Quotables

"I think it's a much larger truth that where American forces are present, they are inhibiting sectarian violence."

The New York Times' lead correspondent in Iraq John Burns. Burns told interviewer Charlie Rose that if U.S. forces are removed quickly "that you have to weigh the price. And the price would very likely be very, very high levels of violence."

"I don't think Christianity and pot smoking are necessarily mutually exclusive."

Jenji Kohan, creator of Showtime's Weeds, on Mary-Kate Olsen joining the show's cast next month to portray a pot-smoking Christian. Olsen described the character as "a good Christian girl with a twist."

"The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong."

Newsweek's Evan Thomas, defending part of the media's approach to the Duke lacrosse rape hoax. "The narrative was properly about race, sex and class," Thomas told the American Journalism Review. "We went a beat too fast in assuming that a rape took place."

"1.6 million"

Number of knives and blades confiscated by airport security in the United States last year, according to the Transportation Security Administration, in addition to 12,295 clubs, bats, and bludgeons and 74,665 other objects classified as "deadly/dangerous." TSA also confiscates an average of two guns a week stowed in carry-on luggage.