Nice work if you can get it...

Ran into this story from an email list I'm on... From Reason Magazine: Cut-Rate Diplomas bq. How doubts about the government�s own �Dr. Laura� exposed a r�sum� fraud scandal Laura L. Callahan was very proud of her Ph.D. When she received it a few years ago, she promptly rewrote her official biography to highlight the academic accomplishment, referring to it not once or twice but nine times in a single-page summary of her career. And she never let her employees at the Labor Department, where she served as deputy chief information officer, forget it, even demanding that they call her �Doctor.� bq. Callahan�s management style had always been heavy-handed. Once, while working in a previous supervisory role at the Clinton White House, she reportedly warned computer workers to keep quiet about an embarrassing server glitch that led to the loss of thousands of archived e-mails covered by federal subpoena. But with her newly minted Ph.D., Callahan became intolerable, several employees say, belittling and even firing subordinates who did not understand the technical jargon she apparently picked up while studying for her doctorate in computer information systems. And the Ph.D in question? You bet - a diploma mill! bq. �When she was running around telling people to call her �Dr. Callahan,� I asked where she got her degree,� says Richard Wainwright, a computer specialist who worked for Callahan at Labor for two years. �When I found out, I laughed.� bq. It turns out Callahan got her precious sheepskin from Hamilton University. Not Hamilton College, the highly competitive school in Clinton, New York, but Hamilton University, the unaccredited fee-for-degree �distance learning� center in Evanston, Wyoming, right on the Utah border. Such diploma mills frequently use names similar to those of accredited schools. bq. Unbeknown to Callahan, Wainwright had once lived near the small town of Evanston (population: 10,903) and knew it well. As a student at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where he received his bachelor�s degree years ago, he had made beer runs to Evanston, less than 60 miles away. He knew there were no universities there, or at least none worth attending. �Evanston doesn�t have much but a few motels and liquor stores,� he tells me. �I looked up Hamilton University on the Web and saw it was an old Motel 6, and I knew it was bogus.� So she was booted out? Not exactly: bq. Callahan�s fraud was exposed in May 2003. Curiously, she wasn�t forced to resign until March 26, 2004, after being placed on administrative leave�with pay�the previous June. That means she continued to draw her Department of Homeland Security salary of between $128,000 and $175,000 for nearly 10 months while under a serious ethical cloud. Misrepresenting qualifications on a r�sum�, an official bio, or an application�including submitting false academic credentials�is grounds for immediate dismissal, according to federal rules written by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Heh... Our government inaction. And some people think that big government is better.