Quick Takes

"I didn't want to explode."

A 15-year-old Iraqi girl identified only as Rania, who says her husband drugged her and tricked her into wearing an explosive vest for a suicide bombing. A police officer on Aug. 24 found her dazed and wearing the vest on a street in Baquoba, Iraq, and deactivated the bomb.

"A major leap."

University of Pennsylvania researcher John Gearhart, on the announcement last week that scientists have figured out how to change cells into other types of cells in living mice without using stem cells. The medical advance was the second in a year that raised doubts about any scientific need for embryonic stem cells.

"It's like NAMBLA."

Former undercover FBI agent Bob Hamer, who helped shut down the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), on the secretive nature of Friends of Abe, a support group for Hollywood conservatives founded by CSI:NY star Gary Sinise. John McCain spoke to members of the group last week.

"It's a kind of schizophrenic behavior."

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, on environmentalists who demand more wind and solar power but lobby against transmission lines that connect solar fields and wind farms to large population centers. "They say that we want renewable energy," Schwarzenegger said, "but we don't want you to put it anywhere."

"'Excellent-you fill every quota we have!'"

Democratic National Convention delegate Maysoon Abdelhady, repeating what the head of the New Jersey delegation said when Abdelhady identified herself as a woman, a Palestinian, a Muslim, and a disabled person, and added that "because I'm 30 and still not married, people think I'm gay."

"They'll kidnap you for a watch. . . . Everyone is living in fear."

Mexico resident Cristina, who asked the Reuters news service not to use her full name, on a rise in kidnappings in her country. Independent researchers say more than 7,000 kidnappings occurred in Mexico last year, and targets were no longer limited to the wealthy.