The New Choice Of The Pepsi Degeneration

     Good morning and greetings, Pentagon fans. Well, drama was on center stage last week in Washington, as the director of the CIA, General David Petraeus, was forced to resign for having an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Shame on you, general. His response: “I showed extremely poor judgement and engaging in an extramarital affair with a woman who turned out to be a blabbermouth.”

     It seems as if the married men at the top, whether it be a Bill Clinton, General Petraeus or Charlie Sheen, have a problem keeping it in their pants. Or in the words of Woody Allen, “Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go it’s one of the best.”

     This story of feasting on the forbidden fruit continued to unfold throughout the week, as a second woman, Jill Kelly, revealed she had received anonymous threatening emails telling her to keep her paws off the general. Turns out the emails were from biographer turned mistress Paula Broadwell. Or as Martin Short said of her, “Some people are born great and other have greatness thrusted into them.”

     Later in the week the “seductress” Ms. Kelly claimed diplomatic immunity as she tried to ward off focus from the media. Good luck with that. It brought to mind something Gary Shandling once said, “I once made love for an hour and a quarter but it was the night the clocks were set ahead.”

     And this story of military love, lust and betrayal got even kinkier, when it was revealed that General John Allen, who is in command of our 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, had email communications with the fabulous Ms. Kelly. Pentagon and FBI sources said they were “potentially inappropriate” and “flirtatious” and even worse had grammar and spelling errors. Or as Bill Maher quipped, “Apparently, this chick was flirting with everyone except General Motors.”

     And then to top it all off, the FBI agent who Jill Kelly had first brought the anonymous emails to was investigated for sending a shirtless photos of himself to Kelly. Turns out it was just a joke. Still, I may be old fashioned, but isn’t it supposed to work the other way around?

     So who is this Jill Kelly and why am I am suddenly so attracted to her? This episode of “All My Generals” reminds me of something I recently heard at a vegan nutritional seminar. “Food has replaced sex in my life and now I can’t get my pants on.”

     And that leads us into today’s topic. A couple of months back I wrote about how soft drink giants Coke and Pepsi are trying to develop a soda with no calories, no artificial sweeteners and no funny aftertaste because consumption of this sweet poison is down.

     Well, Pepsi, which has your taste for life, really wants to change the game. In a story written by Lisa Collier Cool for Yahoo Health, Pepsi announced last week that they had launched a version of its popular cola in Japan that claims to block the absorption of fat for those who think young and thin.

     Simply called Pepsi Special, this caffeinated soft drink has the added ingredient dextrin, a natural water-soluble dietary fiber derived from potatoes. This is not to be confused with dexedrine, a recreational stimulant which will put more than a litttle bounce in your step.

     Japanese commercials touting the Pepsi Special’s effectiveness for weight loss even go as far as to ask, “Why choose between a hamburger and a slice of pizza? If you choose Pepsi Special, you can have both!” Or french fries and onion rings. Miso and matzo ball soup. Who says you can’t have it all?

     Pepsi claims that dextrin slows the absorption of fat in the body by binding with it and eliminating it as waste, not reserving it as empty calories. It’s basing its claims on a Japanese study published in 2006 by The Teriyaki Institute that showed that rats fed dextrin actually absorbed less fat than those that were not. And further tests revealed that research causes cancer in rats. When I asked James Cagney about the subjects of this study, he responded, “Those dirty, double-crossing rats.”

     But you might want to hold off before jumping on this no-fat love train. In the late 1990′s, U.S. snack food companies added olestra to salty snacks like potato chips, which was a fat-blocking ingredient that destroyed a substantial amount of valuable nutrients and gave junk-food lovers a little more than they had bargained for.

     Americans who dove into the olestra arena experienced bloating, cramping, diarrhea, loose bowel movements and a craving for Mountain Dew. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defends olestra, even though its use is banned in the Canada, the United Kingdom and Ted’s Bakery on the north shore of Oahu. As it turns out, dextrin produces the same results. Now, I don’t want to be a party pooper, but when it comes to my movements, I want them to be as smooth as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

     So here’s the bottom line. Pepsi claims that its new and improved cola is just as good as the non-diet version. So if you want to take the Pepsi challenge, remember that despite its claims of refreshing the world, the Pepsi Special still contains high levels of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup, which is one of obesity’s best friends.

     I’m still thinking that a proper diet, exercise and watching a lot of HDTV might be a better way to lose weight. Either way, I’m just soda-lighted for opportunity to discuss this important health news. Keep up that Pepsi spirit.

     For today’s photo lounge, we are heading to the coast and Lighthouse Point, as the first great sunrise of the season debuted Thursday morning. I was going to feature it in this week’s post, but then a sunset took center stage that night that was off the charts.

     It was your classic double dip day, with the action at both dawn and dusk being a digital treat. At sunset, the high clouds didn’t produce much color, but the panel of clouds along the horizon looking unreal through my zoom lens. And the highlight of the evening was when another group of swirling clouds appeared in front of the originals (photo #7), creating an exotic canvas of color and texture like I had never seen before. Quite a memorable twilight doubleheader.

     To check out these photos, click on http://www.SunriseSantaCruz.com/blog