This one I cannot help but laugh over. The world’s first ever “Viagra” condom is almost ready for release in Europe. It was developed by Futura Medical, a United Kingdom biotech firm. Durex is the lucky condom maker who got to license the rubber that helps you keep a woody.

The purpose of making the “Viagra” condom was to help men who have trouble keeping it up have the same advantages from Viagra without taking a pill. Also studies have indicated men who have problems keeping an erection are not as likely to consistently use condoms and have unprotected sex. Which we all know is a big mistake with HIV and other STD’s flying around. Whatever keeps a brother wearing a rubber I say go for.

The Alabama-based law firm that filed a  class-action lawsuit that sought to force Taco Bell to stop calling the meat it serves “beef” has now withdrawn their lawsuit according to a statement released Monday.

The lawsuit was first filed in January in federal court in California, and alleged that what Taco Bell calls “seasoned beef” is a meat mixture that has binders and extenders and does not meet federal requirements to be labeled beef.

The fast-food chain said Monday the allegations were “absolutely wrong” and the lawsuit was voluntarily withdrawn by the firm. It said no money was exchanged and it is not changing any of its products or advertising.

“This sets the record straight about the high quality of our seasoned beef and the integrity of our advertising,” Taco Bell CEO Greg Creed said in an interview. “We took great exception to the false claims made about our seasoned beef and wish the attorneys had contacted us before filing and publicizing a lawsuit that disparaged our brand.”

Law firm Beasley Allen, based in Montgomery, Ala., said that it withdrew the lawsuit after Taco Bell made changes to its marketing and product disclosure.

“From the inception of this case, we stated that if Taco Bell would make certain changes regarding disclosure and marketing of its `seasoned beef’ product, the case could be dismissed,” attorney Dee Miles said in a statement.

In response to the lawsuit, Taco Bell took out full-page ads in at least nine major newspapers, aired television spots and launched a YouTube campaign to proclaim its taco filling is 88 percent beef.

It spent between $3 million and $4 million in advertising to counter the accusations made in the lawsuit, Creed said.

He said he could not comment on any financial fallout for the fast-food company as a result from the lawsuit because of an “earnings blackout.” Taco Bell’s parent company, Louisville-based Yum Brands Inc., reports its quarterly earnings on Wednesday.

A J.Crew ad that shows a top designer painting her young son’s toenails neon pink has some parents and doctors seeing red.

The image appeared in a feature called “Saturday With Jenna,” which was emailed to customers last week and highlights a few of J.Crew president and creative director Jenna Lyons’ favorite products — including the hot pink Essie nail polish seen on her son, Beckett.

The caption below the picture reads, “Lucky for me I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.”

But not everyone sees fun in the ad.

“This is a dramatic example of the way that our culture is being encouraged to abandon all trappings of gender identity,” psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow wrote in a FoxNews.com Health column about the ad.

Media Research Center’s Erin Brown agreed, calling the ad “blatant propaganda celebrating transgendered children.”

“Not only is Beckett likely to change his favorite color as early as tomorrow, Jenna’s indulgence (or encouragement) could make life hard for the boy in the future,” Brown wrote in an opinion piece Friday. “J.CREW, known for its tasteful and modest clothing, apparently does not mind exploiting Beckett behind the facade of liberal, transgendered identity politics.”

But Jo B. Paoletti, author of “Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America” told FoxNews.com she believes critics are overreacting.

“Lots of kids, say 7 and under, might ask their parents for something that would seem to be cross gender, and I think most parents, especially in the privacy of their own home might think, what’s the big deal?” Paoletti said.

J.Crew spokeswoman Margot Fooshee said the company had no comment on the ad. Jenna Lyons did not respond to direct requests for comment.

When asked if the ad crossed the line, a majority of Fox News Twitter users backed Paoletti.

“What line would that be? Not forcing your child to like a color just because gender stereotypes say they should?” one commenter known as along_the_path wrote.

But not everyone agreed.

“Why would I want my son to paint his toenails pink?” ohthatmomma wrote. “Why woukd [sic] I want my son to paint his toenails at all?”

Beginning April 17, Verizon Wireless will stop offering single-year contracts for new mobile customers.

Current yearlong subscribers will not immediately be affected, a Verizon rep told Computerworld.

When existing one-year contracts expire, however, those customers will have a choice between Big Red’s two-year and month-to-month options.

According to an internal memo, published by Gadget University, Verizon is cancelling its yearly contract offering because of low demand from non-business customers.

“The greater majority of customers sign up for a two-year contract and take advantage of the discounted promotion price,” Verizon explained to Computerworld.

There is one exception to Verizon’s new policy: business and government accounts will still have the option of selecting yearlong plans.

The lightest Jordan shoe to date features the very recognizable elephant crackle print, a staple of one of the most famous Jordans, the Air Jordan III.

The shoes will hit stores on May 5 for $140 and unlike many Jordan releases, will actually be available for NIKEiD customization on May 29.

I talked to Dwyane Wade and Jordan creative director Mark Smith about the shoe, which is the first new Jordan I actually like.

Darren Rovell: What are you happy about with this shoe?

Dwyane Wade: At 13 ounces, this is the lightest shoe I’ve ever worn. The key for me was being able to be quick, but also have a shoe that’s very comfortable.

Rovell: You are now part of the Jordan brand. Do you feel more pressure?

Wade: Not more pressure. I actually had more pressure at Converse when I was the face of the brand and I was really the only one. Now I have a great opportunity to bring my marketability to the great Jordan brand. To be a kid from Chicago, who grew up with Jordans, it’s just so amazing to be a part of.

Rovell: After about six years with Converse, you switched to the Jordan brand in July 2009. More than three out four of readers, who voted in a poll, thought this was a good move for you. Why did you do it?

Wade: I’m so happy and thankful for Converse. When I was drafted, even though I was picked fifth, no one was knocking down the door to sign me to a shoe deal. They gave me a chance and helped me accomplish a lifelong dream, which was to have a signature shoe. But after a while, I did feel like it was time for a change. And since Nike bought Converse, the decision to come over to Jordan was supported by Nike Inc. MJ wanted me too and that was obviously a big honor.

Rovell: How close is the shoe you wear to the actual shoe someone can get off the shelf?

Wade: It’s close. It’s not like it looks the same, but it’s a totally different shoe. I make a couple adjustments during the season to make it fit to me.

Rovell: Mark, why do this shoe now?

Smith: Originally, we were going to make the Air Jordan 2011 the lightest shoe to date, but Tinker (Hatfield, Nike’s chief designer) saw the opportunity to build a shoe with quick explosive midsoles and work with Dwyane to unveil it as a late-season shoe. Rovell: You always hear that kids wear Jordans with their jeans, but not necessarily on the court.

Smith: Jordan has had the reputation of being more of a fashion shoe, a bit heavier, so this is an opportunity for us to fly in the face of that.

Rovell: With lighter materials and upgraded technology, we still have a shoe that cost $140. Break it down for me.

Smith: Consumers might think that because it weighs less and we use less material, that it costs less. To be honest, the new materials cost more. Carbon fiber costs a lot of money. But we designers do care about prices and we want to make the best shoe for the best price.

California based advertising firm Adzookie is willing to pay your mortgage every month for up to a year. The catch? You let them paint your house like a giant colorful billboard. The above photo is an example of their paint job, with their name and social icons on top of some seriously vibrant colors.

Now there are some restrictions, the first of which is an obligation to leave your house painted this way for at least three months. If at the end of the three month period you would rather go blind than see your house any longer, your contract can be cancelled and they will repaint your house back to its original colors. If you can still stand your house, your contract can be extended for up to a year, as long as you keep it painted they will keep it paid. The second restriction is that you must both live in the house and it can’t simply be a rental, you have to actually own the house. The final restriction is that vibrant paint can’t violate any rules in your community, so definitely check into your neighborhoods policies before applying.

This promotion was launched Tuesday morning and by that very evening more then 1,000 people had applied. Now this really presents a problem as Adzookie has only planned 100,000 on painting and paying the mortgage on these homes. So if you really want up to a year of free mortgage payments, be prepared to have some pretty compelling reasons why your house is oh so perfect for their needs.

Good luck home owners.

BP has struck a deal with U.S. regulators that will allow it to resume deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, a year after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, the Sunday Times reported.

The oil major was understood to have granted 24-hour access to government overseers and had agreed to safety requirements more stringent than the tougher rules imposed after the disaster, the newspaper reported without citing sources.

BP will only be able to maintain or increase production on existing platforms and not drill exploration wells when drilling resumes in July, the Sunday Times said.

BP declined to comment on the report.

Three more Southwest Airlines jetliners have small, subsurface cracks that are similar to the cracks suspected of playing a role in the fuselage tear of a Boeing 737-300, causing the aircraft to lose pressure and forcing a frightening emergency landing, officials say.

The 5-foot-long hole tore open in the passenger cabin roof area shortly after the plane left Phoenix for Sacramento, Calif., Friday afternoon. None of the 118 people aboard was seriously hurt as the plane descended from 34,400 feet to a military base in Yuma, 150 miles southwest of Phoenix.

Since then Southwest grounded its 79 other Boeing 737-300s and began inspecting them.

Sunday night, another Southwest Boeing jet was diverted, this time because of a burning electrical smell in the passenger cabin, Southwest and Los Angeles International Airport officials said.

The plane carrying 142 people was en route from Oakland, Calif., to San Diego, when it made an unscheduled landing about 8 p.m. PDT in Los Angeles, where passengers changed planes and continued on their journey, Southwest spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said. No one was hurt.

She said the cause of electrical smell is being investigated, but it “was completely unrelated to the issue in Arizona.” She said Sunday’s aircraft was also a Boeing 737 but she didn’t know if it was the 737-300.

In its statement on the inspections, Southwest said Sunday that two planes have been found to cracks similar to those in the stricken aircraft and will be evaluated and repaired before they are returned to service. A National Transportation Safety Board member told The Associated Press later that a third plane had been found with cracks developing.

The other 19 aircraft inspected so far showed no problems and will be returned to service.

Checks on the remaining jets are expected to be completed by late Tuesday, the airline said. That means flight cancelations will likely continue until the planes are back in the air. About 600 flights in all were canceled over the weekend after Southwest grounded 79 of its planes.

The cracks found in the three planes developed in two lines of riveted joints that run the length of the aircraft. The agency is focusing its probe on the area of the cracks but has not determined that the cracks caused the rupture.

NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt said Boeing was developing a “service bulletin” for all 737-300 models with comparable flight cycle time as the Arizona jet, which was 15 years old and had about 39,000 takeoff and landing cycles.

There are 931 such models in service worldwide, 288 of which in the U.S. fleet.

Boeing’s bulletin would strongly suggest extensive checks of two lines of “lap joints” that run the length of the fuselage. The NTSB has not mandated the checks, but Sumwalt said the FAA is likely to make them mandatory.

The tear along a riveted “lap joint” near the roof of the stricken plane above the midsection shows evidence of extensive cracking that hadn’t been discovered during routine maintenance before the flight – and probably wouldn’t have been unless mechanics specifically looked for it – officials said.

“What we saw with Flight 812 was a new and unknown issue,” Mike Van de Ven, Southwest executive vice president and chief operating officer, said. “Prior to the event regarding Flight 812, we were in compliance with the FAA-mandated and Boeing-recommended structural inspection requirements for that aircraft.”

Sumwalt said that the rip was a foot wide, and that it started along a joint where two sections of the plane’s skin are riveted together. An examination showed extensive pre-existing damage along the entire tear. Further inspection found more cracks in areas that had not torn open.

The riveted joints that run the length of the plane were previously not believed to be a fatigue problem and not normally subjected to extensive checks, Sumwalt said.

“Up to this point only visual inspections were required for 737s of this type because testing and analysis did not indicate that more extensive testing was necessary,” Sumwalt said.

That will likely change after Friday’s incident, he said.

The FAA declined to say if it was requiring other operators to check their aircraft for similar flaws.

The NTSB also could issue urgent recommendations for inspections on other 737s if investigators decide a problem has been overlooked.

Federal records show cracks were found and repaired a year ago in the frame of the same Southwest plane.

A March 2010 inspection found 10 instances of cracking in the aircraft frame, which is part of the fuselage, and another 11 instances of cracked stringer clips, which help hold the plane’s skin on, according to an AP review of FAA records of maintenance problems for the Arizona plane.

The records show the cracks were either repaired or the damaged parts replaced. Cracking accounted for a majority of the 28 problem reports filed as a result of that inspection.

It’s common for fuselage cracks to be found during inspections of aging planes, especially during scheduled heavy-maintenance checks in which planes are taken apart so that inspectors can see into areas not normally visible.

The Arizona jetliner had gone through about 39,000 cycles of pressurizing, generally a count of takeoffs and landings. Cracks can develop from the constant cycle of pressurizing for flight, then releasing the pressure.

Southwest officials said it had undergone all inspections required by the FAA. They said the plane was given a routine inspection Tuesday and underwent its last so-called heavy check, a more costly and extensive overhaul, in March 2010.

The decompression happened about 18 1/2 minutes after takeoff from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport after the pilots reached their cruising altitude. They immediately donned their oxygen masks, declared an emergency and briefly considered returning to Phoenix before the cabin crew told them of the extent of the damage, Sumwalt said.

“They discussed landing in Phoenix, but quickly upon getting the assessment decided to divert to Yuma because it was the closest suitable airport,” he said.

The plane’s voice and data recorders were being examined in Washington.

Southwest operates about 170 of the 737-300s in its fleet of 548 planes, but it replaced the aluminum skin on many of the 300s in recent years, a spokeswoman said. The planes that were grounded over the weekend have not had their skin replaced.

Southwest said “based on this incident and the additional findings, we expect further action from Boeing and the FAA for operators of the 737-300 fleet worldwide.” Boeing did not immediately return messages left Sunday.

US Airways operates 19 of the older-model 737-300s. Airline spokeswoman Liz Landau said they have not been grounded and no additional inspections are being done.

In July 2009, a football-sized hole opened up in-flight in the fuselage of another of Southwest’s Boeing 737s, depressurizing the cabin. Sumwalt said the two incidents appeared to be unrelated.

A fuselage failure, although extremely rare, can have deadly consequences. In 1988, cracks caused part of the roof of an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 to peel open while the jet flew from Hilo to Honolulu. A flight attendant was sucked out of the plane and plunged to her death, and dozens of passengers were injured.

High residential vacancies are killing many housing markets, as foreclosed homes sit on the market and depress sale prices and property values.

And it’s only getting worse: The national vacancy rate crept up to just over 13% according to last week’s decennial census report. That’s up from 12.1% in 2007.

“More vacant homes equal more downward pressure on home prices,” said Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, a real estate information provider.

Maine had the highest proportion of empty housing stock, at 22.8%. Other states with gluts of empty houses included Vermont (20.5%), Florida (17.5%), Arizona (16.3%) and Alaska (15.9%).

The way the census calculates the vacancy rates, however, is problematic. It includes properties such as ski lodges, beach houses and pied-à-terres that many real estate statisticians would not.

These are often summer homes or second homes, but census lumps them together with homes that have been sold but not occupied, empty homes for sale or rent, and homes used by migrant workers. Basically, anything other than a primary residence is considered vacant.

“You can only live in one home,” said William Chapin of the Census Bureau’s Housing Statistics Branch. “If you own five homes that you occasionally live in, four of them will be counted as vacant.”

But Paul Bishop, the vice president for research for the National Association of Realtors, countered that these properties aren’t vacant in the usual sense of the term. “A vacation home is hardly the same situation as a foreclosed home that has been taken back by the bank,” he said.

The Radio Shack store in Hamilton, Montana is standing behind the 2nd Amendment… The right to be a dumb ass.

Since October, the franchise has been offering free guns to anyone who purchases Dish Network. And the promotion has been wildly successful–proprietor Steve Strand says business has tripled since its inception. Gee… I wonder why?  So much for my “Buy 100 wieners and get one free extravaganza!”

“I think it really, really fits the Bitterroot Valley,” he told Montana’s Ravalli Republic.

Before claiming their firearm, customers much undergo a background check. They are then given a gift certificate to Frontier Guns & Ammo, a nearby gun supply store. Those who don’t qualify or prefer to opt-out of the giveaway receive a $50 coupon to Pizza Hut.

A sign outside the store proclaims, “Protect yourself with the Dish Network. Sign up now, get a free gun.” According to Strand, hundreds have come into his shop because of the advertisement, and store manager Fabian Levy told the Republic that people stop by just to take pictures of the sign.

The promotion comes amidst increased scrutiny of America’s firearm industry. In the wake of the shooting massacre that rocked Arizona in January, a new poll shows key states support strengthening our country’s background-check system for gun purchases. Recently, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a nationwide gun control campaign, and the Obama administration is exploring potential changes to gun laws.

Meanwhile, Strand claims his offer has been nothing less than successful. “We’ve received a tremendous amount of positive reactions,” he told the Republic, noting that only one person has complained in the six months since he launched the campaign.  What? No one has complained to the manager of a store full of guns??? Presposterous!