Balance and Concentration...

Watch this all the way to the end for a surprise.  Via my mom:

On 95% Certainty...

Reader, friend, and former colleague Doug W. pointed out the image below (from Watts Up With That?), saying: “The image is stunningly effective, in my opinion.”

I agree.

The image is showing two carefully selected sections of the global average temperature record most frequently cited by the IPCC (Hadley CRUT3).  Each section is for 50 years.  One of them shows the period of time where the IPCC claims “with 95% certainly” to see the effects of anthropogenic (caused by mankind) global warming.  The other shows undisturbed nature.

Which one is which?  Can you confidently point to one and say “That's it!  That shows mankind's influence on global temperatures for sure!”

You really can't see much of a difference at all, much less one that would give you a high degree of confidence in your answer!

FYI: The one on the left is 1957 - 2008; the one one the right is 1895 - 1946.

A Surface Nuisance...

George Carlin with a great monologue on a topic frequently seen here...

So Sad...

The Filthy Filner saga is winding down.  Sniff, sniff...

How Government Thinks...

In California, anyway.  Five years ago, the state government passed legislation offering tax credits for investors in certain kinds of small businesses.  Recently, the California Supreme Court ruled those tax credits unconstitutional.  Now the state's Franchise Tax Board (the tax collectors) are assessing back taxes retroactively for all five years, to those claiming the tax credits.  And not just back taxes – interest and penalties, too.

No individual or business could ever get away with an obviously unfair practice like that.  Only the government...

The asylum really is being run by the lunatics...

Oh, Goody...

With the current trajectory of the NSA snooping news stories, one could be excused for being credulous about some of the tin foil hat crowd's conspiracy theories...

Sometimes Science Gets It Wrong the First Time...

But often it gets it right.  It can be interesting and fun to watch the process of science changing its mind, and more so the earlier you can catch the process.  I first ran into this with the great plate tectonics debate in geology; that had begun shortly before I was born, and really wasn't over for another 30 years or so, when plate tectonics became nearly universally accepted as the process that shapes the earth's surface.

I just read a piece of science news that strikes me as possibly, just possibly, the beginnings of another such change.  Most likely it will turn out to be nothing - but there's a chance that it's the beginning of a big change in cosmology (and physics).  I'm fascinated that the mathematics of the current theory of the universe's expansion is basically the same as the mathematics of the alternative explanation being put forth.  There have been quite a few discoveries in science that started with just such an observation...