Two odd meetings next week

1. Dick Cheney is going to Rome to meet, amongst others, the Pope. The word of Hobbes meets the word of the Lord. Maybe Dick is there as an emissary of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, as it seeks to get its story straight about what the Pope did or did not say about the Mel Gibson movie.

2. Friday's Irish Times reports that:

The Taoiseach, along with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, will meet the [Democratic Unionist Party] leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, and other leading party figures in the Irish Embassy next Thursday.

What's odd about this meeting is not so much that's likely be a screamfest, which would meet everyone's expectations, but the location: since all relevant parties to the meeting live in Ireland, it's not clear why they have to go to London to meet each other, let alone to the Irish Embassy. In fact the location is suggestive of a Paisleyite stunt, to which Bertie Ahern inexplicably agreed -- Paisley will meet at a location that clearly acknowledges the Republic as a foreign country. On its website, Bertie's party, Fianna Fail, continues to describe itself as "the Republican Party." They might want to change it to Simply Oirish.

UPDATE: Even the former Loyalist terrorists, unlike Paisley, are willing to come to Dublin for meetings. Monday's Irish Times:

The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will tonight meet a delegation of loyalists linked to the Ulster Defence Association at a secret location in Dublin.