Exposing the Paper Tiger: Fooling Nobody in China

I established yesterday the fact that it IS possible to fool many people a good deal of the time. In additional support for that theory, I read today that 10% of Americans polled believe that Barack Obama is Muslim...heavy sigh.
Now, however, comes evidence that there are folks who remain skeptical no matter how much evidence is presented and corroborated officially. It is THESE folks who deserve our respect since they put to rest many a seemingly fantastic tale we're just itching to believe.(Of course, on the other hand, many of these people stil believe man has not visited the moon or hit 600 home runs without steroidal(?)aid.
Thus, our story today takes us to China where government officials had offered a million yuan reward to anyone who could prove the existence of the endangered south China tiger. Money is money, and a million of any kind of money is a lot (in this case, about $146,000.00). Most folks were outwardly amazed when a simple farmer emerged from the jungle with a dozen or so digital photos of the rare creature last year. True to its word(?), the government paid the man 20,000 yuan ($2920.00) and feted him as an emergent hero. Following close examination of the photos by authorities from the Forestry Administration, the digital pictures were pronounced genuine, and animal lovers rejoiced...but not the bloggers who suspected a "paper tiger."
Turns out, the bloggers who smelled something were more accurate than they thought. Officials this week admitted that the photos were, indeed, fakes produced by inserting a poster of the tiger in the brush and taking pictures of it. What gave the hoax away? Bloggers looked at all of the photos which were shot from many different angles yet never saw a different side of the tiger. Also, someone found a poster which bore an uncanny resemblance to the tiger in the pictures. Thus, the sheepish officials had to 'fess up. The farmer, 54-yr.-old Zhou Zhenlong from Shaanxi Province, was arrested, and seven political figures got the axe...perhaps literally...one never knows in China. Zhou's wife claims he was duped into it. Zhou said nothing but, "I've still got the money," and by next week, we'll probably see the same politicians on the beach in Phuket.
Keep your eyes and ears open, kids. It's not just EBay where one can find fakes!