Hurricane Earl took aim at North Carolina on Thursday and is on track to lash its barrier islands with dangerous winds and pounding surf before cutting a path up the U.S. East Coast.If you hear a distant fanfare this weekend as you huddle around the last barbecue of summer, chances are it is Labor Day signaling the start of the home stretch to the Congressional mid-term elections. From here on out, we’ll see more ads, more posturing, more mudslinging, and great herds of political pundits thundering across the land with all the enthusiasm and grace of buffaloes in a rut. And no one will be more aware of all that than a man whose name is not on any ballot, and yet has everything on the line: President Barack Obama.An oil and gas platform operated by Mariner Energy burst into flames on Thursday and unleashed a mile-long oil sheen into the Gulf of Mexico, in the region’s first major offshore disaster since BP’s oil spill began in April.Coming fresh off of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” reunion (did you all catch that horror show? One word: cray-cray) is the announcement that Bravo is set to release yet another Real Housewives franchise, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” next month.Hollywood loves a good formula, and this fall movie season is rife with tried-and-true plot setups that will give you deja vu.From Baltimore to Lancaster avenues and along Market Street in between, University City is abuzz from the arrivals of college students and professors back after summer vacation.Tiger Woods fans have put up with the philandering, the text messages and the domestic spats. Now comes what may be the hardest thing of all to tolerate: losing.While breast-enhancing surgery has become almost a norm for American women, men are also heading to the plastic surgeon’s office more often — to have their man-boobs (moobs) removed. If you are what you eat, then most Cape Codders would be a clam — or maybe a lobster roll A land named for a type of fish should abound with chances to sample tasty seafood, and Cape Cod does not disappointSo you squandered an estate note on a bachelor’s degree, then trudged through more entry-level hardships and thankless internships than should be legally permissable, only to backslide into a self-esteem shattering, résumé-derailing grind, several tax brackets below your dignity. 
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For patients who don’t smoke, dispensaries like the Liberty Temple offer marijuana brownies and muffins, marijuana-laced tea (high tea), hot sauces (pot sauces) and cannabis-laced popcorn (cannacorn).
When Anneliese Curtis Place tore a ligament last month, she turned down the painkillers her doctor prescribed. Instead, she shopped for dope.
“It’s very easy to access it,” Curtis Place tells Metro. “I just drove to Venice Beach. There was a place called Botox on the Beach, and next to it there’s a medical marijuana store. They waved me in, for $150 their doctor did an exam, and I got my marijuana.”
There was nothing illegal about her purchase. Since 1996 the state of California permits the use, sale and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes. Anyone with a doctor’s recommendation can legally buy the drug in publicly available stores. (There’s even an iPhone application that lets users find them.) “Medical marijuana is increasingly becoming mainstream, even though it still operates in a legal gray area,” explains Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project. That’s because federal law bans the use of medical marijuana. As a result, federal agents frequently raid marijuana shops and farms that are legal according to California law.
An estimated quarter-million Californians now use the drug for medicinal purposes, purchasing it in some 2,000 shops.
California faces a seemingly insolvable budget crisis, but Assemblyman Tom Ammiano proposes a novel solution: Tax marijuana. Ammiano suggests treating pot like alcohol, making it legal — and taxable. Californian marijuana is a $14 billion industry, more than twice as big as its vegetable industry. Were Ammiano’s proposal to pass, it would give the state $1 billion in tax revenue each year.
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