Very much an aside, but does anyone know the backstory to The Washington Post's publication of an editorial denouncing Fujita Yukihisa, an uninfluential and decidedly quirky DPJ member of the House of Councillors whom most Japanese have never heard about? In a blog post, Fujita calls himself the victim of a bait-and-switch interview arranged by the Foreign Press Center (deliciously, he chooses ..

One of the decisions made with strikingly little debate and seemingly little aforethought in the aftermath of the August 2009 election was the dissolution of the Democratic Party of Japan's Policy Research Council. I understood the symbolic point being made: that the policy framework set out by the new National Policy Unit (Kokka Senryaku Shitsu) should not be subject to second guessing by the p..

Though I do not share the feeling, I cannot help but wish I had concocted this cracking complaint:JAPANESE COMEDY IS NOT FUNNYI can't get behind Japanese comedy. God, I can hardly stand to be in front of it. Taken from here.

Since the Australian government has taken the hardest of hardline stances regarding whaling in recent years, some random idiosyncratic thoughts about means by which a larger number of whales might get saved, particularly in light of the Maquieira proposal, where the operative paragraph is:Fundamental components of this consensus decision are to: bring whaling by all members under the control of ..

So Kobayashi Chiyomi (Hokkaido #5 District) is forced to give up her Diet seat because of the arrests of four of her associates for channeling four illegal donations to her campaign from the Hokkaido Teacher's Union totaling 16 million yen...and the PM stays on despite the indictment of two of his former aides for filing false statements regarding seven years of monthly cash payments from his mo..

Though I have linked to it once already, T. Harris has written a magisterial post on the current parlous state of the Liberal Democratic Party. He proposes some possible answers to the current conundrum of Japanese politics: how despite the many wounds inflicted these past few months to the Democratic Party's longtime "clean" image, the Liberal Democratic Party has failed to earn even a modicum ..

Liberal Democratic Party House of Councillors member, former Minister of Health, Welfare and Labour and Ranking Member of the House of Councillors Budget Committee Masuzoe Yoichi was scheduled to lead the questioning of the Cabinet over the 2010 Budget bill in House of Councillors Budget Committee interpellation sessions today and tomorrow.That is until the core leaders of the LDP decided yester..

Over at Twisting Flowers Ethan Chua has an overview of the Hokkyoso political donations scandal engulfing Democratic Party of Japan member Kobayashi Chiyomi. While it seems impossible to believe that Hokkaido Teachers' union representatives, many of whom held high positions in the Kobayashi campaign headquarters, were unaware of the campaign finance law forbidding donations by organizations to i..