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Join us on January 19th for Global Warming, Cap & Trade, Dollars & Sense.

I nearly fainted when this number from UK’s Daily Mail arrived in my inbox yesterday morning, sent by a friend who probably also nearly fainted.

The Pope condemns the climate change prophets of doom

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering. . .

Right after my urge to quickly find a new planet to inhabit given that the primo Man of God on the planet we’re occupying would be that intemperate, I . . . uh . . . looked at what the Pope actually said (you see, he’s got his own website in all sorts of languages, very handy when one is actually trying to understand what the Pope says).

In the interest of refusing to cherry-pick, please just read the entire items under #7 and #8. It will take you 5 minutes max and you’ll be oh-so-much-more-informed than everyone else. The Pope offered up a fair caution to avoid hasty action based on ideology rather than fact, while still urging that we act. Suffice it to say that the Pope clearly strived for an intelligent, balanced assessment of the situation, sort of like what you’d like to hear from – er - a world religious leader.

Ah, but not so with the press. (And I believe in this case I am applying the term “press” loosely.) UK’s Daily Mail and “journalist” Simon Caldwell might want to keep an eye cast heavenward for bolts of lightening with their name on it. Not far behind them is Fox News who proclaims that “Global Warming Skeptics Have Friend in the Vatican” and proceeds to pick out only the parts of the Pope’s address that support their pre-existing opinion before they read his address, and by “reading” it I mean not reading it.

Then there’s the blogosphere. Conservative site “The Free Republic” posted the Daily Mail screed, to which readers made the predictable “you’ll never read this in the mainstream media” comments. Nor, I believe, will you find the big news that Elvis is actually living on a previously undiscovered Samoan island romping with primordial sea creatures and practicing his lounge act for Komodo dragons to prep for his big plans to re-debut on “American Idol” next season. Or did The Enquirer do that one already?

And the big Village Square civility thumbs-down goes to a blog on the left, Wonkette, for this beauty (cover the children’s eyes):

The Pope Sucks

Pope Benedict XVI has decided to stick his little Nazi head directly up Al Gore’s peaceful a** by calling global warming fears nothing but “scare-mongering.” He will make these completely unnecessary and regressive remarks, coincidentally, for World Peace Day on Jan. 1. That’s the same day when we’ll be wishing the Pope a jolly f***-you. [*My edits, they didn’t bother.]

Let’s just say that today I’m not so worried that The Village Square will run out of work.