BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

Gotta love those Global Warming deniers. Safe behind their keyboards. Since so far, this summer has been cool they're saying, "SEE - no Global WARMING! It's COOL out!" Get a clue. The fact that the predictable weather patterns are varying should tell you something. But most of them aren't gardeners like me, out tending flowers and growing a few veggies to serve to my family (tomatoes and my herbs are doing well so far this year, thanks!). No they'd rather bloviate from their computers and central air conditioned condos. Duh. And don't ask to debate them. Those bullies will just cut you off and scream louder. HOAX! I wonder if there's Global Warming in Hell? GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS ARE ON THIN ICE by Joel Connelly Chilling news on hot topics takes different forms, witness two e-mails that arrived cheek-by-jowl one afternoon last week. Sea ice in the Arctic thinned dramatically between the 2004 and 2008 winters, with thin seasonal ice supplanting thic...

Wonder if all the 'missionizing' Catholics are really going to stop? After meeting the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, and praying at the Western Wall on Tuesday, Pope Benedict XVI arrived for a historic meeting with the chief rabbis at Heichal Shlomo, next to the capital's Great Synagogue, and agreed that the Catholic Church will cease all missionary activity among Jews. In his welcoming address, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger thanked the pope for his announcement, calling it an "historic agreement and, "for us, an immensely important message." Metzger also congratulated the pope on his arrival to "our holy land - the land to which we prayed to return during 2,000 years of exile... And, with God's help, our meeting today is taking place in the Land of Israel, in our city of Jerusalem - the eternal capital of the Jewish people." In a hint of criticism over Benedict's speech at Yad Vashem on Monday, which was received wi...

by Will Heaven For the first time since the death of Pope John Paul II, Catholic-Jewish relations have become strained. Pope Benedict XVI, in an effort to heal a 20-year-old schism in the Catholic Church, has allowed a high-profile Holocaust denier back into his fold. But must the views of one lunatic bishop put an end to interreligious dialogue? Surely not. Now, more than any other time in our troubled history, Catholics and Jews must stand together against the threat of Islamism. The Holocaust-denying Bishop Williamson is, by all accounts, a deeply unpleasant and ignorant man. Despite being educated at Cambridge University, he rejects the existence of the gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps. In doing so, he denies the Holocaust as a historical event, claiming that "only" 300,000 Jews perished. To Roman Catholics, these views are intolerable. The pope has expressed his disapproval in the strongest terms, saying to an American Jewish delegation, "The hatred that was...

As a former devout Catholic, this sort of fuzzy P.R. and obfuscation coupled with fence-sitting was typical from Catholic hierachy. And one of the things that drove me from the Church. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Pope Benedict XVI to make a "very clear" rejection of Holocaust denials after the Vatican's rehabilitation of a former bishop who questioned whether 6 million Jews were gassed by the Nazis. Merkel's rare and public demand came amid increasing outrage among Germany's Roman Catholic leaders over the pope's decision to lift the excommunication of British-born Richard Williamson. Merkel said she "does not believe" there has been adequate clarification of the Vatican's position on the Holocaust amid the controversy. Benedict last week expressed "full and indisputable solidarity" with Jews and warned against any denial of the horror of the Holocaust, but several leading German bishops have decried the decision and call...

***holes of the Week by Paul Krassner 1. ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson, who is perhaps the worst offender when it comes to condescending verbal postscripts to news stories, this time following a report on the threat of global warming to penguins with this comment: "They just make you smile." 2. Department of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff, for simultaneously instilling fear and gaining psychic brownie points by simultaneously claiming that a gut feeling told him a terrorist attack could occur this summer and covering his ass if it were to happen; of course my speculation as to his motivation is just a gut feeling. 3. Pope Benedict XVI, who, by approving a document perpetrating the notion that Christian communities are either defective or not true churches, and that Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation, thereby indicating that yet another religious leader is a bigoted nut. Can I add Sen. David Vitter for talking the talk about being God-fearing , a fa...

HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS & INFLUENCE PARISHONERS My Nana, of blessed memory, used to tell me, "Barbara, even a worm will turn." What she meant was, given enough time, power and sense of entitlement - some people will even turn on those who were once their friends. My Nana was a formidable woman in her own right and she was on point with that observation. It was she, who was a devout Catholic, who got our family to break the tradition of no meat on Friday - well before the Church said O.K. And I watched her mince no words with a Monseignor who was angry that yours truly was actually reading the Bible as a teenager. We see it in Judaism, we see it in politics, we see it in everyday life. Sometimes you just can't please people - the more you try to make things right or do something good for them - the nastier and more accusatory they get. Pope Benedict XVI is on a roll and has really been working overtime to bring back the good old days. I am just waiting for a new In...