Japanese husbands may want to cry “entrapment” over the practices of a company that hires professional seducers to help unhappy wives get rid of their husbands.

In most U.S. states, you can just say sayonara to husbands who are belligerent, boorish or belching bores. But In Japan, where women’s rights are not highly valued, wives now see the value in fetching divorces by using fetching women to lure their husbands, thus giving them the necessary grounds for divorce.

The Times of London ran an excerpt from Lesley Downer’s new book, The Last Concubine, which reports the blow by blow — pardon the expression — of several of these stings. Here’s one:

“3.30 pm. Mr. A is outside a bank in a busy part of Ikebukuro, a faintly seedy area of Tokyo, waiting for his date. He beams as she teeters across the road on high heels. Kyoko, 20, is half his age. She has a mane of black hair, sloe eyes, a fetching smile and a cute giggle. Her blouse is open to reveal her cleavage and she has on a short skirt and sheer black tights. Mr. A is a bald 40-year-old salesman in a crumpled gray suit and glasses.

“Mr. A doesn’t know that a team of private investigators is recording his every move. The boss, the ebullient Mr. Tomiya, lurks behind a lamppost on the other side of the road and takes photographs as Kyoko meets Mr. A. Tomiya’s equipment includes a packet of cigarettes and a pen, both of which are actually cameras. Shimizu, a heavy-set man with a bullet head and cropped hair, carries a black bag. It contains a camera with which he films continuously through a tiny hole in the bag. A third man acts as a lookout. …

“When presented with the evidence, the embarrassed husband not only agrees to the divorce but agrees to favorable terms for the wife.”

He's come a long way since his days as Jeff Spicoli in "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" and his first marriage to Madonna. But Sean Penn is back in the tabloids.

The actor and his actress wife Robin Wright Penn are getting a divorce. As celebrity marriages go, this one lasted quite a long time — 11 years. There aren't any details of the split circulating yet, but you can bet there will be eventually. Will this one become the first celebrity mess of 2008, or will it be handled gracefully? Who gets what? What was in their prenup?

New year on the way in a few days, but same old celebrity divorce questions to ponder.

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Those of you who caught CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday were witness to just such a demonstration from French President Nicolas Sarkozy when he abruptly excused himself from an interview with (the fabulous) Lesley Stahl after she broached the issue of his wife and her recent departure from the world stage.

At the time of the interview, wife Cécilia Sarkozy hadn't been seen since July and rumors abounded over the fate of the presidential marriage. Two weeks later, Sarkozy's office announced it was over.

"If I had to say something about Cécilia, I would certainly not do so here," Sarkozy coldly informed Stahl before stripping off his microphone.

"What was unfair?" Stahl pleaded.

"Au revoir, merci et bon courage (Good-bye, thank-you and good luck)," Sarkozy said on his way out.

This isn't the first time Sarkozy's lost his cool over Cécilia. A French journalist who asked about the marriage at a press conference was denounced straight away for the media's "inelegance" in pursuing the matter.

Still, other than the occasional outburst, there is "no evidence that the end of Cécilia is affecting [Sarkozy's] passion and drive in his work," says Stahl. So, while politicians may not be immune to the stress of divorce, it doesn't seem to be any match for their personal ambition and acute narcissism.

Larry David saw opportunity to turn his divorce into comedy gold.

In June, Larry and his wife Laurie separated, citing irreconcilable differences after 14 years of marriage.

The Davids' spokesman has stated that their split was "very amicable".

Sunday night, on Larry's hit show Curb Your Enthusiasm, his on-screen wife announced she was going to leave him.

The show split was slightly less friendly, with his fictitious wife calling her husband in fear for her life due to a potential plane crash, only to be told to call back in ten minutes while the cable man fixes the Tivo.

When David's on screen wife returns safely, she announces she'll be leaving him. The rest of the show dealt with friends of the couple choosing sides, some of them being Larry and Laurie's real friends.

Larry David has always stated that his show persona is something like a funhouse-mirror version of himself, the person he might be if he had "no manners or restraint."

Lucky for Laurie — in that case — that her former husband isn't as insensitive as he appears onscreen.

It's a difficult thing to find the humor in divorce, but I would say anyone could watch that show and find something to laugh about, including Mr. David.

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Apparently French President Nicholas Sarkozy needs to be asking that very question. Rumors of his impending divorce are flying once again in the wake of news that Cecelia will not be accompanying her husband on his state visit to Morocco next week.

Traditionally, French president's wives have accompanied their husbands on state visits such as this, but Mrs. Sarkozy has not attended a single official function since Bastille Day celebrations on July 14.

Now, is it time for Sarkozy to place a call to Bill Clinton for tips on how to keep his woman around? Perhaps not just yet. Cecelia does appear to be his little Hillary, though, supporting her husband and serving as an advisor when he was an interior and finance minister.

The couple separated in 2005 for a few months, but were very publicly reconciled in 2006, amidst heavy declarations of love on Nicholas' part. Since then, she remained under the radar for his campaign, and since his rise to power she's attended only three official events, even wiggling out of an informal meeting with President Bush and his family.

Silly me, I thought that's what being a politico's wife was all about. Smiling, shaking hands and gushing about how wonderful the man in charge is while pushing a few safe political ideas of your own in your free time.

It does amuse me that this is what it takes to get the French press as detail and tabloid hungry as the American press. Oh the times, they are a 'changin.

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Divorce is not a simple process for anyone, but it can take a really long time if you're rich. That's pretty much the main point to pull out of the latest story on pro golfer Greg Norman's divorce.

Now, we've written about this before. But just in case you're new to the story, Greg and his ex-wife Laura Theresa Andrassy are scheduled for another hearing in early November. They're still haggling over who will end up with the tax liability for one of their jets. Yes, that's jets, plural.

And then Laura's attorneys are going to try to make Greg pay her more money because he's been dragging his feet on coughing up the cash he's supposed to give her. As if he's really going to notice it when he finally does pay her. Let's be honest, though. Laura hasn't exactly been destitute, unless you ignore the $725,000 Greg gave her that she and her attorneys burned as they worked out the details of the settlement.

One day I hope I have money problems like these.

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As she campaigns for president, one of the questions that a lot of voters are asking about Hillary Clinton is why she's stayed with Bill for all these years. Through all of the turmoil of the Lewinsky scandal and other rumored infidelities, why has their marriage endured?

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the divorce question seems to be dogging French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia.

The couple separated briefly in 2005, but the divorce rumors have been on the rise this week because Cecilia did not travel with her husband on a trip to Bulgaria this week. She was to have been honored by the Bulgarian government, so her absence was conspicuous, to say the least.

She skipped a lunch with President Bush in August — though there are those of us who might not blame her for that — and apparently she's only made three public appearances in an official capacity with her husband.

I remember during the height of Lewinskygate that folks in Europe thought a lot of Americans were overreacting. So it'll be interesting to watch how France reacts if the Sarkozy's marriage does break up.

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USFSPA, enacted in 1982, allows state courts to divide military retirement as property in divorce settlements. For example, ex-spouses married for 20 years or more can be awarded up to 50% of the former spouses pension for life, or until they remarry. If there were child support or alimony court orders, the ex could enjoy as much as 65% of the military pension.

Congress intended to protect former spouses — chiefly women — from being "dumped." It was thought military wives could not easily establish careers and work on their own retirement, since they moved frequently due to thier husband's military career. Times have changed now, and military wives can work and earn pensions.

USFSPA gives state courts authority to distribute retirement pay, classified as both property and income. Spouses often end up with a substantial share of the ex's retirement. This is especially true in the case of short-term marriages.

Some of the proposed reforms include:

The story comes out of Madrid, and I saw it on the website of Pakistan's Daily Times. The gist of it is that a lot of professional athletes get divorced and abuse drugs during the first year after their playing days are over.

It doesn't take much thinking to figure it out. You spend all those years being cheered, making millions, having something all-encompassing around which your life revolves. And then it's all gone.

I'm not sure what happens abroad, but here in the U.S., a lot of former pro athletes and coaches end up taking jobs as sports analysts on TV. For some, it turns into a long-term second career, and I think a big part of the reason they do it is that it keeps them connected to the game. And if that keeps their marriages from falling apart, then it's a good thing.

There's been a lot of talk lately about the National Football League's poor record of taking care of its former players, many of whom suffer tremendous physical problems after retiring. But you have to wonder whether any of the pro leagues are seeing to the mental health of their former players. With all of the spouses and families that could be impacted when athletes have trouble adjusting to retirement, it seems like something the leagues should be doing.

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It’s not often that you see stories of flat-out, honest-to-goodness deception. But here’s one of them. A woman in England got swindled out of her divorce settlement by nothing more than a few very transparent lies, and now the guy responsible is headed to jail.

Britain’s Plymouth Herald reports that Pervez Alvi, a bankrupt businessman, convinced Anne Gale to give him nearly half of her divorce settlement (about $200,000) so he could lease three pubs that the two of them and their significant others would run. Gale, who eventually remarried, didn't figure out that Alvi was stringing her along until it was too late. Alvi asked her for a check and told her to leave the payee line blank. And she actually complied. So Alvi just dumped the funds into an account in his wife’s name. And by the time Gale realized what was happening, most of the money was gone.

I’m not sure which one of them deserves more of my disdain. The guy is obviously a creep. And she did something extremely foolish. Here are words to live by: When you’re writing a check for a large sum of money (I do that every day, don’t you?) you probably want to fill the whole thing in yourself. Fortunately, the court is going to make Alvi pay it all back. And he’s going to spend 18 months in jail. It’s nice to see justice served.

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