The Pope was in his office at the Vatican trying to get some work done.
Holiness, Bill Gates calling.
Pope: The real Bill Gates or some loco gringo pretending to be Bill Gates? Sighs. Put the gringo through.
Gates: Holiness, this is a great honor!
Pope: I am sure it is, what can I do for you Senor Gates?
Gates: Well, as you may have heard my wife and I have decided to divorce. It was a painful decision and my wife is a fervent Catholic.
Pope: (As “fervent” I am sure as their loco Presidente Biden. Gringos, always playacting!) The divorce is sad news Senor Gates. Have you come to me for spiritual counseling?
Gates: Well no holiness. My wife has told me that she will not divorce me unless the Church grants us an annulment.
Pope: After dos muchachas and un muchacho? That would be some annulment! (Crazy rich gringo!)
Gates: We understand there would be complications Holiness but I would be ever so grateful for anything you could do.
Pope: (Typical gringo! Thinks the all-mighty Yanqui dollar can solve everything!) Sighs. We have our procedures Mr. Gates. Perhaps if you would confide in me as to why your marriage is failing.
Gates: It has been a fantastic marriage Holiness and Melinda and I still love and respect each other. We have just decided that we need to part so we can go on with version 2.0 of our lives!
Pope: (Ugh. Gringo nerds are the worst type of Gringo. I will have some fun with this senorito.) It wasn’t because you were sleeping with a Chinese puta?
Gates: Taken aback. Stutters. That-that is just some media lie Holiness!
Pope: Of course. Of course. Perhaps it was because of your friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, who of course did not kill himself?
Gates: Shocked. I barely knew the man!
Pope: As I stated Senor Gates, the Church has her procedures regarding annulments. The case of you and your wife will receive the same consideration that all such cases receive, no more and no less.
Gates: Slyly. My friends in the Chinese government were hoping that you would take a personal interest in this case Holiness.
Pope: (So the wind blows from el este!) I promise that I will do what I can senor Gates.
Gates: Thank you Holiness! Be certain my thanks will be shown in the coming weeks in a material fashion!
Pope: Grumpily. Chao Senor Gates.
The call ends. Holiness your next call–
Pope: Basta! Take a message, whoever it is, and give me 30 minutos!
Pope: (I need a shower. Benedict had the truth of it. Retire and spend the rest of your life in prayer and contemplation. I am so cansado of all this. Perhaps I should ask that crazy gringo PopeWatch for advice on this. Perhaps.)
Yes, probably pretty much what actually happened. “Pope” has to retain a little dignity–for appearance sake.
Bill Gates is the founder and chairman of TerraPower, a company that intends to build a sodium cooled fast neutron travelling wave reactor to consume existing reserves of used nuclear fuel from light water reactors, and a molten chloride salt homogeneous fast neutron reactor that can either consume used nuclear fuel or breed U-233 fuel from Th-232.
https://www.terrapower.com/people/bill-gates/
Bill Gates does NOT want to build such reactors in the United States. Why? because the safety regulations of the US NRC are too onerous. But he is willing to market these design in the People’s Republic of China (where safety really doesn’t mean very much).
I don’t trust this man at all, especially with the power of the atom. He is a dangerous and evil person.
PS, I am very disappointed that Kristine Svinicki, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), recently joined TerraPower’s Board. BTW, Joe Biden dismissed her at the end of her term at the US NRC because she is a Republican. He appointed Democrat Christopher T. Hanson who has master’s degrees from Yale Divinity School and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where he focused on ethics and natural resource economics, and from which (the divinity school) he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies from Valparaiso University. By contrast Kristine Svinicki has a degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan in 1988. So maybe she’ll do Bill Gates some good, but it’s obvious that our geriatric imbecile of a President doesn’t know enough to make bona fide nuclear engineers commissioners in the US NRC. Godless worthless liberal progressive feminist Democrats. Speaking of which – why dismiss a female nuclear engineer for a male liberal arts major as NRC Chairman? Why? Aren’t the worthless useless Democrats supposed to be all pro-women?
@LQC: “ Aren’t the worthless useless Democrats supposed to be all pro-women?”
I suspect a rhetorical question here, but of course the answer is “Republican women are not real women so they don’t count.” Or something like that.
As an insider, LQC, do you believe the NRC is necssary? I know nothing of what it does other than making the construction and operation of any new nuclear power plants effectively impossible.