member and relate to the people and, you know, exchange ideas and views and food and all that and do soft power at the citizen level. Is that something we should be doing? Will that benefit the United States? Will it, you know, connect us better? Well, sure. Well, I mean, anytime you engage people to people relations, I think it helps. You know, in some ways, Southeast Asia, some of some of the bigger countries have kind of moved past the Peace Corps sort of mindset. You know, when I look at Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, I don't think that those countries would be particularly receptive to that. And even Indonesia probably wouldn't be very receptive to that. But certainly it's safe to go in. I mean, there's there's no there's not a lot of animosity. I as long as you don't try to introduce religion, you know, I mean, religion, religious aspect becomes problematic in almost all those countries because of because of the dominant religion in the region in in the particular country, I think that then it becomes problematic. But certainly the Peace Corps is something that is acceptable. I don't know that there is a big Peace Corps presence in in any of those countries anymore. Asia Foundation has has operations that work in all the countries. I've certainly been to all the countries and have never felt threatened in any way. Maybe maybe Myanmar has changed since I was there last. I was I was last in Myanmar in 2019. And, you know, now that now that the home is there, probably isn't a great place to go visit. But prior to that, I mean, it's always remarkable to me the extent to which the dollar is accepted in many of the countries, including Cambodia, the dollar is the prominent currency. I mean, the people in Cambodia themselves use use the dollar and everybody speaks English. You know, you never going to find being there where someone doesn't speak English. So, you know, so it's it's westernized in that sense and it's very comfortable for a for a Western tourist like me to go and and and not have too much trouble getting around in any one of the countries, including Laos. You know, that even though it's small and it doesn't really have a lot of interaction with the United States, there's there's there's fairly widespread use of the dollar in the end of the English line. So it's it's it's yeah, I mean, there's there's certainly opportunity for for people to people, kinds of exchanges. But I I don't think that it's particularly prevalent that that we do any Peace Corps operations in those areas anymore. But mostly mostly development related initiatives, I think. You know, you mentioned religion and it strikes me that at least Malaysia, maybe other places in Southeast Asia, are predominantly Islam Islamic. Indonesia is the largest, the largest Islamic population in the world. OK, so Malaysia and Indonesia.  But they don't look like and they don't talk like them or behave like them. But I I can't tell, I'm just a visitor. And so my question to you is, are they politically aligned with what happens in the Middle East? What happens with Islamic organizations in the Middle East? What's happening now? Well, sure, I mean, you know, Indonesia didn't recognize Israel. And I'm not sure they do today that I don't think I don't think. If you're flying from it, I don't think you can fly. A Israeli airplane into Indonesia that there's there's limits on what they do. And certainly, there's there's an alignment with the Palestinians with what's happening today in Gaza, in both Malaysia and in Indonesia. But, yeah, there's not there's not a. There's there certainly is extreme extremism in Indonesia. There's there's a fair fair amount of. Islamic terrorism in Indonesia. In Indonesia, but it's mostly in the rural areas. It's not really in the in the cities. You certainly is. It's a very, very open, open society where you have you have some some very developed Muslims and some who are much more, much more cosmopolitan in their view. And last question, Carl, because we're really running out of time. And that is looking at her from, you know, the Department of State point of view, Tony Blinken's point of view from Joe Biden's, you know, world view point of view, how important is Southeast Asia? Is it as important as Europe or Africa or Latin America? And what kind of, you know, what kind of attitude should we the United States have overarching view of of the relevance, the importance of that region in our diplomatic relations? That's that's a tough question to answer in a few words. I mean, I think Southeast Asia is terribly, terribly important. It is the the area where China and the United States compete directly, most directly, I think maybe maybe Central Asia is a little different. But I think Southeast Asia is where the real competition between the United States and China is today. Because again, you know, the old the old relationship United States provides the security guarantee, but China is the economic engine. And that's the that's the dynamic that continues in Southeast Asia. And that's an important dynamic. And somehow the United States needs to figure out how to accommodate that Chinese activity and and not supplanted, but complement in a way that Southeast Asians maintain the relationship, the economic relationship with the United States. And that's where we struggled, I think, you know, I think, you know, there were opportunities for the United States to be much more economically engaged in the past. And we've sort of muffed those chances. I don't think IPF is going to do that. And so what what we really need is a good, strong economic relationship with Southeast Asia to sustain what we have, because the security relationship in and of itself isn't going to work. The Chinese are going to supplant the United States in terms of security relationship, if we're not careful, we can maintain, you know, the freedom of the seas and those sort of very national interests of the United States, but maintaining that broader security relationship with Southeast Asia. We're going to have to figure out how to integrate ourselves and integrate Southeast Asians economy into the economic relationship of the United States. And we do that by by encouraging French shoring, call it what you want, supply chain resilience with the countries in Southeast Asia. And I think that that that is what is going to be our success. And we have to do that in conjunction with Japan and Australia, because they are a much better partner in the eyes of the Southeast Asians than we are, because first, we're further away. And second, we're too focused on the military component. And that is not going to work in Southeast Asia, because they want to maintain the relationship. They want to be friends with everybody and take advantage of that friendship. Thank you, Carl. It's so important that we make people aware of these things so that Southeast Asia doesn't fall off the side. We should all be aware of the importance of our connection with all those countries. Carl Baker, Senior Advisor, Pacific Forum, thank you so much. Thank you. Aloha.


What's she doing here?   Thank cool. That's true Today we are on to another series. This is our second one of the year, but I think our Six the seventh Overall right because we did five. Yes, we've done five the preview Well, we did sacred games than for the previous year and in 2020 So this was a very highly requested one and made in heaven it's an Amazon series by the one and only Zoya octar and It's Hold on. I had it pulled up here. Yeah, okay. The it's a 2019 series by Zoya octar and The only people in the cast that I think I know are Colky. She's in the cast and Jim Sharpa who we've seen in a video, but I think he was the Ranveer's gay lover and in Padma Vaat We like him a lot And then I think it's other a bunch of other people that we don't totally know yet But do you know the do you remember the storyline of it Rick? No, okay. It's a it's a story of two It's the story of two wedding planners in Delhi where traditional Jolst We're where tradition jolsters with modern Aspirations against the backdrop of a big fat Indian wedding revealing many secrets and lies Mmm, so essentially what I've heard is that it takes a look at many different types of Indian weddings traditional I think even gay Indian weddings At the time That I do believe the homosexuality wasn't legal in India when this series was made And so I know I've been told that this basically it's very different than all the other series. We've watched. It's not crime related It's not it's not gang-related. I was just thinking right it's a strict drama about different things that happen in Indian culture and in the weddings specifically realm So I'm very much looking forward to it. Zoya octar, you know, is gonna have I believe take jabs at Indian culture and some of the archaic things that she sees in the society and in wedding tradition itself And so I'm I'm really we've never seen a bad Zoya thing the only thing you haven't seen No, you haven't seen too. I think the only thing you've seen is always actually made in heaven No, not this but you haven't seen gully boy and you haven't seen Deborah right She didn't see either of those But let's just get into it the first episode before you do I have a I have a fortune cookie Okay, a helping hand will pull you up this week in my pants There you go, I always did in bed wait wait, can you see her hands right now? Oh Whose hands nothing Anyways, this the first episode is called all the glitters is gold That's a famous song, isn't it? No, okay. All right, here we go three two. Well, I guess I'm controlling it. So it doesn't matter here. We go Yeah, why are you gonna get that? Okay Absolutely sure I've heard this actually happens Families hire investigators to investigate the other You could just leave it up to the kids you could just leave it up to the kids I suppose maybe fall in love the old-fashioned way That's him you reckon Absolutely Haven't seen her in forever feels like I know Why she always play the edgy girl and I think she took a break what she had her baby. That's why I haven't seen her much It's Bill Burr and Jason Statham had a baby Oh No, they're gonna kiss. Oh, we know her. What do we know her from? She and me supper really interesting symmetry in that shot I think he looks like Sasha Baron Cohen, right? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah Not as Borat though No Not half bad basketball playing in India better than that's our K abortion 2014 Interview Can you get that out of that all these are actresses Wow Why go not singing great scene very natural very natural That's all you can hope for I guess of course. She's the guy that gets the money. She just did that didn't she She was like we don't yeah, I don't want you to like anyone. I like that couple. They're so not okay. Well that That sucks From the whole series or that Yeah, no me Like it was gonna be maybe bummer, but it doesn't it doesn't feel like Maybe we'll get there But I've heard enough stories I've had enough stupid babies message me about their own problems that are just like what you're seeing in this TV show to Make me think that what Zoey is wanting to do is reveal the really bad state of Marriage yeah, it's a lot of places. Yeah, marriage society weddings All that relationships why you why you can get married why you can't get married why you should get married and all of the Yeah, I think we're gonna get I Think she's barely scratched the surface. Yeah, I definitely don't feel like we're gonna be happy Yeah, no, I don't think this is gonna be a feel-good romp. I don't I don't think this is a dildo. How can I do?  It was a fantastic scene And you're like this is a nice loving couple And then he's sleeping with her best friend right Why is cookie always got to be that? I know she likes to be the edgy bad girl like wasn't she that gully boy essentially Yeah, but she wasn't Yeah Had kind of a she at least had kind of a nice edge to her Kind of but over. I'm I'm saying all this stuff. I actually really enjoyed the episode though I thought it was a really well done episode it's just I'm We're not gonna be happy with this Yeah, anytime if you're watching a show and you're not, you know doing this I was engaged the whole time. How about you Stephanie? Were you engaged the whole time? Yeah, man, me too. I feel like this is a show similar to like I don't know what's that game of thrones, but like everyone's cheating on everyone everyone's like Yeah Essentially, yeah, there's nobody there's everyone has their own agenda that nobody's innocent. Nobody's perfect I yeah interesting to see where it goes I did enjoy all the all the actors in it though. I thought they all did really well Zoe is Usually pretty darn good at that and getting Believable performances. I loved the the the bride in this one. I thought she did she played her part great And I I think she was she was essentially playing like the audience I feel like like are you serious? You want me to put up with this? Really? Yeah? Yeah She was essentially playing the audience character almost in it that was to outrage by all the Idiacy that was going on and I'm wondering if every episode is just going to be like we're not going to see these bride and groom again It's gonna be right. I think we may get they like he said we're actually like two or three endings to the episode Yeah, at the end there were three different endings, but he said, you know, welcome to New Delhi I think the next episode is gonna be a completely different part of India Different wedding different wedding. Yeah different different customs different expectations culturally religiously I think we'll still follow the same two leads, but I don't think so. Yeah, I think because I think it said it's about the wedding planners And I do think VJ was just in that one scene No, because if it's following those two leads then we're definitely gonna see them again I don't know how much is he gonna be in it, but I did not know VJ Ross was gonna make an appearance, but it made me incredibly happy to see hey, hey We noticed him. That's true.  I just feel like what do you think's gonna happen? But But I like have to reformulate everything that I was going into this way because I was right From what? Like the synopsis was I was just like all we're gonna follow wedding planners. It's gonna be a wedding Maybe those surprises with some love, but I doubt there's gonna be very much Love in here.   It wasn't like this big thing.   He's it was very real. I could tell his friends who all I thought were probably gay Men as well They looked like real my like my brother is very very gay Seems like friends who he has That he would hang out. They wouldn't play video games, but they would watch RuPaul's Drag Race But so I Appreciated that and I I feel like zoe is that type of director that is not gonna let not gonna film a cliche in this style of show I feel Agree, and this you've got him this this this only works on the OTT platform Unfortunately Yes, that's true. There was some love there. We found the love. I think so too. We have to just search for it We have to search for the love All right. Well


So I've stated this before and it was relatively controversial, but I'm gonna say it again I'm gonna double down because I think it is factually correct when Rush Limbaugh died his ghost possessed Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan has Functionally turned into a right-wing hack. He does as much propaganda as right-wing anti-sjw YouTubers he repeats all of the talking points that we hear on Fox News. So at this point, he's just a conservative He's a multi-millionaire. So of course, he's gonna vote with the party who most fights for the interest of his class Except he's gonna push back against critics like myself who claim that he's a conservative and he's going to tell us that he's actually really liberal Now when he's going to try to explain What makes him liberal? He's gonna run into some issues because all he could talk about are the conservative positions that he holds Take a look today.    Yeah, so there's a lot in there Yeah, but it's just being a human but I'm a compassionate person and I believe that there's a boy I'll tell you what though one thing that happened during this pandemic was I open it opened my eyes about human nature Like I used to be a very pro universal basic income My thought was wouldn't be great if you just had enough money So you could eat and you could pay rent and then you could pursue what you wanted to but the reality of human nature came Fully into focus when I realized that one when some people got all that money from the government the COVID money And then they got unemployment. They didn't want to work. I have a friend who has a restaurant You could not get people to come back to work.  Yeah, like you see a lot of People that are that own businesses that have a hard time finding people work for them So there's there's pros to that right the pros are people it's it's a marketplace that favors the worker So workers can ask for more money So you're seeing a lot of places like bars and restaurants and stuff that have to pay more money per hour Which I guess is good as long as the restaurant could stay open Notice how he didn't cite a single policy that makes him liberal very interesting Now the first thing that he said was so stupid It almost made my head explode the left has gone so fucking far left so radical that the right are the ones Celebrating comedians and celebrating Chappelle. Now first of all whenever somebody points out that the left has gone too Extreme notice that that person is completely brainwashed whoever says this they're brainwashed, right? Because we're in a situation where the right Half of that party half of Republicans are quite literally against democracy They're plotting in scheming ways that they can send road rogue electors to the Electoral College to overturn future elections They're currently trying to find ways to gerrymander and do voter suppression so they remain in power in perpetuity Studies have shown that the Republican Party has shifted to the right We have a Democratic Party that's comparable to conservative parties in Canada and the UK So to say that the left has gone too extreme It just proves that you're brainwashed You've been watching too much Fox News too much right-wing propaganda and of course we know that Joe Rogan probably has But you know he talks about comedy and that's the reason why that's evidence to him as to why we've gone too far to the left Because the right is the one celebrating comedians I'm sorry, but whether or not you'd like a particular comedian says nothing about your political ideology and Just because we don't like the transphobic jokes of Dave Chappelle or Ricky Gervais That doesn't mean that we're against comedy.  I mean before I remember this video where Joe Rogan was Calling out Carlos Mencia on stage because he stole a joke from Bill Cosby, but now These comedians that Joe Rogan claims we don't celebrate are just stealing jokes from each other left and right I mean how many times have you heard the same variation of the well if trans people can be trans Can I identify as an attack helicopter joke?  You're punching down and your material is shit You know as comedians get older as they grow more wealthy they just become naturally out of touch and sometimes they have to recalibrate and talk to people so they understand what the normal folk with The peasants are thinking but because we're not laughing doesn't mean that we're against comedy There are plenty of comedians who I love. I love George Carlin. I like Bo Burnham. I like comedy I just watched David Cross's stand-up special and it's incredible. So it's not that we're against comedy We're against dumb boomer comedy. Okay. Now.   Okay, that means nothing with regard to your political ideology.  And then what does he do? He goes on to attack Workers using right-wing talking points So the point where he was going to validate his argument He interrupts himself to explain how conservative he is and then he talks about his his friend and How his friend who owns a restaurant? Is this the CEO of McDonald's or we talking about here because this is a very rich person But anyways his friend who owns a restaurant That led to him basically being against universal basic income because his friend who owns the restaurant had a worker Who didn't want to work because they didn't want to lose their unemployment insurance So because of that anecdote Joe Rogan is saying generally speaking if you give people money just for free They're not going to want to work except that is verifiably untrue because states who thought that same thing Well, they cut out those unemployment insurance benefits earlier than other states and what happened They didn't see growth in the job market as Axios reported in September of 2021 States that ended federal unemployment benefits earlier this summer saw August job growth at less than half the rate of states that retained the Benefits according to new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor statistics leaders in the largely Republican led states had Insisted that the benefits were discouraging people from work and ended the assistance program early ahead of its planned expiration on September 6th Economists analyzing the unemployment issue have seen little evidence that cutting off the benefits has provided a clear boost to local labor markets in port because of difficulty separating the influence of the payments from larger shifts in the labor force or of the potentially offsetting damage done by the pandemic Reuters writes so Joe Rogan did a 180 on a massive policy like universal basic income Based on one anecdote that does not denote general applicability Giving people money for free by the government doesn't make them less likely to work In fact, if you had a universal basic income type program people wouldn't just stay home They'd realize okay I have more bargaining power in the labor market so I can get a job that I like and not to settle for one where I'm Treated like shit. Also, I have more room So perhaps, you know, I can work a job and have even more extra money put away some money, you know for a rainy day But, you know, Joe Rogan doesn't realize this one thing that is incredible about the pandemic that Joe Rogan doesn't realize He thinks that the takeaways that people are just lazy But the takeaway is that workers for the first time in our generation are standing up and acknowledging that they actually do Have leverage over their employers And so if Joe Rogan's restaurant owning friend wants workers if he wants to make a living off of that restaurant He has to acknowledge that the people who he hires also want to make a living They don't want to work full-time for you if they also can't support themselves and at this point in time Workers have the ability to go to a different employer who offers a more competitive wage And if you can't afford to pay that then I'm sorry Joe Rogan's friend You can't afford to hire another worker and the difference between getting money from the government through a universal basic income program And getting money through an employer is that their stability that is inherent with a government check So if you're getting that three hundred dollars a week in unemployment insurance or a thousand dollars a month through universal basic income It's always going to be there at the first of the month whenever the date is designated Assuming we ever get this policy, which we won't but you know, it's always gonna be there You can count on it showing up in your bank account on the day when it always does but with your employer There's no stability there You're in this abusive relationship with the power imbalance where your employer can at any time pull the rug out from under you and Cut your hours like that But Joe Rogan is a multi-millionaire so stability isn't even something that he can comprehend at this point when you have millions and millions of dollars and Your work your job is just talking then it's easy to get a little bit out of touch and call everyone else lazy But I'm assuming that Joe Rogan wouldn't want to work for what? $12 an hour at a restaurant and deal with Karen's during a pandemic where you're required by state law To tell them to put on a mask but yet they're screaming at you and they're calling you Fucking a sorrow shill Joe Rogan wouldn't want to subject himself to that But yet he expects everyone else to do these shitty jobs that are required to keep society running No, you do the job Joe Rogan you're gonna complain about workers being lazy You go fucking get a job if you're worried about your restaurant owners Staff shortages go fucking work. Why are you too good to work, right? Why are you too good to do these things that you expect other people to do? It's because he's comfortable and doesn't care He's totally detached from the experience of normal people So now he could just bark at the peasants when they don't get in line And he thinks that that's gonna resonate with people and thinks that it's going to prove that he's liberal Of course not Joe Rogan is out of touch Joe Rogan is a conservative and he refuses to admit it because I don't know he's I think mostly just kind of been either apolitical or Liberal leaning but at this point in time for all intents and purposes you are a conservative and you know Just saying that you're a liberal isn't going to Make people think that you're a liberal because what you're saying Substantively is deeply deeply conservative and it is propaganda at the behest of the right


Hi everyone, Sean with jaskyscasebreaks.com here doing 2020-2021 Peony impeccable basketball three box case break pick your team edition on release day. So here is our list of teams and respective customers Nathan Rossi and the Hawks down to random number block in the wizards. So we have two different random number blocks in this as you can see on the list. This one is for the Hornets, Knicks and Thunder from David in the zero spot down to Mike Evans in the nine spot and this one is for the Timberwolves, the Cavaliers, Wizards, Spurs, Trailblazers and the Raptors from Chris at the zero spot down to Sean O'Leary just like all random number blocks. The zero spot gets any and all redemptions for the teams in that random number block even known one of one redemptions while the one spot obviously would get any in person one of ones from those same teams. Here are those lists in person. This is that Hornets, Knicks and Thunder random number block and I'm going to put this over here to the left and then the bigger six team random number block including the Timberwolves is right here as well and that will go right up here. And here's our case. Good luck everybody. This is my first in person look so. And here are our three boxes. Joe's into the conspiracy theory portion of the knife for himself. So here's the metal bar. We're going to save that till the end. I think my favorite part about Jokic just getting kicked out. Did you guys see the video of his brothers? Like almost looking like they were going to jump the barrier to jump on the court. I was like oh god that's exactly what they don't want right now. No they definitely played better after he got kicked out. Like that wasn't even close and that's why everybody was like oh yeah with Jokic they definitely would have won and I was like well yeah they were already way behind. John Collins 54 out of 75 for the Atlanta Hawks and Nathan Rossi. That was so awesome. You've got Davis Berton's 28 out of 35. That's for the Wizards. That's part of the random number block. Spot 8 Chris Chin. DeMontis Sabonis for the Pacers 45 out of 99. Indiana Pacers is Chris Chin. Our first auto is Steve Kerr. Indelible Ink for the Chicago Bulls 21 out of 25. I always forget how great and impeccable it is. Look at these cards it's so nice. Chicago Bulls is Eric Ainge. Jerry Lucas for the Knicks 26 out of 49. New York Knicks is part of that three team random number block. Spot 6 is David Garcia. Got a great signature. We've got Aaron Nesmith. Two color patch auto 87 out of 99. Rookie for the Celtics. That is Matthew Silverstein. This is a plate or plate auto. He needs a plate auto I believe. I don't even want to come up with a card. And it's Rookie Tyrese Maxi for the Philadelphia 76ers. And Josh Proust. That is 62 out of 75. Great looking card. Who's Robert Stack Rex? And for the Jazz 4 out of 25. John Stockton. Utah Jazz Diego Bloomberg. Nice. This guy does not sign a lot at all. Nice first box. I remember the metal card will do that at the end. These other regular metal cards will actually do those as we get to them. Actually, let's just save all those till the end. A bit more fun that way. Yeah, I did. I don't know who that is, Rex. I don't feel like that's surprising. Got a block chain in the middle. I'm solving mystery in an airplane. Oh, yeah, yeah. Anthony Edwards. 24 out of 35. Rookie. Base. Timberwolves is part of that six team random number block. Spot 4 is Peter Eng. There you go, Peter. Very nice Rookie. Ant-Man. Some people think maybe should have been Rookie of the Year. Mitchell Robinson. 24 out of 60 for the New York Knicks. And the three team random number block. Spot 4 on that is David Garcia. And Jason Tatum. 68 out of 99 for the Celtics. And Matthew Silverstein. I agree, Joe. I agree. You got Rookie Otto Daniel Oturu. 5 out of 99. 4 of the Clippers and Devendra Rumlaw. And our block chain. Impeccable Rookie Signature Hollow Gold Lamello Ball. That is not bad at all. Charlotte Hornets. That is a redemption, which is going to go to the zero spot. And David Garcia. This is a digital card only. But impeccable Rookie Signatures Hollow Gold. I don't know what that's going to be numbered out of. That should be very nice. Should sell for a decent amount, too. We've got another bowl with a really nice patch. Three color patch, Otto Tony Cuckooch. 11 out of 15. Chicago Bulls, Eric Ainge. Game worn slash used. Relic. Nice patch. Another Rookie for the Hornets. Vernon Kerry Jr. 22 out of 25. Charlotte Hornets is that random number block. Spot 2, Sean O'Leary. 22 out of 25. You got De'Aaron Fox. Impeccable Shot Autograph. 20 out of 99 for the Sacramento Kings. Very nice for Ben Hodap and the Kings. I was like, what's his back of his jersey say? It's from when they did the, I think, didn't they do that in the bubble where they were able to wear slogans on the back supporting different benefits? And back to back for the Kings. Another nice one here, Tyrese Halliburton. Three color Rookie patch, Otto 42 out of 99. Ben Hodap and the Kings. Fox is your PC? Well, I think you're gonna like this one, too, Ben. There's another metal card. You've got Rudy Gobert, 23 out of 75 for the Utah Jazz and Diego Bloomberg. Yanisanta Tecumpo, six out of 35 for the Milwaukee Bucks and Matthew Silverstein. And RJ Barrett, second year, 17 out of 99 for the New York Knicks. That's part of the three team random number block. Spot 7, David Garcia. Our first auto from box number three is Justin Holliday. One out of 10 for the Indiana Pacers and Chris Chin. This is the gold parallel. So that Lamello blockchain might be out of 10. We've got Zeke Najie, Rookie Otto 46 out of 99 for the Denver Nuggets. That is Jeff Levitt. We've got a plate Otto of Josh Green. Rookie Otto for the Dallas Mavericks and Diego Bloomberg, 14 out of 99. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Joe. One of the change the whistle most. And Rookie Otto, Isaiah Stewart, 34 out of 99 for the Detroit Pistons and Eric Kuziak. And final hit before we get to the metal cards is James Weissman. Rookie signatures, 37 out of 99 for the Golden State Warriors and Yuzhi Kihara. There you go, Yuzhi, congrats, man. Beautiful big ticket James Weissman. Cool, now we're on to our metal cards. We'll go with the non-patch Otto. Is Jimmy Butler for the Heat. Miami Heat is Joe Christian, that is 79 out of 99. This one's got some nice color. AD Anthony Davis for the Lakers, Mark Salvagi. That is 55 out of 75. That's an awesome looking card. Colors really pop on that. And our metal piece, it's gonna be gold, silver. Good timing on that. Kevin Durant, 15 out of 20. One Troy ounce of fine silver. Brooklyn Nets, Anthony Pasciorek. That man just dominated last night. And there you go guys, that's the break. Very nice, I'll have to get a booklet holder for that. And there you go, that is the break. That was 2020, 2021 Panini Impeccable Basketball Three Box Case Break. Pick your team number three from jaspyscasebreaks.com on release day. I'm Sean, jaspyscasebreaks.com. Thanks for hanging out and we'll see you next time.


Jeff Wilson of the 49ers. They are facing Denver and this is another situation with an injury to Matt Breda which perhaps opens up opportunity. Yeah, similar to the Pittsburgh Steelers who have already ruled out James Conner. The 49ers have already ruled out Matt Breda which is great news for fantasy owners who want to go out and pick up Jeff Wilson because normally Matt Breda was one of these backs all season long where he didn't need to practice to play that week. He would randomly pop up on a Friday with a limited practice and then he would end up playing and it would be like it would be a terrible situation for fantasy football. We don't have that right now. We know that it's going to be Jeff Wilson. Maybe they get Alfred Morris involved but I'm not buying the Alfred Morris thing. We know who Alfred Morris is. He's a journeyman running back. He's a veteran. They know who he is. He doesn't have any future on this team. Come this time next year. It's going to be Jerick McKinnon and Matt Breda and maybe Jeff Wilson. They need to see what they have in this kid. It seems like every year this happens but especially this year we have these undrafted rookie free agents just popping up out of nowhere. Guys like Phillip Lindsay. Guys like Gus Edwards with the Baltimore Ravens. And now Jeff Wilson is just another one of those products. For those of you who've never heard of Jeff Wilson here's what you need to know. Four years back at North Texas over 3,200 rushing yards. 32 rushing touchdowns. 70 receptions. So he does a little bit of everything. He had 16 rushing touchdowns in his final season at North Texas. I could catch the ball a little bit. We just saw that in this past week. 15 carries. 61 yards against the Seahawks. 9 targets. 8 receptions and additional 73 receiving yards. So you're giving me a running back here with 15 to 20 touch volume. Even in a questionable matchup against the Denver Broncos. Sign me up all day. I think he's in the flex discussion right away. I'm not buying Alfred Morris. Jeff Wilson played 72% of the snaps in this game with Matt Breda banged up. So we get 70% of the snaps again. 15 to 20 touches. It doesn't matter who the matchup is. I'm buying in on Jeff Wilson. Sounds like the 49ers found a hidden gem. And Jeff Wilson looks to be the guy moving forward. Check him out on the waiver wire.