I guess they don't realize how tough the job market is out there

Well, to our left we have Seoul Mayor Oh Sehoon resigning after failing to muster together enough votes or voters for his egalitarianism-versus-fiscal prudence school lunch referendum. Effective immediately. This was done as promised after Mayor Oh got only one in four Seoulites to vote when he'd promised to quit if it were less than one in three.

And the to our right we have Japanese PM Naoto Kan resigning, echoing the words of Andy Warhol that in the future everyone in Japan will be prime minister for fifteen minutes. Kan's resignation was also to fulfill a promise, which makes me think it sorta sucks that the only politicians we can trust at their word are the ones leaving office.

What does this all mean? My guess is that Oh and Kan have been planning to run away together for sometime. Really, that's the only plausible explanation.

Anyway, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't follow Oh's policies in our fair city while he's been mayor quite as much as I should have, even though they probably have a profound effect on the vector* of my humble-but-takai apartment's market value. Kan, on the other hand, was someone well known for trying to make nice with South Korea and other victims of Imperial Japan's aggression, so I'm a little sad to see him go for that reason.

Also, his departure means I won't have many more opportunities to run this:

Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

* That's direction and magnitude, in case you've forgotten middle school math, as in will it go up or down and by how much.

...

Japanese PM Naoto Kan offers to resign to foil no-confidence vote

Things are looking up
for Mr Kan. Not.

What Andy Warhol meant to say was that in the future, everyone in Japan will be prime minister for fifteen minutes.

From the Japan Times:

Prime Minister Naoto Kan survived a no-confidence motion Thursday after suddenly announcing his intention to resign once disaster-hit Tohoku is back on its feet and the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant is safely under control.

Kan's abrupt announcement barely prevented the ruling Democratic Party of Japan from falling apart, as dozens of members close to DPJ heavyweight and Kan rival Ichiro Ozawa refused to vote against Kan.

Kan survived easily by a vote of 293 to 152 in the 480-seat chamber, which included 15 DPJ and 15 opposition abstentions.

Although the public nature of the Kan-Ozawa feud has apparently been settled by Kan's announcement, the internal conflict is likely to drag on as the two sides jockey to get one of their own voted in as prime minister.

Naoto Kan was not the favorite of any one of my Japanese friends, but it was really bad luck for him that the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis happened on his watch, even though there was nothing he did to cause all the problems and precious little he could have done to mitigate the results.

I have no real opinion about him one way or the other, except that he and his party seemed interested in fostering good relations with South Korea, by standing behind Seoul and also by not making Yasukuni visits.

My only regret is that I won't be able to reuse this photo and accompanying caption anymore:

Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

Take a nuclear disaster, add a few heads-of-state...

South Korean President Lee Myungbak and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao have decided to meet up with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan... in Fukushima.

If you were a headman handler tasked with keeping your leader out of harm's way, where's the last place in Japan that you would suggest for a meet-up? Fuk-u Island.

Yes, I get that they want make "a gesture of solidarity over the ongoing nuclear crisis," but I don't know. The word ongoing is what troubles me. This is starting to sound like the premise to a corny SNL cartoon series.