And Speaking of Curious Choices So the new pope is a 78-year-old former member of the Hitler Youth who believes that Catholicism is the "true" religion and all other faiths are deficient. According to the Times, the newly-named Benedict XVI "has repeatedly condemned religious pluralism" and has argued that concern about child molestation by priests "is intentional, manipulated, that there is a desire to discredit the church."

Ratzinger has also reinforced the ban on women priests and attacked feminism as ignoring biological differences. He's anti-gay, anti-birth control, anti-stem cell research....

Well...this should be interesting. Without knowing, of course, how Ratzinger's papacy will turn out, let me just suggest that secretive selection processes have not served the world's iconic instititutions well in recent years.

Which reminds me of John Bolton....but that's a blog entry for another time....  ¶ 9:02 AM