Sayonara, Endo san

You know, the BBP is really, really B (the first B), such that he's pretty much everywhere at once - kinda like Baby Jesus. Yup, he's not merely an American, but truly a citizen of the world.

Sometimes he even likes to put on one of those big diapers and roll around like a sumo, as evidenced by the latest scandal from Japan: Today, Agriculture Minister Takehiko Endo has decided to resign, mere days after being appointed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Seems that in a bid to improve the corruption-tainted image of his government, Abe decided to appoint a guy who, uh, has some corruption issues of his own. Probably not a good idea. In fact, I'd say it makes Abe the number one contender for the crown of most bone-headed political appointments currently held by undisputed champion George "The Decider" Bush.

See, this is, like, the third agriculture minister Abe's had in the last few months, and both of the first two had to quit because of corruption also. (Well, actually, the first one didn't quit, exactly, but committed suicide, which made it hard, I guess, to keep showing up for work.) So, for Abe not to have vetted this latest guy properly is arguably as moronic as Bush's all-time classic appointments like Bernard Kerik, Harriet Miers, and John Bolton.

That said, it's amusing to note that Endo is losing his job over an amount of money that reportedly comes to about $10,000, which is pretty amateurish when compared to the American Big Leagues of political graft. Does this mean Japan is better at punishing corruption than the US? Probably not. But it's hard to imagine how many more of Bush's buddies would have to go if they got hounded out for a measly ten thousand bucks. Accordingly, I'd say Abe's got his work cut out for him if he truly wants to challenge the dimwit-in-chief.