Earlier, I advised Paglia that most of the "debunking" positions on the right of the "climate debate" website she linked to (the ones that weren't personal attacks on Al Gore) are simply the same old tired objections that have been stripped bare time and time again, by the process of peer review.

A website which summarizes the "usual suspects" when it comes to climate change debunker debunking -- and, notably, all of the positions you've espoused here -- is reachable by the link below:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

I've linked directly to their "Arguments" page so you can quickly get to the peer-reviewed science on each of your "objections" to global warming.

"Enjoy" sounds snarky, so I'll simply say, in scientific terms, "Bring the debate!" That's what science is all about. Unfortunately for the global warming deniers, their top "objections" (and all of yours) simply don't make the cut.

But if you've got something original (and, needless to say, peer-reviewed) to add to the debate, again, bring it.

It's a rookie mistake.

In this age of the blog you see it everywhere -- so it's unfortunately easy to come to the conclusion that it's "the thing to do" -- but the fact remains: a review is NOT a synopsis, and a review cannot contain a synopsis.

The only things about the plot you are permitted to "give away" in a review are the bits of information anyone could learn from watching the film's official preview.

Anything more, and you are simply disrespecting the people you are intending to serve.

It doesn't matter if you think the film is trash, and so convince yourself you are providing a service by including a summary. It doesn't matter if even the best professional reviewers occasionally cannot stop themselves including spoilers.

Also not permitted is a "retelling" of the film's setup or "first act". Despite the fact that this, too, is common; again, it is simply disrespect. By doing this, you can make it impossible for a potential audience member to react to the film on their own terms, a sin tantamount to talking on your mobile phone in the cinema.

It's an easy line to cross -- but no-one ever said a worthwhile and useful review was an easy thing to write.

Good luck!

Camille offers climatedebatedaily.com as an example of a Paglia-approved web resource on "the climate debate".

Naturally, almost all of the 'dissenting voices' from the right-hand column of that website are convincingly eviscerated here:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/

a website dedicated to debunking the same-old same-old objections (It's the Sun! Climate's changed before!) of the debunkers. The rest of the 'dissenting voices' appear to be personal attacks on Al Gore, so it's apparent why Camille approves.

So I'll see your "balance" website and I'll raise you (unsurprisingly, considering the subject matter) yet more science.

Please, Camille, watch one less film on Netflix -- it seems a small sacrifice -- and read just one more actual science website. The link above will do.

There's a wonderful old publishing story told at conventions, about an author who bet a colleague that it was impossible to write a novel so bad that no-one could be found to publish it. The colleague, no doubt remembering early rejection letters (ah! but were they novels?! there's the rub) took the bet.

The book was written. It is, almost without a doubt, one of the worst written works in English. Forget sophomoric, it ain't junior high. It is, however, a novel. It duly found a publisher.

And here's the punchline: the public demanded a dozen sequels.

If I add the information that this was a science fiction novel, you might react "of course!" and expect that to be that.

But that's not the moral of the story!

I'm willing to lay money that Paglia has made a similar bet. "I simply can't write a column so bad, so wasteful of space, so filled with praise of the non-praiseworthy (Limbaugh! Revenge of the Sith!), so devoid of intellectual honesty (Global cooling!), that Salon won't publish it" one can imagine her gloating to a follower over hard liquor on a Netflix night.

I'll take that bet.

You see, I have faith that Salon will eventually figure that the incredible slack you have fashioned yourself, Camille, has finally run out. I have that faith because I defended you when you first returned here in an editor-starred missive entitled "How to read Paglia" because at that stage your madness seemed to have at lease some method.

But to paraphrase a really good film: there's no method, here, at all.

Except perhaps to win that bet.

...for misused word of the week.

In the sentence:

...aka Posh Spice, holding a copy of the 2005 title "Skinny Bitch" that jettisoned the book sales to bestseller status.

jettison (v) 1. throw away, of something encumbering 2. throw as from an airplane or boat

simply does not belong.

Just because it has the word "jet" hidden in it, doesn't mean it's a fancy way of saying "go really fast".

There are other clangers in the article, but that one just "impounds" you between the eyes. ;)

The question -- and the answer -- were hand-written by the White House. That is as obvious to me as the cold weather outside.

It's basically a variation on the old chestnut thrown to actors: "Just how fantastic was it to work with Famous Director X?" It gives an actor a chance to seem very sage and knowing, while saying nothing at all outside the "frame" of "it was fantastic".

To the "base", Dubya's response screams "See! It's perfectly safe to leave these decisions with the Great Leader! Look how statesmanlike and respectful he is even to his surrender-monkey opponents!"

Not embarrassment -- just following the script.

So too, Chris Wallace is less "failed journalist" more "reading what they gave him that morning".

So you give both of them, Glenn, simultaneously, not enough credit, and too much!