Change Of Government: Not So Fast, DPJ
brace yourself (PREPARE) verb [R]
to prepare yourself physically or mentally for something unpleasant:
The passengers were told to brace themselves (= to press their bodies hard against something or hold them very stiff) for a crash landing.
She told me she had some bad news for me and I braced myself for a shock.
NHK World, which should be neutral, picked this term as the title for an article about the change of government and how "Japan's ministries are bracing for the start of the incoming government to be led by the Democratic Party."
NHK World: Ministries brace for a new government
Who is bracing for what?
Here is evidence that the old LDP-style bureaucracy is still in charge. A former senior official from MAFF, the Agriculture Ministry, was appointed on Wednesday to become the chairman of Japan Fisheries Association, a ministry-affiliated organization. Hope you are sitting down for this: He is the official who resigned last September to take responsibility for scandals involving contaminated rice, that ended up costing tax payers millions of Yen. Nice chap, obviously, with all the right connections.
Even worse was the LDP's timing to appoint a former career bureaucrat to the top post of the new Consumer Agency. Asahi noted in an editorial that this invited criticism: "Properly speaking, the appointment of agency chief should have been made by the new administration in power as a result of the election outcome."
Meanwhile, Ampotan also has an example of how DPJ may be back-tracking on the expressway fee election promise. It turns out that perhaps, just maybe, they will not eliminate all tolls, as voters were led to believe, except in the Tokyo Metropolitan area, where the tolls will remain. They may also be kept in places where there are traffic jams...
I think this was a stupid campaign pledge in the first place, as I noted here, because such policies will raise annual CO2 emissions, and shift transport away from trains and back to cars and trucks.
to prepare yourself physically or mentally for something unpleasant:
The passengers were told to brace themselves (= to press their bodies hard against something or hold them very stiff) for a crash landing.
She told me she had some bad news for me and I braced myself for a shock.
NHK World, which should be neutral, picked this term as the title for an article about the change of government and how "Japan's ministries are bracing for the start of the incoming government to be led by the Democratic Party."
NHK World: Ministries brace for a new government
Who is bracing for what?
Here is evidence that the old LDP-style bureaucracy is still in charge. A former senior official from MAFF, the Agriculture Ministry, was appointed on Wednesday to become the chairman of Japan Fisheries Association, a ministry-affiliated organization. Hope you are sitting down for this: He is the official who resigned last September to take responsibility for scandals involving contaminated rice, that ended up costing tax payers millions of Yen. Nice chap, obviously, with all the right connections.
Even worse was the LDP's timing to appoint a former career bureaucrat to the top post of the new Consumer Agency. Asahi noted in an editorial that this invited criticism: "Properly speaking, the appointment of agency chief should have been made by the new administration in power as a result of the election outcome."
Meanwhile, Ampotan also has an example of how DPJ may be back-tracking on the expressway fee election promise. It turns out that perhaps, just maybe, they will not eliminate all tolls, as voters were led to believe, except in the Tokyo Metropolitan area, where the tolls will remain. They may also be kept in places where there are traffic jams...
I think this was a stupid campaign pledge in the first place, as I noted here, because such policies will raise annual CO2 emissions, and shift transport away from trains and back to cars and trucks.
Comments
What is REALLY going to change now? Anything noticeable at all?? Governments, lest we forget, are governments. Lets see, what can bring out another cold sweat... Ah yes, here we go - 'Tony Blair'.
"Like Fuji TV, it cites Britain's participation in the Iraq war as an example of the dangers of the over-concentration of power in the hands of the prime minister, noting the use of special advisers as a means of sidestepping the cabinet."
http://www.observingjapan.com/2009/09/yomiuri-contemplates-british-model.html
But, I think Tobias has no idea just how flawed the UK system is.
Quango - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quango
No-one knows what they do but we do know they get paid a lot of money. The term would probably get a book out of Mark Steel.
Oh how I just LOVE living in the UK..
"The Times has accused Quangos of bureaucratic waste and excess.[5] In 2005 Dan Lewis, author of The Essential Guide to Quangos, for example, claimed that the UK had 529 quangos, many of which were useless and duplicated the work of others. In August 2008 a report by the pressure group the Taxpayers' Alliance, claimed that £15 billion was being wasted by the regional development agencies, quangos set up with the stated goal of encouraging economic development in their respective English regions.[6]"
Nice work if one can get it.