News That Sounds Like a Joke.........

Alabama state officials announced in February that they had identified more than $438,000 in abuses of the financial aid program at Bishop State Community College in Mobile, including $87,000 in athletic scholarships awarded to 42 relatives of employees (and others) who played no sports. Included was one employee's 67-year-old disabled grandmother, who received scholarships in three sports (but was unable to use them, in that she passed away shortly after the paperwork came through). [Birmingham News, 2-19-07]

According to a Beijing Youth Daily report distributed by Reuters news service in February, an unidentified Chinese businessman posted an online job offer for a "substitute" mistress. That is, in order to save his marriage, he had agreed to allow his wife to beat up his mistress and thus needed a stand-in to absorb the whipping, to spare the real mistress. He offered the equivalent of about $400 per 10 minutes of pain. [Reuters, 2-26-07]