San Diego Comic-Con

Arnold Schwarzenegger was blunt in his description of his new movie role: Take a knife, cut a head off, kill a guy. And he was playful in his follow-up. “You wish you could do some of those things when you’re in politics, but you can’t,” he said. Tanned and glowing in an open-collared white shirt and sport coat, Mr. Schwarzenegger introduced 6,000 roaring fans to his new action film, “The Expendables 2” — and talked death counts with the movie’s co-writer and star, Sylvester Stallone. Mr. Schwarzenegger acknowledged being competitive about these things. If Mr. Stallone killed 288 people in an action-career clip reel assembled for the convention, Mr. Schwarzenegger said his reel racked up 289. And, of course, he growled: “I’m back.” He returns in a cloud of carbon emissions, never mind the signature global warming legislation he enacted when he was California’s governor. In the movie’s trailer, his character, Trench, tears the door off a Smart Car, smokes bad guys with his machine gun and wags a fat cigar.Mr. Schwarzenegger was flanked on the stage at the San Diego Convention Center’s by several co-stars, including Terry Crews, Randy Couture and Dolph Lundgren. They are joined in the movie by Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Liam Hemsworth and Chuck Norris. - MICHAEL CIEPLY and BROOKS BARNES See also: Looking for Rats in Ratholes http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/opinion/re-evaluating-for-profit-college-rules.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120712