[John McCain] didn't believe me. I think anybody who's been in a POW camp for five years can - take eight minutes on The Daily Show.

I can't tell you how many times we'll run into a journalist and go, "Boy that's...I wish we could be saying that. That's exactly the way we see it and that's exactly the way we'd like to be saying that." And I always think, "Well, why don't you?"

It's the same argument people say about the blogs. The blogs are responsible. No, they're not. The blogs are like anything else. You judge each one based on its own veracity and intelligence and all of that.

Arnold Schwarzenegger campaigned in New York this week, where he stepped up his controversial goal of helping children.... It's all summed up in his campaign slogan, 'Arnold Schwarzenegger: Cutting violence in half with a laser-guided chain gun across a charred landscape - for the children.'

Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge made that critical leap from 'be afraid' to 'be very afraid,' raising the terrorist threat level to orange for financial sectors in New York, Washington, D.C., and northern New Jersey. ... Ridge's announcement comes amidst reports he will step down as head of homeland security after the election. Ridge himself has refused to comment on the story, though colleagues say he has often expressed a desire to spend more time at home, scaring his family.

So, is there hope for a truly democratic Africa? Long answer: Only if continent-wide improvements in education, human rights and public health are coupled with an aggressive and far-sighted debt-relief program that breaks the cycle of subsistence farming and urban squalor. Short answer: No.

More than 150 heads of state attended the UN Summit, giving New Yorkers a chance to get in touch with prejudices they didn't even know they had.