I am in Brooklyn NY for a month and feeling a bit out of it at such as lively time in Nagatacho. Any forumites want to talk about such things? For starters, from this morning's Japan Times:
>
> Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's hand has apparently
been forced by his failure to persuade former DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa, his biggest internal foe, to soften his opposition to the contentious plan at a meeting Wednesday, pushing him to step up his efforts to win the LDP's backing in the Diet.

Am I missing something? I thought Noda had been trying to get the LDP to talk about taxes directly these many months, and the LDP kept saying, only in the Diet.
More generally, the press always seems to have Noda being forced to do this and that, while it seems to me he has been making the running since he came into office.

Probably I am missing something . . .

John Campbell