Severe Acute Ridiculousness Syndrome

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Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Administration has been vigilant in its efforts to combat hoof-and-mouth disease, the deadly virus capable of devastating a nation's agricultural livestock. Too bad he hasn't done more to eradicate foot-in-mouth disease, a lesser-known affliction that compels Japanese politicians to make ludicrous public statements. In the past month alone, a slew of lawmakers has been stricken in the latest epidemic.

Patient Symptoms Takami Eto lower-house member and former Cabinet minister Declared during a speech at a political-party function that estimates suggesting 300,000 civilians were massacred by the Japanese army in the Chinese city of Nanking in 1937 and 1938 were "pure fabrication, a big lie." Seiichi Ota lower-house member and former Cabinet minister Excused the accused in a high-profile gang-rape case by remarking that they demonstrated virility in a nation where good old-fashioned machismo is fast declining. "I think boys who commit gang rape are in good shape," he said. "I think they are rather normal." Yoshiro Mori lower-house member and former Prime Minister Asserted that women without kids don't deserve government pensions, as they haven't contributed anything to society. "It is actually strange," Mori mused, "that tax money looks after women who lived freely without having a single child." Yoshitada Konoike upper-house member, Minister of Deregulation Zones and Disaster Management and vice chair of a committee on promoting positive child raising Recommended beheading for the parents of a 12-year-old accused of killing a four-year-old: "We should decapitate the parents for punishment, after dragging them around the town." And last Friday he said of four sixth-grade girls kidnapped by a 29-year-old man: "I cannot tell whether the four girls are the victims or the perpetrators."