This is a case of a headline with a singular punch line trajectory.

They can put a man on the moon but can't succeed in perpetuating a lie? Well, that really helps restore my faith in Social Security, thanks!

What's the big deal!? Some actor carrying a prop off of a sound stage, they do it in Hollywood all the time!

Just can't put a lid on the ad hominem, eh! Reading your response, it makes sense though, because you don't have a fact-based, logical, or substantive argument to offer as an alternative. Nonetheless, I'll respond...

first, skipping the explicatives...

Interesting theory from your own colon... If you've observed equilibrium temperature, then please share the data because the AGW enthusiasts are off their rocker claiming a doomsday scenario and I think your findings will give them a moment of calm until they can conjure a new man-made calamity/fundraising cause. Or, if you accept ancient ice age epics and the demonstrative lack of equilibrium in the climate since mankind began recording the temperature, please provide the causality behind this alleged equilibrium which doesn't seem to exist. Is there a new Fourth* Law of Thermodynamics regarding orbiting bodies that just hasn't made it into print yet? Please explain the cause for this alleged equilibrium.

(* There are four, but the first has the appellation of "Zeroth", so a new law might be called "the Fourth")

Neither my impressions, nor yours, nor those of UN funded climate "scientists" are substantive to the debate. If their calculations and prognosis, or their attempt to predict cause and effect are wrong, irrespective of peer review (or lack thereof as in the case of IPCC's melting glaciers in the Himalayas) and consensus, any "beliefs" are irrelevant. Cite a fact and my impression will change upon verification and synthesis, but give me rhetoric and hyperbole and you've proven nothing. In the mean time, I can only assume from their Anthropogenic theories that even if the high priests of climatology remembered that there's a sun around which we orbit, they forgot that it is through vacuous space which our orbit travels.

I don't recall you making that statement nor myself averring that there was any controversy...? However, would you like to explain how that mitigates a net increase of energy in the Earth's system? Except for inbound meteors, the transference of energy into the planet's ecosphere is through radiation which is kinetic. It is within the (semi) closed system that said energy is converted to potential energy (chemical bonds) via chemical reactions, those processes being terrestrial. You still have a net increase equivalent to the gross amount irradiated minus that reflected or "re-emitted" through infrared or other means. There's no "flow" of heat outside of the system which would occur through some ethereal space "gases" as if the Earth were in a room shared by other bodies with which thermal equilibrium could be reached through Brownian Motion (convection).

If you can demonstrate that the energy naturally emitted is equal to (or greater than) that naturally received, you have a good argument for natural equilibrium (or natural global cooling). Do you have such data or a theory beyond your proprietary "Fourth Law of Thermodynamics" that is based on fact?

How is this relevant? What is the context with which you are referring to the existence of the "biosphere" and how does that relate to the warming or cooling (or alleged thermal "equilibrium") of the planet? Are you suggesting that the net energy of the System is held in equilibrium by the biosphere, but before existence of the biosphere it was gaining heat? You'll have to help me out here.

Or are you suggesting that the biosphere is the means by which the earth captures energy? Short of chrome plating the entire surface for perfect reflectivity, biosphere or no biosphere, the earth would absorb whatever was not reflected back, and if you are going to claim that the difference is made up by natural emission of infrared radiation, you better have an explanation of how that comes to be. Considering that the sun has a fusion chain reaction going off 24/7 on its surface, it's easy to see where it's radiating force arises, but the magnitude of difference between that radiation as received by the earth and any passive radiation emitted is as obvious as night is from day (literally - that's not a metaphor).

Please post your Fourth Law of Thermodynamics (ordinal fourth, quantitative fifth) or your data proving equilibrium as an observed fact.

And obviously disengaged your cognitive processes which pretty much discredits the balance of your commentary. But, failing to read that to which you pretentiously respond, you go on...

No, I'm convinced that the Earth has been warming because its net albedo is less than 100%. Are you under the impression that energy entering the system by way of radiation can somehow escape through anything other than radiation? Are you expecting to find Brownian Motion in space where there is virtually no matter for purpose of transmission thereby? Other than radiation and transfer through convection (Brownian Motion) or direct physical contact, are you privelaged to know of a form of transmission which has escaped discovery by the rest of science and mankind?

If you concede that the sole source of entry of energy into the Earth's system (other than the occassional meteorite, asteroid, or man-made space junk), answer this. If there is anything less than 100% reflection of inbound radiation, where does the energy that isn't reflected end up? You can fight this concept because it doesn't fit your ideological bent, but I'd be interested to hear how you deal with this very simple question.

To respond to your further inferences:

So, you are saying that 100% of the energy is "re-emitted" to space? There are three discrete possibilities (and results), 100% exactly is emitted (total thermal stasis), less than 100% is "re-emitted" (global warming), or more than 100% is "re-emitted" (global cooling). Because of system complexities, there is very very little probability that exactly 100% is being "re-emitted", either upon initial entry or particularly as a net effect over time. If not, then is the net albedo greater than or less than 100%, or more to the point, is the earth cooling or warming over time? If you assert that net albedo is in excess of 100%, I'd like to know more about the material you've discovered in abundance on planet earth that has 110% reflectivity and let me be the first to congratulate you on a discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize in Physics.

But you betray your lack of understanding of laws of thermodynamics with the following:

Energy used to "drive" chemical reactions have zero net effect on the system once said energy has entered the system. The initial introduction of the energy, or the improbable exit (other than that reflected or that which we "beam" or "re-emit" into space using giant laser beams) is the only influence on the net effect. Chemical reactions only amount to internal conversion between kinetic and potential energy, with no net sum gain or loss to the greater system.

Let me guess, you are a liberal? Is science just another playground for the liberal mind to which neither reason nor logic applies? Perhaps science to you is a faith-based dogma? Personally, I have no opinion on ice ages, there being insufficient evidence either way, other than regional and temporal fluctuations in climate. But I'm intrigued now that you bring it up, because ancient ice ages would strongly support the theory that the Earth has been warming since time immemorial (at least from the time it has been within the proximity of Sol).

It's obvious you "stopped reading". You've missed the point. My thesis is that the net energy of the earth is and will continue to increase over time, so long as it is in the current orbit around Sol and that Sol doesn't run out of fuel. The crust, oceans, and to a much lesser degree, the troposphere have incredible thermal capacity to absorb energy, and convection through all three will create regional, topical variations in temperature (equating heat to energy) over time. One hour, day, month, or year may be warmer or cooler than a previous year, but over time, the net energy of the system increases proportional to that which it has received minus that lesser portion which it has effectively transmitted away through reflection or radiation.

If you can respond with other than ad hominem, I'd be interested in your rebuttal of facts.

Good analysis, many salient points.

It's true that Netflix needs to move on from DVD-by-Mail in order to remain relevant. However, they do damage to that business by expressing the self-doubt that came out loud and clear through all of this Quikster (such a stupid name!) mess. They confused their customers AND any potential suitor to buy the business unit.

But the elephant in the room isn't DVD-by-Mail or even a new distributive technology, it's the Studios who are starting to play hard ball now that their post-box-office DVD sales are in decline and BlueRay is stalling. They now look at streaming as a major distribution channel rather than a sideline revenue stream. They aren't entering into/renewing contracts that make business sense for Netflix, which is why Netflix's costs are going up while available content will diminish over time. In the end, the major Studios are getting greedy and as a result, they'll take a hit in the wallet while the viewing public will start looking to other forms of entertainment (and there are lots of them).

Back in July, when I first heard of "Quikster", it almost didn't register, it was such a stupid name. I thought it was just an internal code name and never imagined that it would be used publicly. Why would such a strong brand like Netflix use such a cheap sounding site for DVDs!? Why the need to totally spin off the DVD (physical media) business? The theory of soliciting the sale of the streaming services to Amazon (it already runs on AWS) adds some logic to that.

But the bigger picture was hidden in the many news stories of late, namely the end of the Starz contract. It will effectively cut their title lineup in half, removing not just a quantity of titles, but reducing the quality of titles available. The studios are getting greedy and the historical success of Netflix, licensing content at affordable terms, is seriously in question. Unlike Apple that could subsidize iTunes in order to ride out petty threats from Music publishers to create a ubuiquitous store front that publishers can't ignore, Netflix has no alternative stream by which it can subsidize a 3 or 4 year trade war with the studios. Under Amazon, subsidizing a long stretch of losses to generate critical mass against the studios, Netflix would have a chance, but Amazon has its own media platform and owns the network across which Netflix runs.

Thus, an AMZN buyout at today's price, even though it's nearly 1/3 of its peak, is unlikely. AMZN would be smart to just keep running its service, charging Netflix for its use of its cloud infrastructure services, and buy up NFLX when it's dropped another 50% if NFLX still has licensing rights to any significant content. When it's all over, we'll see just how powerful the content producers are over the content distributors.

It was a long time ago that real scientists were silenced by the politically motivated and grant financed AGW-ists in the spirit of Lysenko. Of course, there is no debate that the earth is in fact warming by degrees over time. Whether by a reckoning of classical Newtonian physics or Quantum physics, wave theory or particle theory, we can't but deduce that a semi-closed system bombarded day and night, with less than 100% reflectivity and no alternative means of transmission or radiation, must increase it's energy level, i.e. increase in heat. This is high school physics, but remains supported by even the most advanced theories. Energy and matter must be conserved and accounted for, and the net energy that we absorb is that which we receive by radiation from the sun minus that which we reflect.

The debate is thus reduced to whether additional topical warming of any significance is caused by human activities. To date, I've seen no compelling proof, statistical or otherwise, that CO2 is the cause of such. Statistically, it is a trailing indicator (i.e. the "effect" and not the "cause") by Al Gore's own charts (not that I would for a moment consider him a "man of science" nor give much credence to his charts). Empirically, I know of no conclusive study that shows CO2 blocking outbound radiation of spectral heat that wouldn't also be blocked on the inbound (i.e. the same EMR that would be "trapped" by CO2 would be reflected by CO2 in the first place). These are simple concepts that have already been worked out on paper and proven numerous times in cross disciplinary experiments.

If mankind causes topical warming, what is the cost? Where is it occurring? Electric cars (brahahaha, don't get me going on the massive stupidity and NIMBY pollution created by mining Li+ for use in batteries charged through the lossy transmission of coal and gas generated electricity) and solar panels (dark planks which for every square foot negates any net reduction of global warming by absorbing that which would otherwise, at least in portion, be reflected back into space) are faux solutions if we can honestly conclude that topical warming (the troposphere above cities, any trapping of heat through combined spectral shifts of the reflective light and emission gases, nuclear power plants converting matter to kinetic energy though arguably the same radioactive materials would be emitting radiation at a comparable rate in nature) has any lasting or spreading damage associated with it. Can we quantitatively demonstrate that human activities damage the ecosystem faster than the ecosystem absorbs said influence and "heals itself"? How do we know that our modified behavior has the desired outcome and not some unintended consequence?

These oil deposits were discovered almost 20 years ago and appeared in US Geological Services reports to the public in 2006, before even the last election. They have been strangely ignored over the last 5 years, even by politicians who might have benefited by their public discussion (yah, yah, McCain wasn't well read nor really genuinely good at anything except flying fighter jets, but no disrespect to a man who gave more than his life for his country).

Final question - noting that nothing in a finite sphere is "infinite" so dispensing with the politically rich hyperbole of "finite", perhaps using "limited" instead - why is it assumed that oil is "limited" in its availability?! Why do we assume a large time span for the chemical synthesis of fossil fuels under the immense pressure of the ocean or under the immense temperature below the crust, when we can produce sweet crude ourselves in a matter of a weeks simply using daylight, tap water, and some algae (referring to Sapphire's technology)? The Earth's Subterranean regions could very well be producing oil faster than we are using it.

It is a strange and illogical psychosis that assumes 1. that the earth isn't warming except because of man producing noxious gases, 2. that CO2 which occurs naturally is somehow noxious when we produce it through burning fossil fuels or the flatulence of cows (alright, alright, I concede the latter), and 3. that there's anything we can do about this other than enjoy life to its limited fulness and be otherwise good stewards of the planet without concocting science fiction to forward agendas of politicos using the redistribution of wealth to amass power unto themselves.

"And I posted it tomorrow"

The beauty of running the experiment after the first guy is that if you can get the neutrinos going fast enough, you can actually finish your experiment before the first guy even launched his, so you could post your results yesterday.

Does anyone remember the Quantum hard drive company? What was in them hard drives?

That would be due to the effect of the reality distortion field.

How about giant laser canons on Mars? Oh, never mind, that's not useful for spacecraft, I was confusing the use of lasers with creating (or saving) green jobs.

Nicely put. It's a dangerous thing when a mob replaces rational, critical thinking with bumper sticker slogans and euphemisms, whether labeling things "green" this or "Jesus saves" that. 550nm is just a wavelength (in fact the best absorbed in the spectrum of visible light here on earth) and without finishing the sentence, it's not clear what Jesus saves. I'm sure Jesus doesn't litter or waste gas, but I'm not sure he'd agree with most of what Gore, Manning, Bush, Obama, or Perry have to say, I'd like to think He's above all that, worried about both bigger things (peace on earth) and smaller things (be good to each other), but not wasting his time on electric cars or color preferences.

"AGW proponents mostly just assert that disbelievers are ignorant rubes"

The science is pretty well established, that there is indeed not just "climate CHANGE", but that in fact, the earth's system is warming. This hardly requires any physical experimentation at all, though confirmation through empirical data is crucial for any rigorous proof. Simply, the energy of the sun bathes the earth 24/7/365 and the earth's system either reflects or absorbs the energy. Without 100% reflective efficiency, it's absorbs a net positive amount. Since there is no medium whereby the heat can be disbursed into space, we must conclude that it's energy increases over time. Some of that might be absorbed in endothermic reactions, giving us potential energy (e.g. trees, fossil fuels, life of just about any sort), but inevitably some hangs around as a net increase in kinetic energy.

Anything that reflects would decrease the absorption into our system, or more succinctly, anything that reflects the energy back out into space reduces the absorption. So if your intent is to reduce warming, mirrors=good, dark things=bad. Solar panels, for example, are dark for the purpose of absorbing as much energy from the sun as possible, ergo, solar panels=bad. It's unlikely that anything else we do can help or hurt more than that. I guess we could set up high powered lasers and "beam" excess heat into space, but that's probably as stupid as it sounds, only second in idiocy to orbiting solar panels that "beam" a net increase of energy back to earth, but tied with clearing away our CO2 producing, highly absorptive plant life and chrome plating the exposed earth to increase reflectivity.

I think the best option is to stop worrying, be happy, use our energy sources where they are best suited, and stop lining the pockets of political sycophants and their corporate cronies with this wacky "green" crap. (am I allowed to say that!?)

"The vague language of the report there indicates to me this isn't a big deal, or else they would've been specific. The big point is that the data were not faked."

I don't know, but "vague language" usually indicates something is being hidden. Anything short of "specific (language)" would be reason enough to short the validity and effect of the report. The big point isn't that the data was fake, but that the data was selectively chosen, and that this is the case is evident from complaints from the Russians, Chinese, and Australians that all of their climate data collection points were not used. It doesn't conclude that the earth is warming, cooling, or just gelling, but it doesn't speak well of Mann's methodology, either. Let's just put him over there with Ponns and Fleischmann and get on with real science.