Pope Benedict will grant Nancy Pelosi an audience tomorrow. The notoriously conservative Pope is apparently granting legitimacy to Nancy Pelosi's fraudulent misrepresentation of church father's views on abortion--Thomas Aquinas and Augustine were pro-choice.

I've long been interested in the dynamics of religious movements, which nowadays is also the dynamics of political movements.

Churches, like any large voluntary organization, have at their core a contradiction. In order to attract newcomers, they must have low barriers to entry. They must be unintimidating, friendly, and compatible with the culture they are a part of. In order to retain their membership, however, they need to have an identity distinct from that culture. They need to give their followers a sense of community—and community, exclusivity, a distinct identity are all, inevitably, casualties of growth. As an economist would say, the bigger an organization becomes, the greater a free-rider problem it has. If I go to a church with five hundred members, in a magnificent cathedral, with spectacular services and music, why should I volunteer or donate any substantial share of my money? What kind of peer pressure is there in a congregation that large? If the barriers to entry become too low—and the ties among members become increasingly tenuous—then a church as it grows bigger becomes weaker.

Well you can't get lower than zero, so I guess that Roman Catholic church is near death.

Robert Wagner, now 80 and schlepping reverse mortgage scams for a living, is having his memoirs serialized by the Daily Mail. Is there anything more pathetic than an eighty year old man talking about his sexual conquests?

The real affairs, however, had considerably more charm. One night, I met the great actress Joan Crawford at a cocktail party and was surprised when she suggested I follow her back to her house. When we got there, she invited me for a swim, telling me there were some trunks down by the pool and I could help myself. I did so and got in the pool.

After a few minutes, Joan, who was 25 years older than me, came out of the house with nothing on, dived gracefully off the board, swam the length of the pool underwater and came up right between my legs.

'Hi there!' she said in her most vivacious voice. It was a lovely, creative invitation and I responded accordingly.

Reminds me of Geraldo's boast of having slept with Bette Midler--distinctly creepy.

I don't know why his publisher thought this would be a good idea, because its doubtful his peer group is much interested and pretty much anybody under the age of sixty-five has lived through the sexual revolution and won't be terribly impressed. How much more interesting his memoir would be if he could tell us something more about these remarkable women than the quality of their sexual appetites.

And there's the rub.

Wagner apparently never evolved past the archaic view of women as sexual objects and not much else. He's a sad reminder that the greatest generation weren't great at everything.

I do like the photo of Liz Taylor though. A much better memory than the risible image she's portrayed for the last twenty years or so.

The New York Times interviews Ann Coulter:

Do you consider yourself as speaking for the conservative movement, or just someone who has attracted many conservative fans? Something else?

I THINK I SPEAK FOR ALL AMERICANS WHO THINK NEWSPAPER EDITORS WHO PRINT THE DETAILS OF TOP-SECRET ANTI-TERRORIST INTELLIGENCE GATHERING PROGRAMS ON PAGE ONE IN WARTIME SHOULD BE EXECUTED FOR TREASON.

This is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vp of AIG’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of AIG. While quitting AIG Mr DeSantis delineates the disgrace of Liddy, who wants to perform a civic duty in winding down AIG, but simply lacks courage to stand against the political storm from Congress and the Attorney Generals of New York and Connecticut. Congress passed an unconstitutional, confiscatory, retrospective law against the AIG employees, convenient scapegoats lest popular rage turn against the criminals in Congress. The Attorney Generals threatened to publish the home details of AIG employees who kept what they had earned - which everyone understands is blackmail.

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

Colin Powell expressed "concern" over Obama's ambitious political agenda to create a permanent entitlement class that would be forced to vote Democrat for the rest of their lives. By now its pretty clear that Powell's only loyalty is to himself--a point made clear by this excerpt.

Mr. Powell was considered a possible Republican presidential candidate as early as 1996, and in 2007 he donated the maximum amount allowed to Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who won the GOP primary. But less than a month before last fall's general election, Mr. Powell endorsed Mr. Obama over Mr. McCain.

After the Fort Hood massacre, one of my friends was surprised to learn our military bases are actually gun free zones. Another irony of military life. Chances are, if Major Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire off post, there might have been a concealed weapon available. In 1991, a gunman did open fire in a Luby's cafeteria in Killeen - the town outside Fort Hood - and killled 23 people. Suzzanna Hupp, a patron who lost both her parents in that massacre, had left her gun in her car because she did not have a concealed carry permit. As a result of the Luby massacre, Texas reduced the restrictions for concealed carry permits.

Another thing that non-military experienced folks might not be aware of is that as a medical officer, Major Hasan is considered a non-combatant. Despite the image of Frank Burns brandishing a firearm, medical personnel may not use arms against enemy forces acting in conformity with the law of armed conflict. Of course there is that caveat "acting in conformity with the law of armed conflict" - since when has America had an enemy oblige? Nonetheless, the U.S. conforms to the law. Speculation that Major Hasan was conflicted about fighing Muslims is baseless. He wouldn't have been permitted to even if he desired.

Tiger Wood's recent woes illustrate how silly its become to distinguish between NBC and the National Enquirer. Both are covering the story in exactly the same way and with the same ferocity. Meanwhile evil, conspiring men seek to hijack the world economy for their personal benefit, riding the fiction of global warming--move on, no story here.

Nevertheless, its hard to feel sorry for a guy who essentially makes his living off of the nation's collective obsession with the lives of people who display superlative skill at children's games. His 100 million a year income from sponsors like Nike is based solely on this strange hero worship.

Understanding that the public image is the cash cow, why would Woods jeopardize everything he has to have sex with women not as attractive as his own wife? Self-esteem problems?

Well, I doubt we'll ever get an answer to that eternal question, but more interesting is the news that Wood's lawyers are negotiating with Elin, or more likely with her legal representation, to renegotiate the prenuptial agreement as an inducement for her to stay in the marriage.

“The links legend's spouse is reportedly being paid a hefty seven-figure amount — immediately transferred into an account she alone controls — to stick with her husband,” Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker reported. He goes on to write that Elin demanded and is getting a total rewrite of the couple’s prenuptial agreement. The couple wed in 2004 and have two children.

Reportedly, the couple had an agreement that stipulated they must remain married for 10 years in order for Elin to collect a settlement of $20 million, and that is the part of the settlement being negotiated.

If she stays two years, she doubles the payout of the original prenup. If she stays seven, she quintuples it.

This is what I call a rock and a hard place for Elin. If she takes the money, she's effectively saying the marriage is ended and she'll whore-it-out for two or seven years. Tiger is going to know it as well, and thus feel free to resume his extra-marital life-style. Now she's the wronged wife, but after this deal, she becomes a very unsympathetic character who might well have a difficult time living with herself in spite of her tainted gains.

From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense--from a personal point-of-view, Elin would probably be better of taking the 20 million (which is a LOT of money) and keep her dignity.

Tiger has screwed up his life beyond repair no matter what happens. It. wouldn't be far from the truth to say that Tiger has lost his soul. He should ask himself if all these women he's been sleeping with would be sleeping with him if he wasn't one of the highest paid athletes in the world. With the dissolution of his marriage, perhaps only his mother will still love him for himself. Tiger will be a sort of Gollum--a vessel for the commercially viable image with no independent identity.

Sounds like a horror story. A modern American life.

You probably didn't hear much about this.

the trip epitomized a national story with anguished, almost operatic dimensions: a young leader forced to shake hands with the man who he believes killed his father. And it served as a reminder of this region’s deep attachment to political symbolism.

For many Lebanese, the visit was a measure of Syria’s renewed influence over Lebanon after years of bitterness and struggle since the Syrian military’s withdrawal in 2005. That withdrawal came after Mr. Hariri’s father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was killed in a car bombing that many here believe to have been ordered by Syria.

The withdrawal was a blow to Syrian prestige, and afterward Saad Hariri seemed to have the entire Western world at his back as he built a movement for greater Lebanese independence and pushed for an international tribunal to try his father’s killers.

But since then, the United States and the West have chosen to engage with Syria, not isolate it. And Saudi Arabia, which has long backed Mr. Hariri and competed with Syria for influence here, reconciled with the Syrians earlier this year, leaving them a freer hand to guide politics in Lebanon as they once did.

Maybe you heard more about this.

DAMASCUS, Syria (April 4, 2007) "We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," Pelosi told reporters after her talks with Assad.

Pelosi said she and her delegation "expressed our concern about Syria's connections to Hezbollah and Hamas" and discussed the issue of militant fights slipping across the Syrian border into Iraq. "These are important issues not only in the fight against terrorism but important priorities for us for peace in the Middle East," she said.

Take Nancy at her word. She and the rest of the elite Democrat establishment truly do believe they are acting in the best interests of the country. The problem lies in how you and I and elite Democrats define 'best interests'.

We catch occasional glimpses into a foreign policy that Democrats dare not articulate clearly and publicly because it represents such a drastic about-face for a 50 year foreign policy doctrine and the moral basis used to sell it.

We are kicking the Jews to the curb.

They've clearly got to take care here, because there are millenialist religious elements combined with decades of Holocaust sympathy woven into the very fabric of American life. Support for Israel is seen by many Americans as divinely approved and an extension of the American role during the second world war, as the defender of freedom and democracy. The political risks are enormous. Yet many in the Democrat political establishment have concluded that Israel is an albatross around our necks for both practical reasons, as well as an affront to the Leftist moral principles of racial diversity and social justice. Put in another way, the Left would have cheered the Visigoth sack of Rome as a simple matter of justice, and accepting a millenium of 'dark age' as an acceptable price to pay.

One must remember of course that Democrats are a coalition, and that just because it has a contingent of Visigoth cheerleaders, doesn't mean the entire party is in lock-step with that thinking. Some think chaos in the middle east is good for the western world because it will force us to adopt green technologies and abandon our dependence on oil--you know, mandate technological progress.

Therein lies the paradox of the Left--naivete and political sophistication all rolled up in the same package.

Don't forget arrogance though. Lots of arrogance in that mix.

You have to admire the subtlety in the entire matter. Pelosi didn't have to say anything substantive, she just had be photographed with Assad. That told the Lebanese, the Iranians and the Israelis everything they needed to know. Subsequent foreign policy impotence by Barack Obama confirmed the message.

Unfortunately, at least a couple of millenia of statecraft experience strongly suggests that they are making a huge mistake. Machiavelli would have been aghast.

This has been a low, dishonest year in American politics. To Nile Gardiner's neat ranking of Obama's 10 worst foreign policy blunders, I'd add this shining turd of appeasement - cancelling his meeting with the Dalai Lama 'to keep China happy'.

Why? 10 reasons:

1. Appeasement doesn't work.
2. Weakness is provocative.
3. DL has the Congressional Gold Medal, America's highest civilian award.
4. In 2008 candidate Obama told President Bush to boycott the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony to protest China's repression in Tibet.
5. So did Hillary Clinton, the current SecState.
6. Nine other Presidents met the DL.
7. Tibetan patriots in Chinese jails are betrayed.
8. Iran's tyrants are emboldened and Iran's dissidents weakened.
9. It's a disgrace to America.
10 The DL has the Nobel Peace Prize.

When I was researching for a little talk about Sherpas which I gave this afternoon to my daughter's 3rd grade class in NJ, I came across this 1950's shot of the DL (on the right) with Mao before the 1959 clamp down and the DL's flight from Tibet.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

So, once again, the Obama administration has sold Great Britain, formerly our #1 ally, down the river, along with the inhabitants of the Falklands, whose opinions would seem to count for something. We are past the point where anyone could doubt that the Obama administration's hostility toward the U.K. is intentional. Obama seems to have substituted personal pathology for national policy.

Investors Business Daily here:

The U.S., which backed Britain to the hilt when Argentina invaded its Falklands in 1982, has suddenly gone neutral on who has sovereignty over the islands. This is much more than a bad slap to our best ally.

Remember April Glaspie, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq who infamously told Saddam Hussein in 1990: "But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." To Saddam, that was a green light from the U.S. to invade his tiny neighbor.

Today, we hear similar language from the U.S. on another territorial dispute that may take us down the same road.

My gut reaction is to re-deploy the Royal Navy from Afghanistan to the Falklands and then annexe the US Virgin Islands (I've long coveted St John's, USVI, where they already drive on the left) and then burn down Washington, tho I expect you'd cheer us on this time. I'm telling you, Yanks, you're pissing off Americaphiles like me, not because your scummiest President and dopey Hillary are doing doo-doo on our alliance, but because your decent leaders are silent. Palin and Romney should be screaming blue murder. Don't take Gordon Brown's quietism as a guide. He's more supine than Obama.

Meanwhile I suggest Hillary asks Argentina for some troops for Afghanistan while she's so popular in B.A. They make good sandbags.

Exit question: What was the best thing that ever happened to Argentina?

Answer: Getting whacked by Britain in 1982 which led directly to the fall of the murderous military junta and then democracy. There should be statues of Thatcher on every street corner. She liberated Argentina.

There's a General Election here tomorrow. For me the best outcome would be for UKIP, the UK Independence Party, to do well enough to get the faux-conservative, Cameron, sacked from the Conservative Party leadership. In fact Cameron will likely be Prime Minister 2 days from now, a true triumph of Cultural Marxism, when supposed conservatives take liberal ideology as a given. But I still voted Conservative, dammit: