Until around late last year there was an air that made it seem pretty hard to voice dissent from within the (LDP) against policy issues that Mr. Koizumi was trying to accomplish.

If this were last year, Koizumi could have done it.

But now...the winds are beginning to change.

I was pretty good at it because I liked playing it. I didn't think of it in terms of something I had to do.

Sony's results look pretty much in line with market expectations, in that they didn't disappoint. The problem is that you can't see any pillar of growth.

A free society cherishes nonconformity. It knows that from the non-conformist, from the eccentric, have come many of the great ideas of freedom. Free society must fertilize the soil in which non-conformity and dissent and individualism can grow.