Bill Maher, Camille Paglia.

I just noticed that Bill Maher's HBO show is back. We're watching the first new episode -- from a couple weeks ago -- on HBO On Demand right now. Maher seems to have moved to the right since last season, but the studio audience is still stubbornly all left. They keep applauding loudly for cranky lefty cracks by Richard Belzer and not responding at all to any of the other panelists.

Camille Paglia is on!

What do you think of teachers having sex with their students?

Paglia: The teachers of today are "psychically weak" because the abler women have taken different career paths.

You watch "The Bachelorette."

"I love 'The Bachelorette.' I'm actually on strike against Hollywood movies. I think they've become vapid and artificial. I find them absolutely boring. But 'The Bachelorette' -- I'm riveted by it. I think that show has done wonderfully. It's edited beautifully. It's great escapist fantasy. It's really a kind of primitive, in its own way."

People don't date anymore, they hook up. The cell phone has allowed women to get in touch with their inner slut. What do you think of that?

She's concerned about "the collapse of romance ... the stripping away of the ceremony of courtship." It's going to hurt women in the long run.

What do you think of what's happened to Michael Jackson?

It's "a tragedy." "He's as much a victim of fame as Norma Desmond... I blame the parents of these young boys, who, in effect, sold their children to him."

UPDATE: Watching the second episode of the new season, from a week ago, I see it begins with an announcement that they've filled half the audience with conservatives. Great!