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I have more than a few pet peeves. In fact, I'm something of a Humane Society for peeves. Waste would have to be one of the largest breeds I keep kenneled, along with hypocrisy. When one gets a mutt of both, that's a pet no one wants to adopt. Yet we see examples of it everywhere. For me the war on drugs always has been an offspring of waste and hypocrisy, as we spend billions of tax dollars to see few results in stemming the flow of illegal substances across our borders and through our streets. Our kids can buy...

The health benefits of being married are so large that single men are at greater risk of dying than smokers, says a study. The study looked at comparative risks over a seven year period - but experts warned that the lifetime risks of smoking were much higher. Scientists have frequently found that married men and women tend to be in better health than their single counterparts. This is partly because of the "social support" of having a wife or husband - and perhaps because both single men and women have a worse lifestyle - and no-one to look out for...

A bill proposed by Sen. Jake Corman, R-Bellefonte, would cause Ecstasy dealers to face the same penalties as heroin dealers. This is another example on the part of an elected official of either inexcusable ignorance or pandering to the public. According to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, only nine deaths were reported in which Ecstasy was involved during 1998, and other drugs were found along with Ecstasy in six of the nine. Compare that with 110,640 deaths from legal alcohol in 1996. Ecstasy ( MDMA ) is a semi-synthetic drug patented by Merck Pharmaceutical Company in...

Rabid drug-warrior Bob Barr and the equally avid, though low-key, drug warrior John Linder are in a dead-heat Republican primary this Tuesday in Georgia's newly drawn 7th Congressional District. The question is, if Barr loses how much credit can the national Libertarian Party claim? The LP's fetchingly named "Incumbent Killer Strategy" has -- with good reason -- targeted Barr as the drug war's point man. So the party has purchased nearly $50,000 of airtime on metro Atlanta cable stations (with a few ads on broadcast Fox and NBC slated for this final, pre-primary weekend) for a wrenching, 30-second ad featuring...

<p>Don't tell a woman she can have it all. Your credibility will be shot.</p> <p>Because modern mothers aren't buying that line.</p> <p>Just scan bookstore shelves for evidence.</p> <p>Mommies are mad and they're not afraid to say so.</p> <p>There's New York Times columnist Lisa Belkin confessing her imperfections in Life's Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom. There's Naomi Wolf ranting in her Misconceptions: Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood. Former New York Times economics journalist Ann Crittenden explores the lack of respect for motherhood in The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued. HipMama.com co-editors Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender offer a generational perspective with Breeder: Real Tales from the New Generation of Mothers.</p>

LOS ANGELES (AP) Florida judo club members beat and doused an alleged carjacker with gasoline then handed over the grimacing, moaning 20-year-old to police officers. Tyrone Jermaine Hogan, of Los Angeles, held his ribs Sunday and winced in pain as TV news crews recorded his arrest. ``The boys are punching him in the face and I wanted to go around for a choke, to choke him out, but I didn't want to risk getting punched in the head, so I started pounding him from the back,'' said Christina Baldacci, a Florida International University judo club member. The Florida judo club...

“This has got to be the very worst marijuana-related damage done in this state in my entire lifetime.” -- Dale Gieringer, California NORML A forest fire that burned out of control for almost two weeks and devastated over 50,000 acres near San Diego was caused by a helicopter looking for pot farms, a California Department of Forestry investigation has concluded. “A California National Guard helicopter was in the area looking for drugs, and clipped a power line, which caused a spark which started the fire,” said Martie Perkins, fire information officer for the department. The helicopter was working with a...

<p>LONG ISLAND, N.Y. (Wireless Flash) -- A deceased cattle rancher in Bozeman, Montana, took care of his heirs by installing an automatic teller machine in his tombstone.</p> <p>Cattle rancher Grover Chestnut died earlier this year at the age of 79. However, before he cashed in, he installed an ATM at his tombstone and gave ten heirs debit cards, and told them were allowed to withdraw $300 per week from the grave.</p>

Smoking cannabis is as bad for your lungs as smoking cigarettes, says a Dunedin-based study. "You can't say cannabis is safe any more than you can say tobacco is safe. The health message is clear - don't be burning vegetable matter and inhaling it," said Dunedin School of Medicine associate professor Robin Taylor, one of the study's authors. Smoking both cannabis and tobacco narrowed people's airways even more than smoking only one of the substances. The study involved examining how much breath about 900 people aged 18 to 26 could expel forcefully from their lungs. People who smoked cannabis or...

Q. I recently saw a movie on Court TV called "Guilt by Association." It seemed to be a true story that took place in our area. All that the main character did was take some phone messages for her boyfriend. She did not know that he was dealing drugs, or that the messages were about drug deals. But because of mandatory sentencing laws, she got 20 years. Although I do not condone illegal drug use or drug dealing, I was wondering how this could happen. The woman in the movie appeared to be totally innocent to me. Do you know...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A group of researchers have uncovered evidence for why caffeine's stimulating effects stay with us long after we down the day's last cup of coffee. They have also identified a protein that appears to play a key role in how caffeine exerts its long-lasting effect. Dr. Gilberto Fisone of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and his colleagues found that mice genetically engineered to lack the protein, dubbed DARPP-32, did not experience as long a period of stimulation from caffeine as other mice. Fisone told Reuters Health that DARPP-32 may therefore represent the means by...

<p>LAS VEGAS, Nevada (Reuters) -- The International Association of Fire Fighters voted unanimously Wednesday to boycott a national tribute to firefighters who died on September 11, in an angry response to President Bush's rejection of a bill that included $340 million to fund fire departments.</p>

A shop owner near Cincinnati is refusing to serve customers whose underwear is visible. Glenway Pony Keg grocers owner Linda Keppler says the fashion for low-slung jeans with underwear showing offends her. A sign on the door of the shop in Covedale reads: "Keep your pants up and your underwear out of sight or no service." WCPO.com quotes her as saying: "I figured that if shoes and shirts are supposed to be worn in the store, why can't pants be pulled up also?" She added: "Some child came in with his pants like that and I said, 'You'll have to...

A Romanian prisoner cut off both his little toes and ate them after he heard his girlfriend had married another man. Neculai Berariu is serving a seven-year sentence at Timisoara prison in Timis county for stealing cars. The 27-year-old said: "I wanted to shock everybody. I cut my toes with a knife and ate them raw. "I also took a piece of flesh from my thigh, I fried it on some burned papers and ate it too." The National newspaper says his ex-girlfriend has emigrated to Germany with her new husband. He says he'll never mutilate his body again.

A candidate in a Florida election says he's suing a rival for allegedly gaining an unfair advantage by adding a hyphen to her surname. Patrick Feheley claims Candice Brown-McElyea added the hyphen so she'd be at the top of the ballot paper. He would be pushed into second place on the paper which lists candidates in alphabetical order by last name. He's followed by Charles McKenzie and Jan Schneider. They are all Democrats contesting an open seat. Brown-McElyea says Brown is part of her last name, not her middle name, and the lawsuit is frivolous. If a judge rules in...

EL PASO, Texas | A police officer’s name nearly cost her her job. The problem was the way El Paso officer Christine Lynn O’Kane’s name appeared on her identification tag and e-mails: C. O’KANE. ‘‘When you put it together, it spells ‘cocaine,’ ’’ police spokesman Al Velarde said. O’Kane resigned from the El Paso Police Department on April 6, 2000, to take care of her ailing mother, the El Paso Times reported. Her work file included a recommendation that she be reinstated if she reapplied in the future. But when O’Kane reapplied with the department months later, she found it...

The United States has announced plans to tighten immigration checks on foreign visitors from 11 September - the first anniversary of the deadly terrorists attacks on New York and Washington. A new programme by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) will require visitors from certain countries seen as an "elevated security risk" to be fingerprinted and photographed at the border. It was adopted after the US Congress had required the Justice Department to develop a stricter entry and exit system as part of sweeping anti-terrorist reforms. "The vulnerability of our immigration system became starkly clear on 11 September," US Attorney...

Spokane Police on Sunday arrested a man who was waving around a kitten in a plastic bag and telling people he was going to cook and eat it. Jerry Mack, 53, was arrested near the barbecue pit at Mission Park and charged with first-degree animal cruelty, a felony. "A female called and said the guy was walking through the park with the kitten in a plastic bag that was tied in a knot and saying he was going to barbecue and eat it," said Spokane Police Cpl. Elise Robertson. "The caller said if police didn't do something about it, she...

Women in the UK are among the ugliest in the world, according to a global survey of men. They finish second in the list of the planet's worst-looking women compiled by FHM magazine. The only country with worst rated women was Afghanistan. However, British women did come fifth in a list of the most attractive women, which was topped by the US. The looks league was compiled from 59,000 online votes from users of the magazine's website around the world. According to the poll, the top 10 countries with the ugliest women were: 1, Afghanistan; 2, UK; 3, Germany; 4,...

A Torbay woman was today jailed for 18 months for selling her daughter for sex. The 35-year-old was found guilty in April of allowing a male friend to perform oral sex on the girl when she was 12 and 14. On the first occasion one of them said that it "would be good for her future sex life". The next time -- involving all three -- the mother was said to have been paid $200 for the girl. On both occasions the woman, who has an extreme alcohol problem, had been drinking heavily. The woman's male friend was never charged,...