Also from the Guardian:
The “Is there white smoke” coming out the Sistine Chapel? The smoke coming from the chimney in this web page will turn white once a Pope is elected:
A great! A Nazi pope, followed by a mafiosi pope, followed by …
…Hmmm…
an Al Queda pope?
an IRA pope?
a Tamil Tiger pope?
Have to be a Tamil. You really need to be Catholic which pretty much rules out al Qaida, and most of the IRA, (at least the Provos), were Marxist atheists, but there are quite a few Catholics in Southeast India and Sri Lanka.
I’m sure there were lots of Catholic IRA members. My dad knew some of them. But they may also have been Marxists. That’s something they wouldn’t talk about at the fundraisers Dad dragged me to around Chicago.
If you’re willing to categorize Benedict XVI as a “Nazi Pope”, you can presumably exercise a similar latitude in identifying al-Qaida popes, IRA popes and Tamil Tiger popes!
Well said! But we know he was in the Hitler Youth and he says he ran away. For all we really know, he could have been Robin to Hitler’s Batman, if Batman was a sick old Nazi. Which now that I think about it… Have you ever seen them in the same room?
I’d like to know how the flue gets to the roof. Surely they don’t have a hole in Michelangelo’s artwork, do they? I imagine it enters the walls somewhere but it would be cool if there was a drawing or picture showing the detail.
The volume of smoke is pretty impressive. I imagined one of the Cardinals saying “I was a Boy Scout, let me do the fire”.
They must be burning the records from the internal investigations.
Smoke signals. What is this, F-Troop? How about picking up a cell phone, ferchrissakes.
Judging by the behavior of the leadership … yes. Pope Parmenter, Cardinals O’Rourke and Agarn.
Well, they’ve decided. The choice should be revealed within an hour (currently 2:15 eastern).
A quickie conclave
The last few have all been pretty quick.
I miss the old days when a crowd would poke spears through the walls as incentive, and the picturesque threat to the cardinals to “make your heads redder than your hats.”
Since Pope Benedict’s decision to step down happened over a month ago, cardinals had a lot of time to think about their choice and exchange with other cardinals, so that might have helped with the quick decision.
So why isn’t this in the Elections forum? Did Nate Silver make any predictions?
Fewest ballots in over a century.
Agreed.
Benedict XVI was chosen on the fourth ballot in 2005, and so was John Paul I in 1978. This one took five ballots.
It was, but the mods decided here it belonged.
Heh, I noticed a funny Google News match, in the “Watch Coverage” of the Pope election the top videos show the white smoke, in the middle of those video clips the Google News bot added a “Twinkies are Saved” clip. (The white filling? The miraculous salvation of the twinkie? A Catholic connection with the new owners? Or does Google knows something else?) 
“Duuuude, look at all the white smoke … it’s like, a cloud of cool, heh heh heh. Wait … what was I talking about? Oooh. Twinkies! We have to get some Twinkies!”
That’s my guess.