Happy Penis

The mayor of a small Brazilian town has begun handing out free Viagra, spicing up the sex lives of dozens of elderly men and their partners.

"Since we started the free distribution of sexual stimulants, our elderly population changed. They're much happier," said Joao de Souza Luz, the mayor of Novo Santo Antonio, a small town in the central state of Mato Grosso.

Souza Luz said 68 men over the age of 60 already had signed up for the program, which was approved by the town's legislature and has been dubbed "Happy Penis," or "Pinto Alegre" in Portuguese.

But the program also has had the unforeseen consequence of encouraging some extramarital affairs, Souza Luz said.

"Some of the old men aren't seeking out their wives. They've got romances on the side," he said.

Saucy camcorder

A Missouri couple said that when they opened the box for their new camcorder, they found something they hadn't pictured -- a jar of pasta sauce where their camera should have been.

Jim Rittenberg, of Perryville, Mo., bought a $1,600 camcorder at a Best Buy store in the St. Louis suburb of Ellisville last week.

Inside the Sony box, he said he found a jar of Classico pasta sauce, a telephone cord and an outlet cover where the electronics were supposed to be. So far, the Rittenbergs are stuck without a camcorder.

Ellisville police are investigating. Best Buy manager Wade Trapp said that the store is working to resolve the matter.

Shortage of Santas in Berlin

Berlin is facing an acute shortage of Santas just a month before Christmas, the head of a Father Christmas placement agency says.

The director of Berlin's Heinzelmaennchen agency, which provides Santas to thousands of Berlin families every Christmas Eve, says he is having trouble getting enough qualified help.

"We prefer chubby men, of course, ideally with a real beard but we're not picky and take what we get," director Rene Heydeck said, whose official title is Ober-Weinachtsmann (chief Santa Claus).

The Santas, many of whom are students, earn 28 euros a visit for bringing a sack of presents provided by the parents into each home and handing them out.

But Santas must also pay 45 euros for a costume and give the agency 15 per cent of earnings.

"In a lot of families in Berlin it's a tradition that carries on even after the children grow older and stop believing," Mr Heydeck said.

Amazing feet !

HOTSHOT Andrew Edwards may well have kicked his way into the world record books with one of the most amazing feats ever seen on a football pitch, writes Ray Parker.

The 25-year-old Caldicot player, who lives in Newport, scored a hat-trick - the three goals all direct from corners - in a MacWhirter Welsh League, Reserve Division (East) win over Risca.

And not even the Association of Football Statisticians have heard of anyone managing such an achievement before.

Edwards' staggering efforts earned him a first-team call and he came off the substitutes' bench to score a third goal for Caldicot in their 3-0 away win over Briton Ferry in the Second Division.

Edwards said: "I have never scored direct from a corner before. But on this occasion they were all from inswingers - two with my right foot and the third from the left. The opening goal was in the first half with the wind against me and the two remaining goals were in the second-half with the wind going for me."

A modest Edwards added: "I was very pleased - but more pleased that we won. I didn't play too badly which I was more pleased about."

A spokesman for the Association of Football Statisticians, said: "I have never heard of that happening and I doubt if it has happened. I think it is unique."

Now that the AFS have been informed they will be circulating their members of the achievement to see if there is a recording of such a feat.

And fiance Jacqui wasn't going to miss out on the action. "He couldn't have achieved it without me washing his kit every week!"

Bookmakers William Hill said they would have offered odds of 10,000-1 on Andrew's incredible treble.

Pennies from heaven

LONGMONT , Colorado - A business owner in Longmont says ten eagle-eyed people are in for a deal from his store.

Mark Chamberlain marked ten years in business with C-and-C Coins and Collectibles last month. He said that to celebrate, he spent ten rare 1914-D Lincoln pennies in downtown stores.

People who end up with the pennies can sell them back to Chamberlain.

Chamberlain says the coins are valued at up to 150 dollars.

So far three of the pennies have been sold back to Chamberlain. He has paid between one-hundred and 130 dollars for each.

DUI driver eats results

A man who was stopped and subjected to a breath test Friday thought he had hit on a way of getting off scot-free; and was duly surprised when police arrested him for eating the piece of paper with his test results.

Hiroki Ito, 28, a plumber from Yokkaichi, is accused of destroying an official document and drunk driving, police announced on Saturday.

He admitted to the allegations during questioning. "I thought I could destroy the evidence by swallowing the paper," he was quoted as telling investigators.

At about 11 p.m. on Friday, he was caught driving his car while intoxicated on a street in Yokkaichi, local police said. While being questioned by police, Ito suddenly tore off a printout of the results from his breathalyzer test and swallowed it. Unfortunately for him, the breathalyzer also recorded the data.

Prisoners pregnant pause

A prisoner who went on the run to see his girlfriend, who he had not met for six months, turned up to discover she was four months pregnant.

Gary Stephen realised partner Tracy Miller was pregnant with another man's child before he phoned police and asked to taken back to the jail.

The 35-year-old, from Kirkcaldy, Fife, admitted absconding from Castle Huntly prison, near Dundee, on 19 November.

At Perth Sheriff Court, Stephen had 20 days added to his sentence.

Stolen Xmas decor

Milwauke - A Sheboygan family woke up to a yard full of Christmas decorations. The problem is they were stolen from other homes.

It wasn't the usual crime-scene evidence at the Sheboygan Police Department - A wise man tied up with police tape, nine reindeer and two penguins. The Richardson family picked up their missing decorations Friday afternoon.

"We knew there was a gap in our nativity scene this morning," said Dave Richardson. "We have a full set - 12 items and for some reason, three were taken."

The Bogenschuetz family was surprised to find their yard decorated Friday morning. "I looked outside and go 'What is this? Did we win the lottery, did someone decorate our house?'" said Dan Bogenschuetz.

The thief or thieves put time into the display. The stolen decorations were all arranged and plugged in.

"And then that switch for that outlet was not turned on so they must have been quite disappointed when there were all done and plugged it in and found out it didn't work," said Bogenschuetz.

Sheboygan police sent a truck to pick up the stolen goods.

"If someone would call us with a tip, we'd follow up on it. But for the most part, we're trying to just get people their things back," said Detective Matt Walsh of the Sheboygan Police Department

Council bans Christmas

A council has told staff not to put up Christmas decorations in the office - in case they get hurt.

Festive lights have also been banned because they are too costly to run.

Staff at Tower Hamlets council in East London said they were stunned when they were issued with the order.

One worker said: "We only wanted to get into the spirit and brighten the place up. It feels more like the Eastern Bloc than the East End round here now - except slightly less cheery."

A council spokeswoman defended the move, she said: "There's a concern people might hurt themselves trying to attach hanging decorations from the ceiling.

"Christmas lights use a relatively small amount of electricity but every effort counts in reducing energy waste."

Prisoner picks wrong victim

A Serbian prisoner who burgled a house during his weekend release picked the wrong victim - the prison governor.

He was caught out when he returned to prison - and the governor spotted his own watch on the convict's wrist.

Alija Cerimi stole jewellery, a watch and a mobile phone from the unnamed governor's house in the northern Serbian town of Sremska Mitrovica.

According to witnesses, the governor spotted Cerimi walking back into the prison waving a shiny silver watch and shouted: "That's mine, you thieving bastard."

Cerimi reportedly laughed and then held up the governor's mobile phone which he had also stolen, before being restrained by guards.

Britain's unluckiest man

Some people might describe John Lyne as unlucky. But as far as he is concerned, is the luckiest man alive. Or perhaps that should just be lucky to be alive.

In his 54 years he has had a terrifying array of 16 accidents or near misses.

He has been struck by lightning, been run over by a delivery van, hit by a bus and nearly drowned. Then there was the time a stone, propelled by a catapult, hit him in the mouth smashing eight teeth.

And that's just a taster of calamity John's mishaps. The grandfather-of-three is currently is currently nursing a badly damaged back and leg and knees after plummeting down a manhole cover.

While some might take a vow to never the leave the house again after clocking up enough accidents to cost even a cat it's nine lives, Mr Lyne remains determinedly upbeat.
Uncertain whether he will be able to work again, he is firmly of the opinion that he is a very lucky man.

'With all the bumps and scrapes over the years I have been very luck. I should be winning the lottery next,' he said. 'You've got to be positive, and I have always had a positive attitude. Everyone thinks it is just hilarious. My mates, family and wife Susan just laugh about it. I don't think there is any reason or explanation for it though, it has just happened really. I have to be particularly careful on Friday the 13ths. Things could have been much worse, I could have died, but it still doesn't worry me too much.'

Mr Lyne's mishaps cover a lifetime. When he was born, one of five children to a farming family, it was uncertain whether he would survive.

He had underdeveloped lungs and needed steroids and special care. But setting a pattern for later in life, he beat the odds.
Curiosity was his first foe, when he toddled aged 18 months into his grandmother's bathroom and took a fancy to a drink from a plastic bottle. Unfortunately it contained disinfectant and he had to be rushed to hospital to have his stomach pumped and system flushed through with water.

A year later he was rising with his grandfather on a horse and cart from the far, when he fell from the seat into the path of a furniture delivery van. Amazingly the wheels of the van passed on either side of his tiny body, as his panic-stricken grandfather looked on.

Aged 12 he got the fright of his life when was hit by lightning as he cycled home. 'A storm was building up and then a bolt of lightning hit the handle bars. I jumped off the bike an ran like the clappers,' said Mr Lyne.

Turning 14 brought a particularly bad year. First he nearly drowned, then, on Friday 13th, he fell from a tree and broke his arm. But when he went to hospital he couldn't go under anaesthetic because he had eaten too recently. When returning to hospital the following day with his mother, the bus they were travelling on crashed into a lorry. Mr Lyne broke a second bone - in the same arm.

Becoming a miner carries more than its share of hazards. Even more so for My Lyne. In his early 20s, father-of-two Mr Lyne, who lives near Doncaster, nearly lost his life twice at Hatfield Colliery.

He was inches away from being killed by falling rocks and escaped with just a few ripped nails when a colleague let go of a tub full of stone they were pulling.

On the way home from work one day he was hit by a bus - only to escape with a bruised arm.

In recent years life has been relatively peaceful until he hitting a live electricity cable while decorating - without injury.

That's not forgetting two holiday-related near misses.

He has now been off work for 32 weeks after falling through an open inspection hatch at work in one of the most serious of his mishaps, But he is determined to live life to the full.

He said: 'I have had a lot of lucky escapes and people have compared me to a cat with nine lives. It doesn't get me down. It is how it is.'

Ziggy's trip

Ziggy the cat used up at least one of his nine lives after surviving for 17 days without food on a 3700km voyage that took him from northern Israel to England.

The skinny white cat named after Ziggy Stardust – the character created by David Bowie in the 1970s, because like the rock star he has one green and one blue eye – made his epic trip as a stowaway in a container.

His journey began when he wandered into a consignment of plastic goods which were then sealed in Afula in Israel and shipped from Haifa on October 31.

It ended when he emerged, exhausted, starving and dehydrated, at a warehouse in Whitworth in Lancashire on Friday.

"When the container was finally opened, staff unloading it got a real surprise when this fluffy white cat shot out," said Colin Barton, the local authority's animal health officer who helped capture Ziggy.

"I think he had probably used up some of his nine lives."

The cat had not only survived but was able to resist capture for five hours.

"I think he was scared to death," said James Ratcliff, of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). "He'd travelled all that way and got to a strange country and ran for his life."

Ziggy's background or owners remain a mystery as he had no collar or microchip, but the RSCPA believe he is someone's pet because he is so friendly. He will now stay in quarantine in Britain for six months as a precaution against rabies.

Stoopid PETA idiots , get a life !

The pastor at Anchorage First Free Methodist Church was mystified. Why was the activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals chastising him? No animals are harmed in the church's holiday nativity display. In fact, animals aren't used at all.

People, however, do dress the parts - Mary, Joseph, the wise men, etc. The volunteers stand shivering at a manger on the church lawn in a silent tribute to Christmas.

The Rev. Jason Armstrong was confused by an e-mail this week from PETA, which admonished him for subjecting animals "to cruel treatment and danger," by forcing them into roles in the church's annual manger scene.

"We've never had live animals, so I just figured this was some spam thing," Armstrong said. "It's rough enough on us people standing out there in the cold. So we're definitely not using animals."

Jackie Vergerio, PETA's captive animals in entertainment specialist, said her organization tracks churches nationwide that use real animals in "living nativity scenes."

Seems the confusion started with the church's choice of phrase. PETA flagged Free Methodist's display as a "living nativity," and indeed, that's how the church describes it on its Web site. To PETA, that means animals.

"Those animals are subject to all sorts of terrible fates in some cases," Vergerio said. "Animals have been stolen and slaughtered, they've been raped, they've escaped from the nativity scenes and have been struck by cars and killed. Just really unfathomable things have happened to them."

In the letter to Armstrong, Vergerio shared some sad fates of previous nativity animals - like Brighty the donkey, snatched from a nativity scene in Virginia and beaten by three young men. Ernie the camel fled a creche in Maryland but was struck and killed by a car. Two sheep and a donkey had to be euthanized after a dog mauling at a manger scene in Virginia.

Free Methodist's display is peaceful, Armstrong said. The congregation erects the stable. Members spread straw and don costumes. Some even dress as manger animals.

"We have some puppet camel things we put out," Armstrong said. "We have a cow hood thing that a person will wear that actually just looks spooky."

The volunteers stand beneath a brightly lit electric star as Christmas music fills the frosty air. They don't even speak.

"No one's come by protesting or thrown bloodstained fur at us or anything," Armstrong said. "We even use a plastic baby."

Woman's trapped body found

A woman's body was found wedged upside-down behind a bookcase in the home she shared with relatives who had spent nearly two weeks looking for her.

A spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office said Mariesa Weber's death was not suspicious. Family members said they believe she fell over as she tried to adjust the plug of a television behind the bookshelf.

Weber, 38, came home October 28 and greeted her mother, then wasn't seen again. Her family thought she had been kidnapped and contacted authorities. Family members scoured her room for clues but found nothing, although they did notice a strange smell.

On Nov. 9, Weber's sister went into her bedroom and looked behind a bookcase, where she saw the woman's foot. Using a flashlight, the family saw Weber was wedged upside-down behind the unit.

"I'm sleeping in the same house as her for 11 days, looking for her," her mother, Connie Weber, told the St. Petersburg Times. "And she's right in the bedroom."

Both Weber and her sister previously had adjusted the television plug by standing on a bureau next to the shelf and leaning over the top. Her family believes Weber, who was 5-foot-3 and barely 100 pounds, may have fallen headfirst into the space.

"She's a little thing," her mother said. "And the bookcase is 6 feet tall and solid. And she couldn't get out."

The sheriff's office said Weber appeared to have died because she was unable to breathe in the position she was in.

Coke Santas

Colombian police have arrested two men for moulding figurines of Santa Claus out of cocaine for smuggling to the United States and Europe in time for the holiday season.

The market-savvy artisans also cast festive cups, place mats and other Christmas decorations from the same gelatinous mix, which when dried, looks like plastic, Colombia's intelligence police, DAS, said in a statement.

The men's laboratory was found in Tolima province, 130 kilometres from Bogota.

The two men have been jailed.

Marriage plans on ice

New Zealand - It sounds like a case of cold feet.
A Dunedin couple have had to put their wedding plans on ice.

Lawyer Bridget Byers and builder Donald Wyatt planned to marry on one of the many icebergs floating off the Otago coastline on ice, the Otago daily Times reported.

The pair would take a wedding celebrant – and their crampons – by helicopter to say their I dos on one of the giant visitors from the Antarctic which have so enamoured New Zealanders for the past few weeks.

However, Southern Lakes Helicopter pilot Richard Hannibal Hayes, of Te Anau, known for his search and rescue work in the region, said plans were on hold as the job was too risky.

The slow thaw of the flotilla as the icebergs moved north meant they were constantly shedding ice, and it was difficult to find a safe haven for the lovebirds to land on.

Internal Affairs also threw cold water on the couple's plans, saying people had to be within 12 nautical miles of the coast to be married legally.

The icebergs are at least double that distance from terra firma.

Ms Byers did not wish to comment as she was in discussions with a woman's magazine over rights to cover the ceremony.

WTF !?! Bad parenting ? pt III

A Canadian man who could not figure out how to deal with his girlfriend’s feverish 10-month-old daughter put the baby into a freezer to cool her down, a local newspaper reported on Friday.

Derrick Hardy faces charges of criminal negligence and assaulting the infant, who was rescued when her mother came home, the Charlottetown Guardian said.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said the mother found the girl crammed into the freezer alongside ice cubes and hamburger meat.

Hardy said he had left the door ajar but the mother said it had been closed when she returned.

He told a court in the eastern province of Prince Edward Island on Thursday the child had only been in the freezer for about 40 seconds.

Hardy, 21, who admitted to police that he had no real parenting skills to deal with a sick child, said he had noticed the girl was very hot and put a cool cloth on her face, but this had no effect.

He then carried the girl outside into the night air but, frustrated that this also did not work and worried she might drown if placed in a cold bath, he put the baby into the kitchen freezer. She was wearing only an undershirt.

A local doctor said the mother had described her baby as “crying, sobbing and terrified.”

The child spent several days in hospital to recover from first- and second-degree freezer burns on her head and torso.

Hardy has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The baby’s grandmother now has custody of the girl.

6 year old a threat

A six-year-old boy was ordered to remove his hood for "security reasons" as he walked through a shopping centre with his mother, Britain's Mirror newspaper reports.

An over-zealous security guard ordered little Jack Johnson to take off the hood he was wearing because the mall in the southern coastal city of Southampton has a "no-hoodie" policy.

The paper says the 3ft11inch tall boy fell foul of a ban, in force at many malls throughout Britain, aimed at protecting shoppers from being intimidated by unruly youths.

"It was chilly and Jack was coming down with a cold so I wrapped him up warm," his mother, Tracy Johnson, said.

When she protested, management at the mall apologised and gave the boy and his mother shopping vouchers.

Veg vouchers

Pregnant women and toddlers from low income families are to get free fruit and vegetables under a new scheme. The government's Healthy Start scheme will provide parents with vouchers to buy fruit and vegetables, as well as milk and formula for babies.

The vouchers will be worth £2.80 per week and made available for pregnant women and families with children aged between one and four. People with children under a year old will get two vouchers each week.

Vitamin supplements will also be available under the scheme, run by the Department of Health. Families can spend the vouchers at around 20,000 retailers including markets, greengrocers, milk deliverers, supermarkets and chemists.

Public Health Minister Caroline Flint said: "Poor diet can have a real impact on people's health. We want people to have the best possible opportunity to eat healthily. This new scheme will not only provide greater choice of healthy food, but will also mean that children can get milk and fresh fruit and vegetables from the cradle up, helping to give them the best possible start in life."

The programme will replace the Welfare Food Scheme, originally set up in World War II to protect children's health during rationing, and more than 500,000 families will transfer to the new scheme.

Road safety Danish style

A new Danish road safety video on the Internet features topless blond women with speed limit signs urging drivers to stop speeding.

Danish road safety council official Julia Pauli claimed that the satirical news report was made to better communicate with young male drivers and has so far met with mostly positive feedback.

"If you want to reach the young people, you have to communicate on their conditions ... So, topless women are working," Pauli said of the Speedbandits video.

With speeding drivers accounting for a quarter of all Denmark's road deaths, the video is part of an increasing effort by area officials to crack down.

Asked if the council would respond to feminist criticism of the video by creating a female-oriented counterpart featuring a man exposing his bottom, Pauli told the BBC that viewers would have to wait to find out.