CRITICAL UPDATES at end of post!

Joe Romm's debate defeat tour hysterically continued Thursday when he went against his own decree forbidding further references to Marc Morano at his Climate Progress blog by eviscerating the New York Times for having the nerve to write about -- wait for it! -- Marc Morano.

Oh the humanity!

In a tirade that would most certainly make Tonya Harding proud, Romm scolded Times author Leslie Kaufman in a piece deliciously titled "In a stunning journalistic lapse, the NY Times gives credulous coverage to Swift Boat smearer Marc Morano, the Jayson Blair of global warming":

New York Times reporter Leslie Kaufman, who works for a paper that prints over one million copies every day, lectured Americans for using wastefully cushy toilet paper in Thursday's "What Mr. Whipple Didn't Say: Softer Paper Is Costly to Forests."

Americans like their toilet tissue soft: exotic confections that are silken, thick and hot-air-fluffed.

The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra -- which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm.

But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

Naturally, America is to blame:

Other countries are far less picky about toilet tissue. In many European nations, a rough sheet of paper is deemed sufficient. Other countries are also more willing to use toilet tissue made in part or exclusively from recycled paper.