Bob Cesca

Political Writer, Host of The Bob & Chez Show

Okay, I get it. The Healthcare.gov website is still glitchy; there are evidently people who are losing their current health insurance plans; premiums continue to rise; and the Republicans along with irresponsible members of the press are blowing it entirely out proportion. Enough!

Seth Adam Smith

Blogger; Editor-in-chief of ForwardWalking.com

Having been married only a year and a half, I've recently come to the conclusion that marriage isn't for me. Now before you start making assumptions, keep reading.

Jenn Tisdale

Writer and standup comic

I made a porn. Have I always wanted to film a porn? No. But when James Deen tweeted that he was accepting submissions from regular folks like me to film scenes with him I laughingly turned to my coworker and said, "Oh, let's submit!" I was the only one who submitted.

Robert Scheer

Editor, Truthdig.com; Author, 'The Great American Stickup'

John Kerry, despite his democratic pretense, has sent a message to the disenfranchised of the Muslim world that the call for representative democracy on the part of the United States is nothing more than a public relations gimmick.

Tiya Miles

Chair, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan

Whiteness has been a privileged and prized identity in the U.S.; our national culture has made it this way. So when black men select white women and de-select black women, they are doing so in a context of charged racial meanings.

Colin Coleman

Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International Inc.

After almost two decades of democracy the world is asking: "what has Nelson Mandela's South Africa done with its freedom?" With the 95-year-old father of the nation ailing, the 52 million South Africans who see him almost universally as a hero are also asking what lies ahead long after "Madiba."

Sallie Krawcheck

Past President of Global Wealth & Investment Management, Bank of America

How often do you hear this: "If I leave the workforce, I'll be giving up $x in salary, which barely covers the babysitter's cost"? Rather than analyzing this based on a static point-in-time, it is more accurately thought of as a net present value calculation.

David J. Eicher

Editor-in-Chief, Astronomy magazine

The next few weeks will undoubtedly give us our best shot at ISON. To see it this week, you'll need to venture out in the early morning, around 4 a.m. local time, and look toward the constellation Leo.

Kirk Douglas

Actor

Everyone talks about Fiddler on the Roof but did they ever see a fiddler on the roof? I had the sculptor Aris Demetrios make a sculpture of a fiddler and I placed it on top of my roof. At night the lights make it visible to everyone.

Karen van Bergen

CEO, Porter Novelli

More than we care to admit, we now pay for the ease and frequency of our communication with the depth of our relationships. And those depths are where true and meaningful human connection resides.

Robert Dreyfuss

Author of "Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam"

Twelve years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and a decade after the misguided invasion of Iraq, Washington's actual standing in country after country, including its chief allies in the region, has never been weaker.

Kate Fridkis

Author of Growing Eden, blogger at Eat the Damn Cake

I really want to focus on the baby. But birth is so damn distracting. It's just looming there, at the end of pregnancy, like this massive Mount Doom with Sauron's fiery eye flicking vigilantly back and forth above. I am definitely Frodo in my birth story, with the wide, terrified eyes.

Christopher Rosen and Mike Hogan

This may all be but a prelude to a winter when sentiment finally gels around 12 Years as the most deserving best picture possibility, but there's also a chance that American Hustle -- or some other late entry -- could swing in and take the lead.

Richard (RJ) Eskow

Writer; Senior Fellow, Campaign for America's Future

It's Election Day 2013. Get ready for the spin. Unless something surprising happens, Terry McAuliffe will win Virginia's governor's race, Bill De Blasio will become New York City's mayor, and Governor Chris Christie will win an easy reelection in New Jersey.

Lisabeth Saunders Medlock, Ph.D.

Life coach, psychologist, and author

You can't predict your life, nor can you engineer the perfect next step, so stop putting pressure on yourself to figure things out. Step forward even if you are afraid or unsure.

Dean Baker

Co-director, CEPR; author, 'The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive'

The folks making economic policy in Washington are getting ever more resistant to evidence. As we approach the sixth anniversary of the downturn with no end in sight, the nation has been treated to the perverse spectacle of our Treasury Secretary celebrating the sharp drop in the deficit.

Raja Farah

Gay, atheist, activist, pacifist Arab (among other horrible things); blogger, ohmyhappiness.com

Hamed Sinno, the openly gay frontman of the Lebanese band Mashrou3 Leila, is gay. His gay voice represents the entire Arab world. Through his gay songs he captures the angst of the youth, singing about things no one gay has ever sung about in a gay way.

Greg Savage

Leader of the global recruitment industry

Just one tweet provoked such an active response from my followers, all echoing disapproval. The question is, how many people read that tweet and thought "idiot"?

Natalia Brzezinski

Journalist, mother, wife of U.S. Ambassador to Sweden, women's empowerment activist

Music is a universal language, an ephemeral space where people unite around shared passions and at least momentarily forget what may separate them. Few breathe life into this concept as organically as Loreen Talhaoui, Sweden's singing sensation.

Thrillist

We're a quick, free, daily e-mail ...

Some of the funniest, faultiest, and crudest Sbux spelling slip-ups.

Seth Shostak

Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute

Check out the Milky Way next time you're outside the glare of city lights, and ruminate on the thought that at least 33 billion habitable planets are somewhere up there. But that's just the local population.

Erin Ruberry

Managing blog editor, The Huffington Post; Contributing editor, HuffPost DC

After spending time in Scotland earlier this fall, I think I've found the most beautiful castle in the world.

Bernard-Henri Lévy

French philosopher and writer

For months, if not years, people in France and abroad have been trying to prove that Marine Le Pen has not changed as much as she would have us believe. Now, in a mere 20 seconds, she herself has torn away the veil and shot herself in the foot.

Michael P. McDonald

Associate Professor, George Mason University

Virginia early voting turnout data point in a similar direction as the polls that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe is doing substantially better than the Democratic ticket did four years ago.

Olivia Cole

Poet, author, and activist

What it comes down to is that black girls are missing representations of themselves in positive contexts. When they turn on the TV, they are missing. When they are looking at the cover of magazines like Vogue and Elle, they are missing.

Dylan Ratigan

New York Times Best-Selling author, entrepreneur and formerly the host of MSNBC's The Dylan Ratigan Show

Violence, uncertainty and unrest go hand in hand with food, water and energy scarcity. Probably no Americans are more acutely aware of this fact than the men and women we have sent into harm's way over the last 20 years.

Jenny Witte

Founder and blogger, Mamatoga.com

My suggestion is to switch the focus from other moms, and what other moms are doing, to your own kids. Are your kids happy and healthy being co-sleeping french fry eaters? Awesome!

Barack Obama

President of the United States

Millions of LGBT Americans go to work every day fearing that, without any warning, they could lose their jobs -- not because of anything they've done, but simply because of who they are. It's offensive. It's wrong. And it needs to stop, because in the United States of America, who you are and who you love should never be a fireable offense.

Joe Cristalli

Humorist, Rejectingsobriety.tumblr.com

Dear Aaron, Hey, man. What's up? How's the shoulder feeling? Man alive -- I saw that hit last night and I was all like, "Man alive!"