From the Division of Incomplete Rants

A clarification of yesterday's post is in order.

While a reduction in the number of Japan's national legislators is a legitimate topic of discussion, all previous discussions or enactments of "reforms" of the numbers of Diet members -- such Year 2000 cut of 20 at-large seats in the House of Representatives, shrinking the number of Representatives from 500 to 480 -- have been naked attempts to eliminate the minor parties or members of the opposition.

I have trouble ignoring the niggling worry that a reform, no matter how nobly packaged, may not be reformist when it is only other people who feel its bite.