I don’t get a lot of comments, but those I do get are always good. Unfortunately, they’re sometimes on older posts that I fear regular readers are no longer scrolling down far enough to see, so I’ve added the “List Recent Comments” code to the left sidebar. I was originally only going to list the last five. Then I remembered that I respond to most of them, so at least 40% of the last five are likely to be by me, so I switched back to ten, which is the default number.

PowerBlogs is working on a comprehensive internal site stats page. It promises to be very snazzy, but in the interim, I don’t get to see what deranged search terms have led people here. It was posting about those that usually gave me the springboard for thanking everyone for reading, and I realized today that I haven’t done so for a while.

So thanks for reading, everyone. If anyone had suggested last year when I started posting that I’d have 350 visits a day (excluding search engines and stuff) by now, I’d have told him to stop washing the happy pills down with Asahi Super Dry. Not that this is a popularity contest, or anything, but there’s no denying that it’s nice to reach people.

Along those lines, I’m occasionally asked for advice about starting a blog. I always feel kind of lame. There are already scads of bullet-pointed lists about how to achieve blog popularity; I don’t have much to add to them. When I feel like posting a lot, I do. When I feel like spending a week of news reading propped up on my elbows on the floor and eating Orange Milanos, then sharing my astringent opinions with no one but Atsushi, I do that. But a few recent exchanges I’ve had have put me in mind of a couple of things that I rarely see mentioned but that are, I think, useful to bear in mind:

One is, everything you post will be read, even if you wouldn’t know it from the lack of immediate comments and links on a given entry. A few months later, a blogfriend may refer to it, or a site you’re not familiar with may link to it after discovering it by Googling the relevant topic, or you may get an inquiry about it from a reader who decided to dig through your archives.

The other is, if you post under your full name, everyone you have ever met in your life will know it. You will hear from the last woman you ever dated, the first man you ever dated, the guy who grew up up the street who also turned out gay, someone who was in your second-year Japanese class in college, former clients, and colleagues down the hall at work who have been reading you for months without letting on. I mean, depending on your life story, some of these may not be applicable, but you get the idea. Every time I’ve heard from one of these people, it’s been great. I’ve ended up resuming consistent contact with some of them. But the first e-mail is always a jolt. I had my own reasons for deciding, from the moment I started making mouthy comments on people’s blogs, to use my full name; but I can understand that there are perfectly legitimate reasons not to, and it’s important to think carefully before doing so.

The Japan Post privatization bill passed the lower house today–this was the real deal, the plenary session and not committee. (The vote was 233 to 228.) Now it goes to the upper house. That means the fun is just beginning:

Prime Minister Jun’ichiro Koizumi, remarking on the upcoming House of Councillors debate over the Japan Post privatization bill, stated, “There are still gigantic hurdles to get over. I feel as if we were beginning at square one.” He indicated that he plans to exert all his energy to the end of seeing the bill ratified. He denied the possibility that the bill might be revised yet again in order to squelch opposition in the upper house: “We’ve already made our accommodations. There will be no more.” He answered questions at a press conference held at the Prime Minister’s official residence.

It’s been clear for a while that Koizumi’s strategy is to bellow, “No compromise!” before every confrontation as a way of keeping concessions to a minimum; nevertheless, concessions continue to be made. Of course, there have been problems with the bill from the get-go, at least if you’re actually, you know, pro-privatization. It will be interesting, if perhaps distastefully interesting, to see what the bill looks like when it comes to its final vote.