What a Mess!

Today I had occasion for the first time to view this blog using Internet Explorer as my browser, and My, My, What a Mess it Was! Weird fonts of uneven size, margins all over the place.... My blog looked as if it had been put together by our cat, Arlo, whose indifference to the subtleties of the written word is Legendary.

(Or is at least widely acknowledged by Those In the Know.)

(Or is at least often remaked upon here in South Florida.)

(In our house.)

(By me.)

I know that no one reads this blog because blogs are on the way out, but I strongly encourage my millions of non-readers who are still using Internet Explorer to make the switch to Firefox or some other more secure browser. Not only is Firefox faster and easier to use than IE, but (according to the received wisdom here, here, and most entertainingly here) it's much better at deflecting pop-ups and viruses.

Plus, my blog looks SO MUCH SUPER COOLER when it's not viewed with IE. Even Arlo uses Firefox! (Or at least he uses Firefox when I force him to read my blog.)

Sansei desu!

Yahoo! Japan has recently launched "みんなの政治 (Minna no Seiji)" ("Everyone's Government"), a site that includes profiles of Representatives and Senators in the Japanese Diet who can, at their option, indicate not only how they actually voted on bills that have come before the Diet, but can also indicate their 本音 ("honne"), or true feelings, about whether the bill should have been passed or rejected. About a third of all Diet members are currently participating.



Curiously, regular old U.S. Yahoo doesn't seem to offer anything remotely similar. Also, no Diet members seem to have yet indicated that their honne was in fact the opposite of how they actually voted; the closest they come is to indicate その他 ("other") in the honne column, with a link to further comments.

I think this virtu-space for comment and explanation at Minna no Seiji is a fantastic opportunity for politicians and voters to address the complex compromises inherent at the "yes/no" nexus of legislative voting. Don't you?