Now that John Edwards has opened the floodgates by admitting to having had an affair with loopy, ambitious New Age kook Rielle Hunter sometime between 2006 and 2007 (though he's still lying about other things, including when he and Hunter got together), and Elisabeth Edwards has agreed to take her husband's speaking role at the upcoming Democratic convention, it's clear that this thing is going to remain in the public spotlight for the near future. (At least until the paternity of Hunter's daughter is legitimately established, which it by no means is as Hunter won't take a paternity test, even though she's publicly stated that the baby is Andrew Young's.)

In trying to separate fact from fiction in this ordeal, we've heard a number of interesting, crazy, totally unsubstantiated rumors. They're probably just that—rumors—but they're certainly out there, and have been passed to us by reputable sources. (Though the sources wholly acknowledge that the people they've heard them from are quite possibly insane.) Here are the two best ones we've heard:

1) Andrew Young can't be the father because he had a vasectomy

This rumor has been making the rounds for about a week, though it hasn't been given much weight because it's nearly impossible to prove. The 41-year-old Young, who is married and has three kids of his own, said last December that he was the father of Hunter's child, though his name was left off the kid's birth certificate. The Enquirer reported last week that Young and his family had been relocated to Santa Barbara in a move financed by Edwards' former finance committee chairman Fred Baron. Initial reports of Young painted him as a devoted family man, though the Huffington Post reported yesterday that he's also a repeat criminal who has been hit with everything from DWI to a tax lien. So maybe he's just loyal and shady enough to have taken the heat for his boss in a massive, ultimately unsuccessful cover-up!

Is it true? If it is, that would obviously be a pretty damaging blow to Edwards, on-the-record paternity test or not. But we have no reason to believe it is true, and the sourcing is tenuous at best. Likelihood: 15 percent.

2) Rielle Hunter has slept with someone else on the Edwards campaign, other than Edwards and Young.

Hunter, as both the Post and the Daily News took great delight in revealing this morning, is both calculating and kind of crazy. Her novelist buddy and former flame Jay McInerney once referred to her as an "ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, sexually voracious" 20-year-old. She's clearly not a woman who holds herself to the highest moral and ethical standards.

Is it true? It's certainly possible that she bedded another Edwards staffer, though that's only important in terms of what she told him about Edwards and Young. Not that the guy, if he exists, is likely to tarnish his name by coming forward. Likelihood: 20 percent.

We'll post more as we hear 'em!