[Vatican City, July 10. Image via Getty]

Pope Benedict XVI (C) walks with US President Barack Obama (L) and US First Lady Michelle during an audience on July 10, 2009 at The Vatican. Obama was meeting Pope Benedict XVI for the first time, with their talks expected to cover both areas of agreement such as foreign policy and those that divide them, notably abortion. AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

• A fan of Britney Spears rushed up on stage and tried to dance with Brit Brit on Saturday night in Connecticut. He was quickly surrounded by backup dancers and "escorted" away. There's video. [Perez]

• The dude in question (at Britney's concert) was drunk. He was arrested for breach of the peace and also booked for being "highly uncooperative" while in custody. [Daily Mail]
• Madonna's case in the adoption of Mercy James will be in the Malawi Supreme Court today. Will Mercy's biological father — who opposes the adoption — try to derail the proceedings? [Times of London, UPI]
• Madonna and Demi Moore have bonded over Kabbalah and the fact that they both have younger men; a source says they're hoping to arrange a double date soon. Do you think they'll have milkshakes? One glass, four straws? [Daily Mail]
• Madonna's daughter Lourdes hearts Lady GaGa! Madge and Lola went to Lady G's show in NYC and Lourdes was "singing along to every word." What's amusing is that since GaGa's megablonde and cartoonish, she's almost like a young Madonna, no? [Gatecrasher]
• David Hasselhoff was rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning over the weekend. His 16-year-old daughter found him unconscious and he was "barely breathing" when they got to the emergency room. [Radar Online]
• Amy Winehouse left the hospital — where she'd been after collapsing for dehydration — and went to a bar. [The Sun]
• Angelina Jolie's "curved bullet kill" in Wanted has been nominated for an MTV Movie Award in a new category: Best WTF Moment. Possibly because MTV would love it if Angie showed up. [E!]
• By the by: Andrew Morton, who penned biographies of Princess Di, Monica Lewinsky and Tom Cruise, will write about Angelina Jolie next. [Page Six]
• Casey Aldridge, boyfriend and baby daddy to Jamie Lynn Spears, is out of the hospital after flipping his truck. A "source" says "They're both at the house in Liberty [Miss.]... Now Jamie Lynn will have two babies to care for." [E!, People]
• "I'm not embarrassed about being bisexual," says Pink, according to this disreputable paper. [News Of The World]
• Pink has Twittered: "I just read that I'm bisexual. So 1991. Good thing people write articles about me so I can get my facts [straight]." Apparently the interview with the News Of The World was "entirely fabricated." [NY Daily News]
• Words you probably never thought you would see together: "Robert Pattinson's penis implant." [Yahoo News via Bang Showbiz]
• Crap. Jenny McCarthy has inked a deal with Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions and will develop a talk show, which, of course, Jenny will host. What do you think she'll talk about? Autism? Anyone? [Yahoo News via Reuters]
• Wolverine had an $87 million opening weekend, which is huge. But holding on to it might be tough: Star Trek opens this Friday. [NY Post]
• Now that you've suffered through Wolverine, know this: Hugh Jackman will star in Ghostopolis, a flick about a man who works for the government's Supernatural Immigration Task Force. His job is to send ghosts who have escaped into our world back to Ghostopolis. It's what they call "high concept." [The Hollywood Reporter]
• A writer hangs out with famed trainer Tracy Anderson: "According to Tracy, if I commit to an hour of her exercise regime six days a week, for the rest of my life, just like Gwynnie and Madge (whose remarkable bodies she proudly takes responsibility for), a 'teeny, tiny, lean and mean' figure will be mine. Voilà." [Daily Mail]
• Scarlett Johansson's directorial debut — a segment for New York, I Love You — is going straight to DVD. It's being called "unwatchable" and a source says, "It was really bad, so it was cut." [Daily Mail]
• Bethenny Frankel, one of the Real Housewives of New York, went out to a Hula-Hoop competition with a date… and the Times. She wore "a baby T and skin-tight Paige jeans." And said: ""My friends call me 'That Girl,' like Marlo Thomas. Like, I'm in New York trying to figure it out." [NY Times]
• Real Housewife Kelly Bensimon says of her ex, the guy she allegedly gave a black eye: "What guy does that? He acted like he was Rihanna." Her attorney calls Nick Stefanov a "jilted moron." [Newser via NY Daily News]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Elisabeth Hasselbeck says: "I'm definitely not paying attention to my pregnancy." That makes two of us! [People]
• Jay-Z is living in post-racial America, you guys. He performed at the University of Arizona and later blogged: "On the show as well were Third Eye Blind and Kelly Clarkson ... I thought that had to be the oddest pairing ever, but soon realized it's what I've always professed. There's NO such thing as Black music or White music only Good or Bad music." [MTV via RapRadar.com]
• Rihanna's new man is an ex; she was seeing Negus Sealy before she "made it." A source says: "He's a really smart guy - clever, good looking, very cool. All the girls adore him and call him the Love God." [Daily Mail, NY Post]
• Victoria and David Beckham are house-hunting in Italy; he's been playing for AC Milan while Vicky and the kids stayed in L.A. since the boys are enrolled in CA schools, but now that summer's coming, it's Ciao, Hollywood. [Daily Mail]
• John "The Player" Mayer is single again. It seems that model he was dating talked too much. To the press. Although who knows. [Gatecrasher]
• Cindy Crawford's husband, Rande Gerber, is being sued for sexual harassment by two female employees at a San Diego business he owns. [Page Six]
• Someone asked Russell Brand if he would shag reported virgin Susan Boyle. "I don't think I should be the one to do that," he said. "Susan deserves a nice strapping farmer from the North." Related: What is wrong with people?!?! [The Sun]
• Gisele Bundchen rarely poses for pictures with her new husband Tom Brady: "Tom hates being photographed," she explains. [Gatecrasher]
• Mark McGrath is no longer the host of Extra, so he's trying to make music again. Sugar Ray comeback album, people. Titled: Music For Cougars. Naturally. [Page Six]
• Princess Eugenie was mugged in Cambodia. [Mirror]
• Enrique Iglesias and his manager allegedly ran over the foot of an 11-year-old girl as they were leaving a radio station appearance back in 2007. Lawsuit alert! [TMZ]
• A Little Britain movie could be coming to the United States. [The Sun]
• Sting's daughter, Coco Sumner, fell and fractured her skull outside of a restaurant. She is recovering "well." [Daily Mail
• Vanessa Hudgens has settled a breach of contract lawsuit filed against her by a producer who worked with her very early in her career. [UPI]
• Another day, another claim that Coldplay's music is stolen. This time it's Cat Stevens — sorry — Yusuf Islam, who says: "There's been this argument about Coldplay stealing this melody from Joe Satriani, but, if you listen to it, it's mine! It's the Foreigner Suite, it is!" [The Sun]
• An excerpt from a Paul Newman biography has details about the actor's relationship with Joanne Woodward — which started when he was married to someone else. "I was probably too immature to make a success of my first marriage," Newman allegedly said. "Guilty as hell" was how he described himself about his first marriage, adding: "And I'll carry it with me for the rest of my life." [Daily Mail]
• Blind item: "Which D-list rapper got in a hemp, er, heap, of trouble with event sponsors when he lit up a joint at their bash? They couldn't kick him out because he was the 'big' celebrity name of the night, but they didn't end up paying him." [Gatecrasher]
• "Famous female singers tend to moan and whine a lot about being famous. Damn, I'm Pink and my bank account hasn't seen a red zero for a long time, and I can do what I love best — sing. Isn't that something that makes life better?" — Pink. [News Of The World]
• "When you come to film in Rome, the official statement to you is that the Vatican has no influence. Everything progressed very smoothly, but unofficially a couple of days before we were to start filming in several of our locations, it was explained to us that through back channels and so forth that the Vatican had exerted some influence. Was I surprised? No. Am I a little frustrated at times? Sure." — Ron Howard, on shooting Angels & Demons. [AP]
• "It is good fun and the part feels like it was written for me. Chuck has witty lines, gets to dress up and has very nice clothes […] [Sometimes] I [keep and] wear the suits. They're killer, don't you think? There is a lot of stuff I wouldn't wear, but he really puts it together very well. The whole outfit just comes together as an interesting look." — Ed Westwick. [Mirror]
• "Nia is like a rock star over there. You walk down the streets of Greece and people just go nuts, it's like you're with Tom Cruise or something." — Rachel Dratch, who is in the new Nia Vardalos flick, My Life In Ruins. [CBS News]
• "I've always rather admired you but now I realise you're an absolute ——. I'm only sorry I didn't get a chance to kick you when I fell over – maybe next time." — Judi Dench, in response to a critic who called her latest play "deeply dodgy" and "fit only for pretentious masochists." [Telegraph]
• "All of these shows are derivative of the shows that we used to do. The topics, some of the story lines, they're all very similar to what we did every day on the show for 11 years. When you have dynamic people that have some sort of conflict and put them in a confined space together, it's bound to be dramatic." — Ricki Lake, new host of Charm School, thinks the reality genre is a lot like her old talk show. [NY Daily News]

"It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated," said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, "Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian Church is unjustified." Brazil's Catholic president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, disagreed with the Cardinal: "The doctors did what had to be done: save the life of a girl of nine years old," he said. [BBC]

"You don't work to limit the murder of innocent victims. You work to stop it," Judie Brown, the president of the American Life League adds. But couldn't they do both? Throwing their support behind more health care and opportunities for impoverished and campaigning to end abortion are not mutually exclusive things, as the more reasonable pro-lifers, like Douglas Kmiec, realize. "If one strategy has failed and failed over decades, and you have empirical information that tells how you can honor life and encourage women to make that choice by meeting real needs that are existing and tangible, why not do that?" Kmiec, a Catholic who voted for Obama tells the Post.

There's one Catholic who might not be as willing to compromise as Kmiec: the Pope According to Time, one of Obama's first moves in office may be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would undo some restrictions to abortion, and "could force doctors in Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their conscience." An insider at the Vatican tells Time, that if Obama signs the Freedom of Choice Act, "[I]t would be the equivalent of a war. It would be like saying: 'We've heard the Catholic Church and we have no interest in their concerns.'" The most unfortunate part of this potential is that the Obama administration and the Vatican have a lot of shared thoughts about foreign policy and the environment, and according to Time, "the possibility of an open clash over abortion could squander the potential for the Vatican to work side-by-side with Washington" on these issues."

Some Abortion Foes Shifting Focus From Ban To Reduction [Washington Post]
Will The Pope And Obama Clash Over Abortion? [Time]

You probably feel like a fool. Ohhh, poor you! How do you think fucking Ron Burkle feels about that $55 million?? Ron Burkle, a man whose name is not exactly synonymous with "integrity"! Ron Burkle, a man who spent a few hundred grand trying to sabotage the career of a fucking gossip columnist who pissed him off.

That's why I entreat you to read the indictment, Anne. Sure, some painful memories will come flooding back: the custom-made suits from Milan. The "flowers, cosmetics, clothes, wine, expensive dinners, dog walking services and orthodontist expenses." The $30,000 housecall. The Caribbean vacation in 2006. The two-story apartment in Rockefeller Center that Raffaello rented for visiting members of the clergy. The notable absence in said apartment of any visiting members of the clergy!

A wise woman once said: "A woman especially if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can." Wait, does that ring a bell?? Yeah, genius it was the tagline for Becoming Jane. The thing is, it doesn't apply to women who have no actual knowledge to conceal. And I'm not trying to get you to pull an Ophelia here but did the Feds even bother trying to question you? Did you ever get deposed? Let me tell you Anne, I would love love looooove to live in a world that allowed me to believe you waited until last week to dump him because you were recording his phone conversations, "backing up" his hard drives, strategically digging through his wastebaskets and mastering his rhetorical tics in preparation for your directorial debut, an epic black comedy on the striking guilelessness of powerful, influential, successful, and thoroughly rotten people when they believe themselves to be possibly in the presence of Christ Himself. At turns subtle and madcap, stark and decadent, it could serve as a scathing cinematic indictment of …well shit, you name it: organized religion, the human condition, Money, Power, the Vatican, vanity, "Love," your idiot self, even your ex-boyfriend.

But I somehow doubt it! Which is why right now, I hate to break it to you, he may be the one going to prison, but he is also kind of "winning."

Rafaello Follieri: The Indictment [WSJ]
Earlier: Vaticonned! How Anne Hathaway's Boyfriend Got Clinton To Underwrite Their Fabulous Romance

MEGAN: Whatever we talk about, can we agree that Bittergate is about to be as played-out as Reverend Wright?
MOE: I haven't been watching the news, so I was really confused by that. Like, okay, so...Obama is saying that people cling to religion in times of crisis, and...like hello have we not talked enough about Obama's religion already Jesus Fuck...and Hillary says that's elitist but she won't say when the last time she set foot in church...and the Pope is coming? Peggy Noonan wrote about the Pope coming. I couldn't quite get through the column though. I have always been one of those terrible Catholics who was like, "John Paul II...uh, what's the big deal?"
MEGAN: Nope, it's the new Pope, JPJ bought it a couple years ago. This is the one who used to be a Nazi, loves him the Opus Dei and the Latin masses and hates that you and I have teh sexes.

MOE: Speaking of which, over the weekend, Tracie and our friend Ryan and I went to a gay bar and burst into "On Eagle's Wings" followed by a "Be Not Afraid," "One Bread, One Body" "Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace" medley.
MEGAN: Oh, God, I miss all the fun by being in D.C.
MOE: No I know that there is a new pope DUH. I am just saying, it seems like everyone is comparing him with the old pope, who was so iconic and humanistic and crap; but I never really understood the hype about the old pope, maybe because he presided over an era of officially sanctioned child molestation? I dunno. I'm pondering this now.

MEGAN: I think the hype about the old Pope was that he eschewed the Pope Pius model of appeasing dictators (cough, Hitler, cough) and instead used the power of his office to confront them directly in countries where there were Catholics. Also, it was only once he was infirm and shit that the Church came to a détente with the Chinese about letting the Chinese government decide on Church officials because when JPJ wasn't laid up he mostly told the Chinese to go fuck themselves, but Benedict is fine with it.
MEGAN: Also, I think probably all the eras of the Church involved the sanctioning of inappropriate sexual or ethical behavior. Absolute power corrupts, yadda yadda

MEGAN: Notably, I left the Catholic Church at 16, so I'm not really a "Catholic" so much as an ex-Catholic with major leftover guilt issues.
MOE: Okay, so sure, he's cool. Let's play a game: The Avignon papacy or the Council of Nicea?
MOE: The Gospel of Tom or the Gospel of John?
MOE: Vatican I or Vatican II?
MEGAN: Hmm, was Vatican I the one in the late 19th century that declared that the Pope was infallible?
MOE: Karl Marx or Bill Kristol?

MEGAN: Karl Marx, but I was a German lit major AND a Sociology major. Also, I'd pay significant money to hear/videotape Bill Kristol reading crap in German
MOE: Okay, so Vatican 1 was indeed about papal infallibility. It was a controversial topic since it made Catholics seem like they had some sort of weird foreign allegiance, so everyone did like Barack Obama and didn't show up, then there was the Franco-Prussian war, which is why they had to revisit the issue a hundred years later. Papal infallibility is such a weird idea. How do you come into this world with Original Sin and achieve "infallibility" when you've NEVER EVEN HAD A REAL JOB?

MEGAN: Also, it was retroactive! I love that they went, oh, by the way, the last 1800 years? Those guys were totes infallible too, even the ones who were all Crusade-y and Inquisition-y. And it means that Pius was, like, totes right for making nice-nice with the Nazis and shit.

MOE: John Henry Newman, a fanboy of St. Augustine and the church's famous advocate for not talking about Papal infallibility, just skipping that discussion entirely.
MOE:

But he made no sign of disapproval when the doctrine was defined, and subsequently, in a letter nominally addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on the occasion of Mr William Ewart Gladstone's accusing the Roman Church of having "equally repudiated modern thought and ancient history," Newman affirmed that he had always believed the doctrine, and had only feared the deterrent effect of its definition on conversions on account of acknowledged historical difficulties. In this letter, and especially in the postscript to the second edition of it, Newman finally silenced all cavillers as to his not being really at ease within the Roman Church.

MOE: To me there's something Obamalike about that. Jeremiah Wright or John Henry Newman?
MEGAN: So, like, it's harder to make people convert to Catholicism if you ake shit up 2000 years in to quell dissent? Honey, it's hard to make people stay Catholic when you do that.
MEGAN: Jeremiah Wright. Newman's got, like, centers and shit on campuses everywhere.
MEGAN: Anyway, so, to get back to Bill Kristol, I have definitive evidence that he's either never read any further into his Marx reader than he had to to get that quote, or he's just misinterpreted the entire point of Marxism.

He's disdainful of small-town America — one might say, of bourgeois America.

In response to a question about when life began, Mrs. Clinton replied, "I believe that the potential for life begins at conception."

MOE: IMHO.
MEGAN: Also, apparently the head of PA's Democratic Party is a Hillary surrogate who just said that "she's the most vetted candidate in the Democratic Party's history" and that she's "ready to go to work on Day 1." Can we please, please, please stop hearing that bullshit phrase. You know what happens on Day 1? Everyone parties. There are balls upon balls and everyone gets drunk and then on Day 2 everyone hangover brunches. No President really starts Presidenting until Day 3 anyway.
MEGAN: And I agree with you on Hillary. I don't believe life begins at conception, and I think that abortions should only be as rare as the women who want and need them prefer they be and I think a candidate who thinks that s/he can save the world from abortions is being deliberately disingenuous and courting people I don't agree with.
MOE: Anyway I'd say I'm an agnostic who finds comfort in faith. Because — and speaking of cowards, for every Alberto Gonzales not getting a job, there seem to be a hundred men gangraping children in the name of God, a billion people paying for America's nonsense wastefulness in their stomachs.

MEGAN: Although, isn't it some weird turn of fate that the guy calling for more money to feed the world's poor is a former Bushie?
MOE: That's a good point. Ever the optimist. So...Haiti got sick of eating dirt for breakfast.

MEGAN: Well, that should work out well again. Why does Haiti suck so much worse than anywhere else in the Caribbean?
MOE: Here's the dirt cookies post, which has a decent link to a web page called "Why is Haiti so poor?" The answer is just sort of an orgy of miserable circumstances, the type that lead a person to take comfort and solace in absurdity, which is sort of like my faith. Like, when Jesus comes back he will be an existentialist stand up comedian.
MEGAN: Or Muslim. That would be pretty funny.
MOE: OH my god he will sooooooooo be a Muslim and his middle name will be Hussein. Hey, wanna write a screenplay?
MOE: He'll be a Muslim from Yemen.
MEGAN: Wait, wait, no, a Palestinian!
MOE: Okay but can he escape to Yemen?
MOE: Because that would be absurd.
MEGAN: Yeah, he could "cross the desert" of Saudi Arabia in 40 days to get there.
MOE: OMG and at the end he would marry Ashley Alexandra Dupre.