When this paper was first rejected, I spent several months preparing a long rebuttal document, complete with figures, responding exhaustively to each point of the reviewers' critiques. But just about when that document was ready to send out, I allowed myself to be convinced by my old friend Niall McLoughlin, not to fight the system and make a big battle of it, but to just do exactly as the reviewers request, politely and courteously, as this would give me the best chance of getting the paper published. Niall even risked his own reputation by agreeing to co-author the paper with me, although in the end I don't think he was ever really convinced. Consequently, the [Author's Response]s you see here were never sent to the reviewers, instead the reviewers were sent a much more courteous and submissive document, with a complete re-submission of the paper split into two parts, and with two authors instead of one.

It never did any good. The paper was rejected all the same. And now in retrospect I kind of regret never having sent in this aggressive and argumentative rebuttal. Later on, after many more rejections, I got to the point where I would actually expect my papers to get rejected by those bone-headed reviewers, and the only pleasure I got out of the process was the opportunity to fight back at those anonymous numbskulls with my aggressive rebuttals. It never did any good, the papers were rejected just the same, but at least I had my fun.

So the [Author's Response]s that you see here are the responses I should have given if only I'd had the balls. I would love to know what those bone-heads would have said to these responses! Oh well- I guess now we'll never know!