A judge in the northern US state of Ohio has ordered the state to change its lethal injection method because it can cause pain, in a move that is expected to revive the death penalty debate.

Judge James Burge said the current three-step method - by which a convict is rendered unconscious, then a muscle-paralyser is administered, followed by a final injection which stops the heart - does not conform with the state law which calls for prisoners to be executed "quickly and painlessly".

Critics of the procedure say that if the injections are administered incorrectly, the convict can suffer excruciating pain.

Judge Burge said corrections officials should instead administer a single massive dose of anaesthesia. Such a move would avoid the use of the potential pain-causing injections but would likely extend the procedure.

"A single massive dose of sodium thiopental or another barbiturate or narcotic drug will cause certain death, reasonably quickly, and with no risk of abrogating the substantive right of the condemned person to expect and be afforded the painless death mandated by the law," he said.

Wowzers! This is super news for all you death row inmates, because previously you were going to have your heart seize while chemically immobilized, now you'll just be doped to death like another junkie looking for chemical heaven. You may be looking at death, but the journey there will be a soft ride on a pillow of clouds into never-ending darkness. Have that tattooed on your skull before booting up, the juxtaposition of the adrenal/narcotic highs will totally freak you inside-out, like totally... But I digress.

But kids, don't try this at home. Oh right, you already do try it at home with your parents' anxiety medicine. Who says you need to be on death row to have a good time? Right? But seriously, don't try this at home. For convicts only.

The Jonas Brothers have revealed their secret to keeping energetic and lively all the time – caffeine!

Despite being in their teens, the youthful rocker siblings rely on downing cup after cup of coffee and sports drinks in order to keep up with their busy schedules.

Youngest Brother Nick tells Teen magazine: "I have an energy drink when I wake up and a coffee when I eat breakfast. Then (I have) a coffee at dinner and an energy drink right before I go onstage. Then I'm good."

Ah, isn't that sweet? Sorry, you can digitally thwack me now. I was hoping they were addicted to high-priced call girls. Oh well.

The award-winning "Foo-Foo Dust" explores the relationship between a crack-addicted prostitute and her junkie son living together in one room in San Francisco's Tenderloin District.

The film invites the audience to witness a disturbing and intimate portrait of the destructive power of drug addiction, including a crack-induced fit and near-fatal heroin overdose. But what makes the film so powerful is its moving, poignant look at the intense love between a mother and her son living on the edge of society.

2003, 37 min., $240, and reportedly hard to watch.

Amy Winehouse is paying five inmates 1,000 pounds a week to protect hubby Blake Fielder-Civil from other prisoners in jail.

The 'Rehab' singer is shelling out a further 1,000 pounds to fund his drug habit while he is on remand in North London's Pentonville awaiting an assault trial.

The deals emerged as a new video showed the 24-year-old singer taking drugs, having public sex with Blake and making racist chants.

"Blake has people who look after him," the Sun quoted a source, as saying.

"And he gets crack and heroin. Amy pays for it outside," the source added.

"I just needed to kill someone."

This is the defense of those who take part in such random bloodletting. In the US our homicidal perps typically blow one into their own skull before the police can take them down, but Tokyo's stab-happy psychopaths generally get taken down and -- gasp -- rescued by paramedics before they can ritually disembowel themselves, thanks to the slow lethality of self-inflicted knife wounds and todays top-notch trauma care.

There are those who would like to blame this kind of behavior on the internet, or video games, or metal music, or negligent parents, but I say all of these excuses are lame attempts to dodge the real issue. What motivates this kind of sociopathic horror is the feeling of impotence caused by the oppressive omnipotent control of the information state. There is no way to escape it, no way to deny it. If you are a loser everyone will know it immediately by Googling you, so why fight the grinding power of fate? You either become the machine, deny that you are part of the machine, or blow a gasket from too much machine pressure.

Welcome to the future.

In this issue of the magazine, Elizabeth Kolbert writes about the life of Buckminster Fuller and about an exhibition about Fuller at the Whitney Museum of American Art. “By staging the retrospective, the Whitney raises—or, really, one should say, re-raises—the question of Fuller’s relevance,” Kolbert writes. “Was he an important cultural figure because he produced inventions of practical value or because he didn’t?

An interesting retrospective, and the exhibition certainly looks worth checking out if you're in NYC.

I walked smack in to Hunter Thompson on 6th Ave several years ago, and it's one of the three times in my life I've ever been truly star struck. I couldn't think of anything to say but, "you know, you remind me of my dad," and somehow that seemed inappropriate.

Anyhow, enjoy the trailer

"I was extremely unhappy about the superficiality of it all, especially the wrong information that Dr Timothy Leary and others were propagating - that everyone in India takes drugs. It was a hodgepodge of Kama Sutra, Tantra, yoga, hash and LSD, while the true spiritual quality of our music was almost completely lost."

I think that the fact that more than 90% of sadhus use cannabis should have some bearing on Dr. Tim's credibility, but in the spirit of the times, let me just say that Timothy Leary ruined everything and never had a single good thought. Rick Doblin and John Halpern are our saviors!