The Marin Institute, an alcohol industry watchdog, is calling on California State Senator Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) to strengthen his proposed legislation and put a halt to what’s termed “supersized alcopops” like Blast. (Alcopops are drinks that are a combination of alcoholic and soda pop.)

The 12% alcohol, 23.5 oz, single serving cans are the latest binge-drinking threat to underage and young adult drinkers, according to the public-interest group.

READ FULL REPORT HERE (Opens in separate window)…

“Zachary Chesser attempted to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and used the Internet to incite violence,” said Assistant Attorney General David Kris. “Today he is being held accountable for his actions. I applaud the many agents, prosecutors and analysts who worked tirelessly to bring this man to justice.”

“Zachary Chesser will spend 25 years in prison for advocating the murder of U.S. citizens for engaging in free speech about his religion,” said U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride. “His actions caused people throughout the country to fear speaking out – even in jest – to avoid being labeled as enemies who deserved to be killed. The fact that a young man from Northern Virginia could support such violence and terror is a sobering reminder of the serious threat that homegrown jihadists pose to this country.”

According to court documents filed with his plea agreement on October 20, 2010, Chesser maintained several online profiles dedicated to extremist jihad propaganda. Chesser admitted to taking repeated steps in April 2010 to encourage violent jihadists to attack the writers of South Park for an episode that included Muhammad in a bear suit, including highlighting their residence and urging online readers to “pay them a visit.” Among the steps he took was posting on multiple occasions speeches by Anwar Al-Awlaki, which explained the Islamic justification for killing those who insult or defame Muhammad. Al-Awlaki was named a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” on July 12, 2010 by the United States government.

Chesser also admitted that in May 2010, he posted to a jihadist website the personal contact information of individuals who had joined the “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” group on Facebook, with the prompting that this is, “Just a place to start.”

READ FULL REPORT HERE (Opens in separate window)…

Military fighter jets will be busy this week preparing to protect the skies around Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, during Super Bowl XLV on February 6, according to a Pentagon report released yesterday evening.

Amalgam Virgo 11-05A, a North American Aerospace Defense Command air defense exercise, will allow interagency partners the chance to practice procedures in response to airspace violations, officials said.

The Amalgam Virgo exercise comprises a series of training flights held in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, Customs and Border Protection, Civil Air Patrol, and the Continental United States NORAD Region’s Western Air Defense Sector, officials said.

Residents in the area can expect flights to begin around 9 p.m. Feb. 2 and to continue for about an hour and a half.

“Interagency coordination is a key aspect of our daily air defense measures,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. Garry C. Dean, commander of the Continental United States NORAD Region. “This Amalgam Virgo exercise is an excellent opportunity for all of our interagency air defenders to hone our air defense skills in preparation for Super Bowl Sunday.”

These exercises are carefully planned and closely controlled to ensure rapid response capability, officials said, noting that flights of this nature have taken place throughout the United States since the start of Operation Noble Eagle, the command’s response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

READ FULL REPORT HERE (Opens in separate window)…

Feminists make the grandiose claim to speak for all women. And since women are a powerful voice in this country, our government falls for the notion that rejecting the demands of feminists somehow conveys scorn and hatred for women and their “needs.” It apparently never occurs to either feminists or elected officials that significantly lower taxes on the average American family would go a whole lot farther in freeing the women of this country from bondage.

Contrary to their claim to speak for all women, feminists sure as heck don’t speak for the strong, self-confident women of Real America. While a significant majority of small town and rural women work outside the home, they don’t work because they’re power-driven career women. First of all, “careers” are few and far between outside of cities; and second, Real America women know what really matters in life… and it’s not their job title and paycheck. When they work, they work to help put food on the table, not bolster their fragile egos or entertain a vendetta against men.

If a Professor of Women’s Studies from Feminist U were to descend on most any town in middle America and begin to preach the gospel according to feminism, most women (and men) would look at her with polite bewilderment bordering on wonder (wondering whether she’s a lunatic, that is).

Feminists are convinced that working eight or nine hours a day for strangers is somehow more noble and worthy than working eight or nine hours a day for your family. Is a career teaching kindergarten somehow more dignified and less stultifying than teaching one’s own children? Feminists think so.

Suzanne Venker in her excellent book “The Seven Myths of Working Mothers” writes, “But feminist groups are not as influential as they might hope, at least not in their own right. They have a considerable amount of help from their friends in the media. This is the group with the real power. While journalists cannot say outright – as their gender feminist friends can – that mothers should work outside the home, they still manage to convey the message that no woman in her right mind would choose full-time motherhood as a profession.”

Yes, women have been freed up from the drudgery of housework by forcing legal and social changes encouraging women to leave home and work. But wait, there’s more! Housework still needs to be done. Toilets need cleaning. Dishes need washing. Laundry needs doing. So what’s a feminist to do?

She hires someone – a woman – to do these things for her while she, the enlightened feminist, retreats to her legal briefs or stethoscopes and congratulate herself on her advancement. She leaves the poor drudging housekeeper the keys and tells her to do all the dirty work in her life. She leaves the bewildered kids at the poor drudging daycare workers’ establishment and tells her to do all the mothering for her. Women are still doing women’s jobs. But feminists have freed themselves only by (cough) oppressing their drudging sisters. But it’s okay, you see, because the drudging daycare workers and house cleaners get paid for it. So all is right in this twisted world where paychecks supersede all moral responsibilities and obligations to home and family.

What hard-core feminists who happily and voluntarily place their children in daycare won’t admit is most of them can’t handle the job of motherhood. Personally I don’t find this an admirable trait.

So what am I suggesting? That feminism be banished or something?

No of course not. Can’t be done. Pandora’s box has been opened and it’s impossible to close it. There will always be a vocal segment of women who simply have no interest in domesticity and hates anyone who does.

But just as the last thing to emerge from Pandora’s box was the fluttering, ethereal, wispy ghost of Hope, so I find hope among the rural and small town women of America, as well as their stay-at-home urban sisters. These are the women carrying on the torches of family strength and true femininity, who are not threatened by the thought of using their innate strength and power to cultivate future generations rather than reduce themselves to mere workhorse drones whose only worth is calculated by the decimal points on a paycheck.

And I’ll remind the feminists that abolishing a nuclear family unit that has served western civilization with great effectiveness for thousands of years in favor of a feminist viewpoint that’s been around for four decades is a dumb idea.

But hey, it’s just my opinion.

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For those of you living under a rock, Sex and the City is a sitcom that features a lot of women. Having sex. In the city. The popularity of this concept proved so novel that they made it into a movie.

Since I live under a rock with no television reception, I’ve never seen an episode of Sex and the City and don’t really plan to. But as with so many other bewildering preoccupations popular among urbanites, I have to wonder what the appeal is.

It’s not like I’m unfamiliar with sex (ahem). Beyond the obvious point that I have two kids, we live on a farm where sex is, well, in the open.

Contrary to the moral prudery often assigned to rural folks, sex is a lot more obvious in the great outdoors. After all, a variety of critters engage in the dirty deed in broad daylight, heedless of whatever polite company may be present. And sex is discussed all the time. ALL the time. Even in cocktail chatter.

“So – did your bull breed the neighbor’s cow this year?”

“I sure wish that rooster would control his libido. Then hens barely have any feathers left on their backs.”

“What mares will you breed your stud horse to this fall?”

And children are entirely aware of the facts of life as they pertain to livestock from a very early age. I recall a conversation with my then three-year-old who was watching our rooster engage in his favorite hobby.

“Mommy, what is Mr. Rooster doing to that hen?”

“He’s mating, sweetie.”

“Oh.” Pause. “What’s that?”

“It’s how baby chicks get born.”

And at no time since have our children been unfamiliar with the connection between sex and procreation.

But when you look at an episode of Sex and the City – which, remember, I’m only extrapolating from hearsay – then sex and procreation are not only separated but actively divorced. And we wonder why our culture is in such trouble?

Women who hook up with complete strangers at the train station are not looking to hatch chicks or nurse a new lamb. No, they’re just looking for a momentary thrill. Personally I think it’s more thrilling to try and chase down a calf who has a wire tangled around his back leg than exchange bodily fluids with a total stranger whose name I don’t know, but then you already knew I was weird.

The funny thing about these “sex and the city”-type women is when they make the extraordinary decision to remain celibate, often for two weeks at a stretch, we applaud them for their self restraint and marvel at their virtue.

“Not having sex is like giving up junk food,” says a woman named Katie Jean who decided to embark on a ‘celibacy cleanse.’ “Sex in New York for me had become like the 99-cent package of Ding Dongs on the corner.” Awww, who says romance is dead?

There’s even a book coming out on the subject called “Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year without Sex” (available at Amazon.com) in which the author tries a most amazing experiment: yes, going without sex for an entire (gasp) year. I didn’t think that was possible, but boy did she prove me wrong.

(And then I started wondering: why do all these books and TV shows and movies happen in New York City? Does the Big Apple have a monopoly on casual sex or something? Just askin’.)

So aside from the titillation factor of in-your-face sex, what accounts for the popularity of Sex and the City, especially among women? How can the emotional angst of a bunch of twits with questionable morals hold anyone’s interest for more than a week or two?

The answers are predictably inane. “I believe it is popular because many people…relate to at least one of the ladies and of course we all want the clothes and shoes,” notes one female Einstein. “Because they talk about sex,” points out another. And then there’s the unparalleled logic of, “Because it’s stupid and people like stupid sh*t.” Can’t argue with that.

More intellectually, the Australian website Direct Action.org.au (honest-to-goodness slogan: “For socialism in the 21st century”) noted, “Sex and the City has been analyzed by feminists both as an example of progress in women’s rights and life options, and as an example of the effects of corporate culture, marketing and the more individualistic strands of feminism in presenting women’s empowerment as mainly tied to achieving coupledom, beauty, and personal upward mobility, rather than collective organisation for progressive change.”

Aw gee, and I thought it was just a bunch of slutty women cheapening their femininity by hooking up with a succession of strangers. Boy was I wrong.

Entertainment Weekly said, “The clothes from SATC raise your cosmos! A toast to the wonderful wardrobe from Sex and the City, which taught us that no flower is too big, no skirt too short, and no shoe too expensive.”

Ah, the shoes. Should have thought of that sooner.

Unlike sex in the city, sex in the country is nice because it produces something useful. Livestock don’t “do it” unless there is a biologically compelling reason. Anywhere from three weeks to nine months later, we can anticipate a Joyous Event in the form of chicks, lambs, foals, calves, piglets, or other helpful additions to a farm. And there is nothing prettier than the sight of baby animals prancing around a pasture or peeping around a barnyard.

It is for this reason – this blatant and undeniable association between sex and procreation – that rural children are aware of the facts of life in a healthy and responsible way. (Naturally it’s up to the parents to reinforce this association.) But when lambs and kittens and foals and chicks are in-your-face evidence that it’s best to keep a lid on the hormones unless you want a calf of your own, a lot of country kids grow up knowing the right thing to do.

For those Sex and the City types who haven’t made the connection yet, that means no sex until after marriage.

Now where’s my rock? I need to crawl back under it.

I hope that’s not the case and here’s why: Oprah Winfrey, like all superstars, is a freak of
nature.

To think that the next Oprah might be out there somewhere is like believing the next Babe
Ruth is just around the corner – that the longer there isn’t one, the sooner one is due to
appear.

A .300 hitter, a Michael Jordan, an Oprah Winfrey is talent.
A format is valuable, whether it’s the way a baseball game is played or a television show is
produced, but the bulk of the money and the fame goes to the person whose talent shines
within the format.

Talent is rewarded at a whole ‘nother level. Talent is rare. Superstar talent is once-in-alifetime.

There’s not going to be another Oprah. I hope Oprah’s not really expecting to find one
because it’ll set both her and her replacement up for failure and disappointment.

I’m Jim Sumpter and that’s “My Take”.