When the federal government launched the Medicare Part D program to pay for seniors' prescription drugs in 2006, it banned Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs from eligibility. Fortunately the federal government screws up and breaks the law all the time. And for a brief period in 2007 and 2008, a "software error" did, in fact, allow old men to buy boner pills on Uncle Sam's dime.

Medicare illegally paid for $3.1 million in erectile dysfunction drugs during that period, according to an inspector general's report from the Department of Health and Human Services. Viagra accounted for $3 million of that total, while the Cialises of the world divvied up the remaining scraps of free money. Medicare administrators have "blamed the spending on a software error" and said they'll fix it "by updating computer databases with codes for the prohibited drugs." They could always mess it up even worse while trying to fix it, though. Those screwy computers will end up buying cocaine for all babies before this is over.

[Image via AP]