The pope visits Canada for World Youth Day. Actually, for the Catholic Church, every day is world youth day, if you know what I mean.

Headline in today’s NY Times: “Bishops Select Lay Board on Sexual Abuse Review.” Double entendre heaven, I hardly know where to begin, with the “lay board” or with “sexual abuse review,” which I see as a Siskel-Ebert sort of thing--the thin priest gives “Father Brian Sodomizes Little Jimmy the Choir Boy” a big thumbs up, but the fat priest thinks it was derivative and doesn’t compare to Father Brian’s early, funny sodomies. (OK, maybe not the place for a Woody Allen reference, or maybe the perfect place.)

Actually, the board has no members of victims groups and just one psychiatrist, who is a founder of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and regularly testifies in court that victims are just making it up. Another member is Robert Bennett, last seen as Bill Clinton’s lawyer. I think I preferred his early, funny sex scandals.

Alaska’s Lt. Governor Fran Ulmer, according to a badly written AP sentence, “took a break from her campaign to become the state’s first female governor to shop for a smaller handgun.” They have really specific elections up there.

The old one didn’t fit in her purse, in case you were wondering.

The House votes to ban “partial-birth abortions.” With no exception for the health of the mother. The bill actually states as fact that it is never necessary for the health of the mother. Congress should be prosecuted for practicing both medicine and assholery without a license.

A gay couple got married in Vermont. Their home state, Connecticut, doesn’t recognize the marriage. So they can’t get a divorce, because while Vermont will marry people who don’t live there, it won’t give divorces to them.