I had a big belly-laugh over this one. A Beijing newspaper has republished a bogus Onion story thinking it to be real news.

Reuters reports that "Beijing's most popular newspaper has unwittingly republished a bogus story about U.S. Congress threats to skip town for Memphis or Charlotte unless Washington builds them a new Capitol building with a retractable dome."

The Onion article quotes Dick Gephardt (D-MO) as saying, "Look at British Parliament. Look at the Vatican. Respected institutions in their markets. But without modern facilities, they've been having big problems attracting top talent." Most people in the US wouldn't have any trouble identifying The Onion as satire, but apparently the Chinese missed the boat.

To top it off, Reuters reports that when informed that the story was not true, the Chinese editor said "We would first have to check that out. If it's indeed fake, I'm sure there will be some form of correction."