Talk about dysfunctional. In New York state alone, at least 198 high-risk sex offenders received Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs, and Medicaid paid for it.

It took a report by the New York state comptroller’s office to call the situation to the attention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where a spokeswoman said, “We are certainly going to see what we can do administratively, if anything.”

It’s probably a job for Congress, though, since federal law prohibits states from treating Medicaid patients differently.

For now, the situation makes as much sense as sending convicted burglars to locksmith school.

Chemical reaction. The owner of a 2002 Audi, one of the 83,000 holders of vanity license plates in Washington state, explained to the state Department of Motor Vehicles that C9H13N was the chemical compound for red food coloring. In fact, it’s methamphetamine.

That makes the motorist’s vanity plate bearing those six characters a violation of state law. Vanity plates are not allowed to refer to alcohol or illegal substances. Nobody at DMV recognized the significance, though.

This is reminiscent of the legendary copy editing prof — every journalism school had one — who growled that if you didn’t cultivate a dirty mind you wouldn’t be able recognize, and delete, the double entendres that sometimes creep into reporters’ copy. The Department of Licensing may not need a dirty mind, but it needs a chemist.

It’s a war out there. U.S. military figures are under the magnifying glass in Cuba and the Middle East for ethical lapses in the handling of prisoners. Meanwhile, recruiters at home, under pressure because they can’t meet enlistment quotas, have resorted to such questionable methods that the Pentagon ordered a national shutdown last Friday so commanders could spend the day stressing ethics.

So far, Army officials have followed up on 480 allegations of improper conduct by recruiters since Oct. 1. Ninety-one allegations have been substantiated, 98 recruiters have been admonished and eight have been relieved. Sounds like the Army could use a few good men.