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He'd probably argue that journals are deliberately withholding data to argue for a warming trend

And you're using average monthly maximum temperatures as a metric for what? Assessing a warming trend? Why is this a more effective metric than an annual mean? How is it even remotely relevant to the question?

Yet you have absolutely no background in atmospheric or climate science whatsoever Your primary concern seems to be drawing traffic to your web site Clearly the ABM is engaged in a conspiracy to deceive the public by delibrately withholding this information. Since you've provided no source for this information whatsoever I have no desire to pursue this line of reasoning. Can you base your arguments on publically available information, as opposed to basing them on information no one can verify? The warming trend in the first half of the 20th century was brought on by a decrease in volcanic activity which brought about a decrease in reflective sulfate aerosols, lowering earth's albedo and changing its radiative imbalance. The leveling off period you describe follows a transitional period where these trends reversed and anthropogenic forcings took over as the primary drivers of climate change. Perhaps you should undergo some basic climate science education before you attempt to analyze climactic data. IT'S A CONSPIRACY! Listen, there's nothing I hate more than people throwing up a smokescreen of open-ended questions. That's not reasoning, that's merely deception. You're using the same approaches any conspiracy theorist would use to try to lead people to particular conclusions, that is, not giving reasons, merely speculating in the form of questions. How convenient, your argument is once again based on data we can't verify. And again, your motive seems to be: READ MY BLOG! This is a discussion forum. If you're going to show up here just to advertise your blog, the least you could do is actually discuss your claims. Otherwise you're just spamming. Yes, you're: 1) contradicting the entire scientific establishment 2) won't provide the data you're using to reach your conclusions, or come to the same conclusions based off publically available data 3) refuse to argue any points, instead deferring to your blog any time I raise any sort of concerns. Okay, you've made the claim: "Australia is not warming up: stats prove it" Will you actually defend that claim, or are you just here to get people to read your blog? I've linked data which directly contradicts your claim. Your answer: read my blog. Sorry, I'm not going to go through your blog trying to extract a relevant counterclaim. You wrote your blog... how about you do that for me? You're making the claim. You have the burden of proof. Trying to shift the burden or proof onto me is a logical fallacy, and if you fail to substantiate your claims you've already lost the argument.

Nice try at shifting the burden of proof. You're the one making the claim, therefore you have the burden of proof in convincing us. Are you remotely qualified to do that? In what? I certainly hope atmospheric/climate science is your answer. And yet the Australian government's conclusions contradict your own. Have you ever considered that perhaps the scientists your government has hired to analyze that data could be right, and you could be wrong? Unfortunately, as you are using your own government's data yet contradicting your conclusions, I get the feeling this isn't the case. Well, to start with, you don't cite the sources of any of your data. For example, you claim the graph you use to make your claims about an overall cooling trend in Australia comes from the Australia Bureau of Meteorology, but are actually linked off http://www.sportpunter.com which is anything but a credible source of climactic data. Here's a timeseries graph of mean temperatures in Australia, straight from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/timeseries.cgi An overall warming trend is quite obvious. Even more so in the SST graph: I'm afraid I have to conclude you're full of shit.

I cringe at that thought, as would most web developers

Could you please link to the CV and papers of the scientists whose analysis you're quoting then? Because it seems to me you're doing your own analysis of the raw data. If that's the case, could you please link to your CV? Yes, amazing what kinds of projections static analysis of present trends will yield: Behold, an infinite-bladed razor by 2015! Your government disagrees: http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/science/guide/ Do you care to explain the origin of this disparity between what you say and what your government says? This leads me to seriously question your background on this topic.

Yawn Still looking for substance That's quite a large post for lacking any substance And now we get to the only bit of substance in your post... If you believe that human beings have a nervous system, then why do you think the amendment allows human cloning? Oh wait, you just want to argue the point, even though you refuse to even take a position.

Clearly you do, or you wouldn't be making an issue about it. I beg to differ. Yay, when you don't have substance to your arguments, insults do wonders. I've already stated my position. A blastocyst is not a human being. Do human beings have a nervous system? Yes or no?

And how do you feel about James Talent's rampant dishonesty? How specifically was Fox dishonest? I guess he should've said Talent lied about stem cell research, rather than trying to criminalize it.

Yes, it does: (1) No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being. Okay: (1) No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being. By that very sophomoric definition I think you can argue that mitosis counts as human cloning. Quick, better ban mitosis. And you're ignoring this: (3) No stem cells may be taken from a human blastocyst more than fourteen days after cell division begins So they're "cloning" blastocysts which they can use up to 14 days. What kind of horrible slippery slope makes you think 14 day old blastocysts are anywhere close to a human being? Cloning Dolly is much more of an ethical concern than 14 day old blastocysts. You're doing exactly the same thing. The difference is you keep arguing that I haven't read the bill when it's pretty clear either: 1) You haven't read the 14 day old provision - or - 2) You have a very misguided idea of what constitutes a human being

Hugo de Garis has developed a lot of Singularity-related concepts independently, using entirely his own vocabulary. "Artilect" comes from his book The Artilect War, and is essentially his word for Artificial General Intelligence. There's also Cosmists (i.e. Singularitarians) and Terrans (anti-Singularitarians?), as well as Cyborgians (i.e. post-humans/transhumans) The Singularity is named after the breakdown of existing models, in this case, of predicting what the future of humanity will be like.

I noticed that Bush used the same line as Talent in opposing stem cell research: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/20/politics/main696810.shtml These bills are not, and have never been about cloning. The Missouri amendment specifically bans cloning. But getting the same line from the President and someone like Talent, a complete and baffling non-sequitur which carries an air of "truthiness" for its intended target demographic, it sounds like one of those well-orchestrated GOP talking points that if they keep saying enough, people start believing is true.

You also reject the notion that Senator Talent strawmanned the amendment that set this all off in the first place. So it's wrong for someone with a degenerative disease to use said disease to drum up support for fighting it?

I like anything that shows trends... the Amazon Bestseller list is a nice peek into the collective consciousness

Artilects? Coming from the Hugo de Garis school, eh? He's all right, he just needs to stop making up words like Cosmists, Terrans, Artilects, and Cyborgians.

Hi, I'm a professional web developer. I wrote this. I certainly test in IE, but... I don't love it. I hate it. And I'd contend that most IT professionals use Firefox as their primary browser. I happen to use a different browser as my primary one, but use Firefox almost as much, and IE only for testing purposes. Programmers who aren't doing web development don't use IE. IT professionals don't either. Yes, there are zealots who will say the same thing about Eclipse, vim, Emacs, and IntelliJ. Doesn't make any of them right. Then why are JSP/J2EE the top web development environments, followed by PHP? Java is the new COBOL and has been universally adopted by the business world as the definitive platform for the next generation of enterprise applications. As for me, I use Ruby on Rails, an agile development environment which lets me develop substantially faster than ASP.NET. You're confusing application development with web development. And ASP.NET isn't anywhere close to the leading web development environment. Anyone building Windows applications is most likely using VS.NET. Anyone with a clue is at least testing their web applications in IE. But ASP.NET/IE is by far the preferred developer standard you make it out to be. Developers would much rather be on Firefox.

Ever see an amputee's limb spontaneously regenerate?

Oh really... http://www.ur.umn.edu/FMPro?-db=releases&-lay=web&-format=umnnewsreleases/releasesdetail.html&ID=2816&-Find

Extrapolating present averages into future trends is a great example of the misapplication of static analysis. If you're going to disagree with climate scientists, you should probably save yourself from looking sophomoric and find another climate scientist who also disagrees. His reasoning is going to be a hell of a lot better than yours.

And Google Suggest integration! And I second the "IE7 sucks" sentiment, especially as a web developer.

If you believe you're going to have an eternal afterlife, what does that make this life? Just a pretense? Disposable? (radical Islamacists demonstrate that idea every day with suicide bombings) That's one of the worst aspects I can imagine.

Before you start with pain, you have to start with if lobsters feel anything at all... i.e. do they have conscious experience remotely similar to ours. I'm going to go with no. The reason is they do not have a cerebral cortex.

Weird, I buy IAMS pet food for my cat.

Holy memes, batman! https://jamshaid.wordpress.com/2006/05/04/astonishing-twins/ http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15447465/ http://www.geneticsandhealth.com/2006/10/21/twins-with-different-skin-color-genes/ Guess this happens more often that one would think...

Human beings have a nervous system. A blastocyst does not.