On Change

The same thing is happening on both sides of the Pacific. A new guy comes in touting change, and the media showers him with endless praise, particularly over things that haven't even been done yet or things for which the previous administration would have been criticized.

In Japan, former Prime Minister Aso was heavily bashed by the media for going out to expensive bars in the evening. Hatoyama goes to expensive dinners night after night, and he is treated as a celebrity. Imagine the outrage if Aso had gone to fashion shows, film festivals, thrown the first pitch at a Major League game, gotten drunk and started yelling nonsense out of a window, or said, "screw you America, we're going to be friends with China and Korea now."

In fact, we're such good friends that we're going to remove all reports indicating the Korean cargo ship was at fault in an accident in which said ship collided with a Japanese frigate.

And then we'll give them voting rights, even if they're not citizens. Erm, right...

Cutting greenhouse emissions by 25% compared to 1990 levels sounds great, but it will result in a burden of about $3,000 per household. But they've also said they won't raise taxes.

They have claimed they will make all highways free of tolls, but this has met intense opposition from the public transport lobby. And arguably, Japanese public transport is the best in the world. Not to mention, making highways free would go against cutting emissions by 25%. So it looks like the DPJ may be changing its mind on this one.

An upstanding party/candidate wouldn't put something on their platform and then change its mind when they realize it can't actually be done. Such research should be done before it even gets put on the platform. Again, the media isn't being helpful by not criticizing things like oh, I don't know, lack of funding in a poor economy. The DPJ has all of these wonderful plans for making Japan a socialist wealthy country where everyone is happy and has lots of money, but people didn't seem to question where the funds for distribution would be originating.

In the United States? Well, this article sums it up conveniently. Throw in a Nobel Peace Prize for good measure.

Change for the sake of change is worse than no change at all.