Congressman Raul Grijalva and state Sen. Sylvia Allen are battling over the creation of a volunteer militia to guard the border.

Grijalva calls the idea "not just silly and irresponsible, it’s a public safety threat. To arm individuals, provide paper-thin weapons training and deliberately place them in danger disrespects the taxpayers of our great state and cheapens the professionalism of our border security agents.”

Allen responds: "'Open borders' Grijalva can spin his opposition any way he likes, but Arizonans know that we have a huge problem here with drug cartels, allied with terrorists, smuggling drugs and terrorizing the inhabitants of this state."

You can almost see the finger wagging in the face, can't you?

Here's Grijalva's full press release:

Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva today condemned the Arizona Senate Appropriations Committee passage of Senate Bill 1083, which would create and fund an armed militia along the Arizona-Mexico border. Under the control of the governor, the armed militia would supplement law enforcement and be able to pursue, arrest and detain individuals.

Those who adhere to a gluten-free diet should take note of the new Gourmet Girls Gluten Free Bakery Bistro at 5845 N. Oracle Road. There's more on the restaurant right here.

The place - which markets itself as the only completely gluten-free eatery in town - offers a nice selection of baked goods ranging from cream-puffs to pizza crust, and is open for breakfast and lunch, too.

Tucson has long needed more gluten-free options - I've received numerous e-mails over the years bemoaning the shortage of local eateries that cater to the gluten-intolerant - so we're guessing this opening will be welcome news.

And we keep hearing that it's the Project White House 2012 candidates who aren't serious...

From Talking Points Memo:

This whole contraception debate is just so new-fangled, says billionaire investor and mega-funder to the super PAC supporting former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) for President, Foster Friess.

In a simpler time, there were other ways to deal with female sexual desire. “Back in my day, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly,” he said Thursday on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, setting the host back for moment.

The general conversation was about Santorum’s past statements about contraception, who once said that it was “harmful to women.”

Local angle: Foster Friess, a part-time Scottsdale resident, was in a Phoenix TV studio. More AZ pride!

Some bands are sneaky popular, where you don't actually realize how many hits they had until you think about it for a bit. Foreigner are one of those bands, with six platinum albums, three platinum greatest hits collections, and sixteen top 40 singles. They just have a lot of songs you're likely to sing along to if you heard them on the radio.

So, when you hear that Foreigner are coming to the Diamond Center at the Desert Diamond Casino on Pima Mine Rd. on March 1st at 7pm, you know that you'll get your money's worth on the tickets (priced at $35 to $65). However, if you want something beyond the experience of just seeing the band perform their hits, we have something for you.

Thanks to the band, we can offer one lucky Tucson Weekly reader (and their equally fortunate associate) not just two tickets to the show, but ALSO a pair of passes to a meet-and-greet with the group. Just go to our contest page to enter (you'll need to be a registered member of our site to enter, but that's a pretty simple process).

Entries via our website will need to be received by Feb. 24th at 5:00 pm to be eligible, and the winner will be notified by email by Feb. 27. To ensure the tickets and passes are actually used, you will need to reply to the "Congratulations!" email in a timely manner to receive the prize. Good luck!

With the Arizona presidential primary rapidly approaching on Feb. 28, we're excited that there are three televised debates coming up in the next week—and even more excited that you, our Tucson Weekly readers, can be a big part of one of them!

The first debate will be Saturday, Feb. 18, as part of Green presidential candidate Michael Oatman's Illegal Knowledge public access show. He's invited anyone who is on the Arizona presidential primary ballot to be part of that debate, which will be moderated by Project White House collaborator Dave Maass.

Then, on Sunday, Feb. 19, we'll have the official Tucson Weekly/Access Tucson/Project White House Dark Horse Republican Presidential Candidate Twitter Debate—and that's where you come in. We want your questions for the candidates, submitted to us via Twitter. You can send 'em now or send them during the debate, but the address is @PWH2012.

We'll have more details on that debate sometime tomorrow, but there will be a studio audience if you'd like to sit in and see the debate live.

The third debate is next Wednesday, Feb. 22, and will air on CNN. We're not involved with that one.

The Congressional District 8 special election was already a time crunch for the candidates who want to replace Gabrielle Giffords, who resigned last month to focus on her recovery from being shot through the head last year.

They need to have their nominating petitions delivered to the Arizona Secretary of State's Office by Monday, Feb. 27.

But we hear the candidates—Republicans Jesse Kelly, Frank Antenori, Dave Sitton, Martha McSally and John Lervold and Democrat Ron Barber—got bad news earlier this week from Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who told them that the petitions they were having people sign had a significant flaw: They had to include the date that the term ended as well as the usual boilerplate language.

That means a big do-over for candidates who got an early start on the campaign trail.

You may know her as the Season 2 winner of the local singing competition, Lucky Break. Or maybe your recognize her from when she received the golden ticket to Hollywood on American Idol.

But most of you probably remember Tora Woloshin as the vocalist that blew away the judges on X Factor USA.

On Feb. 14 the petite, blonde powerhouse released her debut album, "Open Heart Surgery" - and she even tweeted that it already sold out (but more are on the way).

Tucson Weekly music editor Stephen Seigel wrote about her record release party in Soundbites this week:

A few months ago, Woloshin was delighted to come across a fan video of a toddler dancing to one of her X Factor performances. It wasn't until she started doing research to find a charity beneficiary for her upcoming CD-release party that she discovered that the toddler in the video, a Tucsonan named Caleb, was afflicted with neurofibromatosis (NF). According to a press release, "NF is a common neurological disorder that can cause tumors to grow anywhere in or on the body and can result in cancer, blindness, deafness, bone deformities, loss of limb and scoliosis." But that wasn't all: Caleb's 10-year-old sister and their father are also afflicted by the disorder. Woloshin had found her beneficiary.

This week, Woloshin will drop that CD, Open Heart Surgery (JukeBox), with a release party that doubles as a fundraiser for the Children's Tumor Foundation, which is "dedicated to improving the health and well-being of individuals and families affected by NF."

Tora Woloshin celebrates the release of Open Heart Surgery on Saturday, Feb. 18, at DV8, 5851 E. Speedway Blvd. Doors open at 8 p.m., and special guests include Vintage Sugar, Broken Romeo, DJ Brandon and rapper Chris Young. Tickets are $10, or $25 for a VIP package that includes a CD. All ages are welcome, and there will be a bar for those older than 21. For more information, call the venue at 885-3030, or head to showclix.com/event/ToraCDRelease.

As he enjoys the latest bubble in the GOP presidential sweepstakes, Rick Santorum will be the guest of the Tucson Tea Party next Wednesday, Feb. 22, before the big CNN presidential debate in Phoenix.

Trent Humphries, who recently stepped down from his leadership role with the local Tea Party, says that the Santorum campaign reached out to the organization to secure a speaking spot. The Tucson Tea Party then extended invites to Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, but didn't hear back from those campaigns.

There are those who wonder why Santorum, rather than Ron Paul, has become the new darling of the Tea Party movement. Gene Healy of the Cato Institute writes in the Libertarian-leaning Reason magazine:

The Tea Party movement was supposed to represent an end to this sort of moralistic Big Government conservatism. Animated by "fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets," as the Tea Party Patriots' credo put it, the movement had supposedly put social issues on the back burner to focus on the crisis of government growth.

At one time, Santorum seemed to share this view of the Tea Party — and it troubled him. In that same talk in Harrisburg, he said, "I've got some real concerns about this movement within the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement to sort of refashion conservatism and I will vocally and publicly oppose it."

Santorum needn't have worried: In this year's contests, he's regularly drawn more support from Tea Party voters than Ron Paul, who has been described as the "intellectual godfather of the Tea Party movement."

Exit polls show Santorum beating Paul among self-described Tea Party supporters in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida, trailing him only in independent-heavy New Hampshire and Nevada.

A recent Time magazine symposium asked leading thinkers on the Right, "What Is Conservatism?" Anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist offered this answer: "Conservatives ask only one thing of the government. They wish to be left alone."

Tell that to Santorum, whose agenda rests on meddling with other people, sometimes with laws, sometimes with aircraft carrier groups.

"This idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do," Santorum complained to NPR in 2006, "that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn't get involved in cultural issues ... that is not how traditional conservatives view the world."

It’s a sad showing as far as Tucson support for next week's Arizona Beer Week, with only a handful of events scheduled locally. The mighty 1702 is the only place truly throwing down with events taking place Monday through Friday, although there are events at Maynards Market and Kitchen, Pasco Kitchen and Lounge and the Zona 78 location on West River Road as well.

You can read about the local events here. It doesn‘t appear all of 1702‘s events are listed there, so you might want to contact them directly. The event at Pasco - which is $30, including four courses - will include the local unveiling of SanTan Brewing’s Sex Panther Double Chocolate Porter. The other events include another beer dinner and a tasting. Is it possible to yawn oneself to death?

I wonder if any of the local microbreweries even knew about this event of if they opted out for some reason. I know it's sponsored by the Arizona Craft Brewers Guild, but it doesn't even appear that Barrio Brewing Co., which is a member of the guild, is participating. Weird.

Jim Terr, Republican candidate for president, takes on his high profile opponents while wearing a hat.