Other Crap

Cardinals select Ratzinger as the new pope Pope. He will take the name Benedict XVI.

• Given his age, the cardinals might just want to hang around Rome and catch a few shows before the next conclave.
• The last time a German was pope, England was still in Saxon hands and its king was Edward the Confessor! Victor II , the pope from 1055 to 1057, came from Swabia (Schwaben), the Black Forest region of Germany. His successor was from Lorraine, so I guess he could be called German, sort of, but he only lasted a year anyway, so the German popes ended either in 1057 or 1058.