(Getty Images)

This is Carrie Prejean, Miss California 2009.

If you haven't seen clips from Sunday night's Miss USA pageant, I'll bring you up to speed:

Miss California was one of the five finalists. She was asked by one of the judges, blogger Perez Hilton, whether she felt that every state in the union should follow the example of those states that have have legalized same-sex marriage.

She replied, "I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

Cool. She was asked her opinion, and that's what she gave, right?

Well, Carrie did not win the pageant, she was runner-up. Do you think her answer to the same-sex question impacted the outcome of the pageant?

Tell me what you think.

It's more than 400 BILLION dollars. That's what President Obama is spending to keep America, the federal government, running for the rest of this fiscal year.

But do you know who's being left out of this spending bill?

Not the banks, not the auto companies, not a bridge in Delaware and another one in Alaska.

What is missing is money for kids. 1,700 kids in the nation's capital.

They're poor kids - underprivileged kids. And they are recipients of school vouchers. Something the teacher unions are not fond of.

Here's a question to you: let's suppose that priorities and politics have changed and the voucher program has to be shut down. Can't they at least come up with a way of letting the kids who are in the program now stay at least until they graduate?

The president's daughters go to a school, "Sidwell Friends" where some of those voucher kids also attend. Next year, if things stay as they are, those kids on vouchers will be gone. Is it fair?

Maybe Mr. President, you should ask Sasha and Malia about this one.

Kids tend to stick together.

This so-called game is called RapeLay.

This is not easy to talk about, and you may find it disturbing.

There's a computer video game out there developed and published by a Japanese company. Like every other game, it has a goal.

The goal in this game is to rape a family of 3 women.

A mother. An older daughter. And a younger daughter who looks to be about 10 or 12.

You start each scene by stalking your victim, molesting them on the subway, and cornering them in a secluded place.

It gets worse. Your rape victims in the game can also get pregnant.

If they do, you are supposed to force them to have an abortion, or you can throw them in front of a train.

You think that's bad? I haven't even mentioned what the game calls "free rape" mode.

I haven't even mentioned that in multiplayer mode, you and your friends can participate in "gang rapes."

Outside of Guitar Hero and Tiger Woods PGA Tour, I'm not a huge video game player, so I don't know what researchers were thinking when they designed this game. I also don't know if playing this game would make someone more likely to rape.

But this is what I do know: I have a 7-year-old daughter.

I'd feel a whole lot better about this world we live in if the people who designed these games stopped for just one damned minute and considered the feelings, and the rights of girls and women before they decided to put this out there.

What do you think?

Read the affidavit. Add a comment below

Police have released a sworn police statement to the public. It contains moment-by-moment details of an alleged attack by singer Chris Brown on a woman identified as "Robyn F." (Brown's girlfriend Rihanna's birth name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty)

There's nothing I can add to what you'll read for yourself in the affidavit.

Read it by clicking here, then come back and tell me what you think.

Lisa Pagan

I've got to take note of something here, and it's a story that gives me mixed feelings. I'm interested in what you think about this, too.

A young woman, a former soldier, left the Army almost four years ago. What you may not know - and what I didn't know until recently, is that when you leave the service, the military can recall you to duty, within a certain amount of time. It doesn't happen very often, but it happens.

It happened to Lisa Pagan.

She was discharged in 2005, and last year, got orders to report to duty again.

She has a problem with that. Now she has kids. Her husband's on the road all the time. She says there's nobody to take care of her children if she's forced back into military service and possibly overseas.

Here's what Lisa Pagan did this week: she drove from her home in North Carolina to Fort Benning, Georgia.

Read more about her by clicking here.

She reported for duty. She brought her kids with her. She brought her story with her.

Long story short, the U.S. Army agreed to release her from military duty.

My feelings are mixed because of this: support them or not, our two wars overseas are being fought by men and women with families.

They have kids, obligations, and responsibilities back home. They're dealing with it. And it can't be easy.

Lisa Pagan says she cannot fit military service into her life right now.

I'm glad it worked out for her, but I promise you there's plenty of her former comrades who would do anything to be in her civilian shoes right now.

Twitter Users Broke The News! (iReport)

Something to take note of today, and it's one of my favorite things to talk about. It's about smashing that piece of glass that separates you and me.

Every time you, the TV news viewer, can reach news organizations directly, reach THE WORLD directly, I get very excited.

It's the very reason I keep my newscast interactive. You have input, you help us decide how to fill my hour of CNN, and sometimes you do our jobs for us.

It happened today: a commercial airliner crashed this morning in the Netherlands. A horrible scene. A Boeing 737 broke into pieces and at least nine people died.

But do you know how we learned about it? The first pictures and the first details came from Twitter users.

People who saw the plane go down broke the story, took the first images, and described the scene. Not professional journalists, but people like you, who used the web and their followers to spread the word.

See the amazing iReport pictures here.

By the way, I mentioned that nine people died in this horrible crash? Well, get this: 125 people survived.

That's nothing short of impossible to believe after seeing the horrific wreckage. The Turkish Airlines jet crashed into a field short of the runway in Amsterdam. Police say that at least three crew members are among the dead.

This was no "Landing on the Hudson" - but it was no Buffalo, NY tragedy either.

We're sad for those killed - and amazed that so many others walked away.

He's Sorry. (Getty Images)

Something to take note of today, an apology from Rupert Murdoch.

It comes as a bit of a shocker to most that Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, would personally apologize for the insensitivity of one of his news outlets, but that is exactly what he is doing.

He's apologizing for the cartoon that shows a chimp being shot twice in the chest and references President Obama's stimulus package.

Here's the apology:
"Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted." - Rupert Murdoch

Since arriving in New York more than 30 years ago, Murdock and his associates have, according to the Village Voice, “delighted in throwing gasoline on every racial fire they could spot.”

So what’s different now? Is it that Murdoch is no longer interested in making money on tabloids, because he owns the Wall Street Journal?

Or is it because he’s afraid some people, like Rev. Al Sharpton did on this show last week, will successfully challenge whether he should be allowed to own so many media companies?

In New York, they’re betting on the latter.

What do you think?

The governor and her daughter: Should we be paying attention? (Getty Images)

This show steered clear of Bristol Palin's pregnancy. We just didn't think it was relevant.

In fact, generally speaking, media outlets in print and broadcast, with the exception of several blogs, stayed away from the issue.

Why?

Well, for the same reason we chose to not show you Rihanna's beat-up face last week. Some things, even in a public person's life, are still private.

So along comes Fox News and what do they do? They interview Bristol Palin, who tells them this:

"But I think abstinence is, like, the, I don’t know how to put it, like, the main, everyone should be abstinent or whatever, but it’s not realistic at all." - Bristol Palin

Governer Palin is expected to ride the evangelical wave of support into political viability in 2012.

One problem: evangelical groups saw the interview with Palin's daughter and are not amused. Here's what one pro-abstinence group said:

"While Bristol's story makes for an interesting human-interest story, her comment should not be the basis to form public policy." - National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA)

The real irony here? The governor who asked the media to stay away from her kids, has her daughter do an interview with FOX News and ends up getting heat about her daughter's comments.

Not from the left…but from her own base.

What do you think?

www.twitter.com/ricksanchezcnn

"CNN anchor Rick Sanchez has built his 3 p.m. program around Twitter, as well as Facebook and MySpace, since the show's launch last fall. Sanchez, who has 56,000 followers, reads some tweets on the air and producers run excerpts at the bottom of the screen."

That's just an excerpt from a long Howard Kurtz column that ran in February 23rd's Washington Post.

It's all about how news anchors are now using social media to better connect to and integrate with their audience.

But we know who started it all, right?

CLICK HERE to read the whole column.

Hear the 911 call on CNN.COM

Who in the world lets a wild animal loose in their neighborhood?

Travis was a semi-famous pet chimpanzee who starred in a few TV commercials. But Monday, Travis went off.

Travis' 70-year-old owner says he wasn't himself. She tried tranquilizing him and called a friend, familiar with the chimp, for help.

When the friend arrived, Travis viciously attacked her, sending her to the hospital.

See a CNN report on the incident and hear the 911 call by clicking here.

The animal's owner actually thinks her friend is dead.

Police shot and killed Travis. The mauling victim remains in serious condition. Police in Connecticut say they're still trying to figure out if any laws were broken.

This is from me: people belong in residential neighborhoods. Wild animals belong in the wild.

What do you think?