On the find/replace menu. The tooltip pops up under the cursor. I use large cursors so I can never see this text

President Obama's much debated "pivot to Asia" can often seem like an abstract diplomatic desire.

But it may now be saving lives. The "pivot" has meant Mr Obama has continued switching US military focus from the Middle East to the Pacific Ocean.

It is controversial on many levels, but it may be paying dividends for the unfortunate people of the Philippines.

Yesterday two transport planes and a group of marines were sent to Tacloban.

New treaty likely

The aircraft carrier George Washington and cruisers Antietam and Cowpens, the destroyers Mustin and Lassen, and the supply ship Charles Drew are also heading to the area.

The US military has had a tortured relationship with the Philippines - a base was closed in the 1990s, which was a real strategic loss.

Recently relationships have improved a lot, and a new treaty is likely.

This swift response from the US is in contrast to the Philippines' big neighbour, China.

They've offered a measly $100,000. OK, they are locked in a bitter dispute over who owns the Spratley Islands.

This makes them all the more worried about the possible treaty between the Philippines and the US, but that makes offering aid clever diplomacy, rather than comforting the enemy.

In the summer I went to China to make a documentary on Sino-US relations.

Many Chinese are concerned that the "pivot to Asia" is little more than code for an increase in US naval power in the region, aimed at boxing them in.

Altruism as diplomacy

Unidentified soldiers stand near a V-22 Osprey in Leyte, Philippines on 12 November 2013 

A V-22 Osprey was among the US military kit deployed to Leyte, Philippines

At the same time there are some who want their country's ever-growing economic might to be matched with a bigger influence in the world, starting in their own region.

But many genuinely don't want to match what they see as America's presumptuousness and arrogance.

You would have thought that lending a friendly hand to a neighbour in dire need would be a textbook exercise in soft power, but it doesn't appear to be happening.

It's true Filipinos might not want to see Chinese warships off their shores, or men in PLA uniforms bearing food and water.

Then again, they might not care right now about the political provenance of help.

The US aid may not just be motivated by a good heart and a love of liberty - altruism is good diplomacy too.

Its request for a big base may now garner support among those who were wary.

It comes back to the old question, often heard around Washington, "If not us, who?"

In the Philippines, I bet they are just glad it is somebody with the lifting power to make a difference.

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When inserting a snippet, the cursor moves to the first placeholder which I can edit.  However, when I press tab it does not move to the next placeholder in the snippet :-(

OS: Linux (Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS)

Sublime Text Version 2.0.1, Build 2217

Steps to reproduce:

1. Type the tabTrigger for a snippet with more than 1 placeholder
2. Type some characters for the 1st placeholder
3. Press tab
4. Cursor stays in 1st placeholder

Ability to run code interactively in the appropriate interpreter in a separate window a la the PyNPP plugin for Notepad++

I prefer the interpreter to "pop-up" when I want to test my code. I can then take note of an error (Python gives great feedback on errors), close the command prompt window, go back to the code and fix the problem.

I don't like how "Building" in Sublime causes the console to pop-up using up reducing the code you can look at.

With PyNPP I can click in the main window to switch focus back or if I do not need to see the prompt again I can exit it which is much simpler than View->Console. I also find the grey-on-white much harder to read than the white-on-black of the command prompt and it is not representative of what my users will be seeing/using.