If there's been a more universally compelling human interest story than that the 33 Chilean miners, trapped in a collapsed mine for 69 days, it's difficult to recall it.

For the first 17 days of their ordeal, the miners had no idea if anyone would ever find them in their tomb a half mile beneath the surface. Then, once contact was made, they had no idea when they'd be getting out, as nobody was sure how long it would take to reach them.

Florencio Avalos was the first miner to smell fresh air, pulled above ground in a 13-foot long cigar-shaped capsule designed by NASA in collaboration with the Chilean Navy.

Now that Senator John McCain is doing the most important thing in his campaign to become the 44th president of the United States, agreeing to appear The Late Show with David Letterman, I think we can say that the Straight Talk Express is on the way to being back on track.

It was inevitable, and really, really necessary, for McCain to fix this problem with Dave. McCain was the butt of the joke for nearly three weeks and it hasn't helped his campaign. Appearing Thursday should do a lot to ameliorate his image and in every way it can only be a win-win for McCain and Letterman.

It's clear that Ellen DeGeneres didn't know what she was in for when she sobbed on her television show earlier this week about a dog rescue gone bad. Ellen cried as she told the audience how she adopted a dog from an animal rescue organization, but it didn't get along with her cats, so she gave it to her hairdresser. That violated the agency's adoption rules, so the agency took the dog away from the heartbroken hairdresser and her family. Ellen pleaded for the agency to return the dog and apologized for screwing up.

Then things got ugly. Fans of Ellen began harassing the rescue organization by sending angry--and sometimes threatening--emails. The owner of the organization said the threats scared her so badly that she closed her doors and stayed home on Wednesday.

On today's show, Ellen asks viewers to leave the organization alone. But she also says that she wants it to return the dog to the hairdresser because the woman's daughter is so attached to it.