Ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton.

The secret to my 5 o'clock shadow is a little device called the George Michael 3000 Custom Beard Trimmer and Personal Massager. Just kidding. I actually shave every morning, and thanks to my vast knowledge of Eastern philosophy and mysticism, I will my facial hair to grow to the exact same length each day. Dave Grohl taught me that one.

Someday we'll learn the whole story of why George W. Bush brushed off that intelligence briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.' But surely a big distraction was the major speech he was readying for delivery on Aug. 9, his first prime-time address to the nation.

The standard rumor at the time was that Rumsfeld, as chief of staff, had persuaded President Ford to appoint George H.W. Bush as director of Central Intelligence, assuming that that got rid of a potential competitor for the presidency.

The Clinton White House today said they would start to give national security and intelligence briefings to George Bush. I don't know how well this is working out. Today after the first one Bush said, 'I've got one question: What color is the red phone?'

The White House is giving George W. Bush intelligence briefings. You know, some of these jokes just write themselves.

George Tenet has been the director of central intelligence since 1997, time enough to have changed the Agency's culture. He has failed. He should go.

George W. Bush attended the intelligence briefing every day. Obama has not even attended half of them. He sends surrogates. That to me is significant.

Who would have thought that a tap-dancing penguin would outpoint James Bond at the box office? And deserve to? Not that there's anything wrong with 'Casino Royale.' But 'Happy Feet' - written and directed by George Miller - is a complete charmer, even if, in the way of most family fare, it can't resist straying into the Inspirational.

George was getting alot of independence for himself in those days. He was writing more, and wanted things to go his way - where, when we first started things basically went John and Paul's way. You know, 'cuz they were the writers.

Harry Truman, who was a Bible-believing Christian Zionist, defied the secretary of state he so admired, George C. Marshall, and won a place in Israel's history by recognizing the new state 11 minutes after it declared its independence in 1948.

George has only got to ring me. His imagination is so wonderful, I'd do any character he might create.

George Carlin is brilliant with words, and Johnny Winters is very creative. It's taking something common and drawing out the humor, being clever with words.

I think in my case, I had no choice but to have a good sense of humor. I grew up with my dad, Danny Thomas, and George Burns and Bob Hope and Milton Berle and Sid Caesar and all those guys were at our house all the time and telling jokes and making each other laugh.

I like George Carlin's jokes. I like his humor. He's one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things.

In writing a novel about George Sand, I hoped to present her as the talented, beguiling, complicated and occasionally infuriating woman I think she was, but I hope, too, that readers will enjoy the people she surrounded herself with.

George Carlin's album, 'Class Clown,' came out when I was in high school. I memorized a lot of that album. I'd come home from school, put it on, and listen over and over. I started memorizing it. I don't even know why. I loved it so much I memorized it.

My first year of high school, I attended Duval High, home of the Duval Tigers. It's located in one of most notorious neighborhoods in the Prince George's County, Maryland, area.

I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.

I'm in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God's terms. My God isn't the God of George Bush.

Show me one guy or woman as funny as Rodney Dangerfield or as good as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, or Joan Rivers. There are a lot of good comics out there, no doubt, but as far as the quality of the comics goes, I think what you have is a bunch of situational comics.

It's very difficult to put it into words or really put your finger on exactly what it was that people found so attractive about Wham! But it was a lot to do with George and me and our friendship.

Despite the pain of his death, George is still very much alive in my memory today. A few years on from that tragic Christmas, I'll sometimes catch myself thinking of our friendship and those years together as young kids in Wham!

It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought.