Happy Good Friday, Pope Has Diplomatic Immunity

Wasn't a very Good Friday forJesus, now was it? And it's not a very good Friday for the leader of the Roman church, which claims a very sketchy direct descendancy from Jesus himself, who was reportedlyexecutedby the Romans. Anyway, who cares, it's Spring, celebrate it however you like. Bunnies procreate, birds build nests, flowers rise from the cold dead ground and so did the weird ghost of Jesus, only to spend a few weeks wandering around the same dull fishing towns where he used to work, and then *poof*, into the sky, "Ah'll be back ... in a bit," but not really. And because of this and the foul legacy of the "Papal States," Joseph Ratzinger's lawyers claim he can't be imprisoned for overseeing the rape of all those thousands of children entrusted to the church.

Secret correspondence between the Los Angeles diocese and the Vatican has just been revealed in court, proving that the child-molesting situation was well known to the Church as far back as 1963. (Sorry, Ross Douthat, but even the Beatles wore suits and ties and married their girlfriends back then. Maybe you can blame hobbits for this, somehow?) [ Scotsman / Irish Times ]

• More than 158,000 personal bankruptcies were filed last month, nearly 7,000 per day and up 35% fromFebruary. Meanwhile, millions of working poor are losing huge chunks of their paychecks to collection agencies suing for unpaid credit-card balances and keeping almost all of it for interest, penalties and legal fees. [ New York Times / New York Times ]

• Israel is bombing the hell out of the Gaza Strip again, right now, because things weren't bad enough in Gaza. Hoppy Easter! [ BBC News ]

• Congressmen who live in the rent-subsidized Christian Sex Freak mansion on C Street are the target of an ethics probe, sexytime! Bart Stupak, Heath Shuler, Tom Coburn and Sam Brownback live in the luxurious creep hut and pay less than $950 a month in rent -- comparable rentals or hotel rooms cost thousands of dollars more. John Ensign used to live there, until his sex-crimes became too gross even for these Christian wingnuts all living together, and Mark Sanford showed up last year to get "counseling" after he was caught boning that gal in South America all the time. [ BlueRidgeNow / The Hill ]