Couldn’t Help But Notice (021207)

One of the quietest stories from the end of last week:

Consumer confidence climbed to a 2½-year high with people feeling even better about job prospects, the current economic climate and investment opportunities.

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Another similarly quiet story from last week: The productivity report for the fourth quarter from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that was (as these things have been for some time now) “stronger than expected” (though the performance for the entire year was less than stellar).
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Here I find out that the “Money Honey” supposedly has “credibility.” That’s funny, Sonny.

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A perspective on what “90% certainty” really means in science (bold is mine), in an article that is otherwise about “An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change”:

When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.

The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain’s top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.

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Misplaced voter compassion hits home — at work (HT Drudge):

New wage boost puts squeeze on teenage workers across Arizona

Oh, for the days when Arizona’s high school students could roll pizza dough, sweep up sticky floors in theaters or scoop ice cream without worrying about ballot initiatives affecting their earning power.

That’s certainly not the case under the state’s new minimum-wage law that went into effect last month.

Some Valley employers, especially those in the food industry, say payroll budgets have risen so much that they’re cutting hours, instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees.

Those in Ohio, which also passed minimum-wage legislation in a ballot initiative last year, you may have noticed certain prices have increased at places relying on minimum or near-minimum wage employees.

Voters can’t repeal the economic law of supply and demand.

UPDATE, 4 PM: Bill Sloat at The Daily Bellwether notes the negative impact of the minimum-wage increase on student employment at Ohio colleges.

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Allah at Hot Air nails journalistic malpractice at the Associated Press (in revising a direct quote from a CAIR official after the fact by watering down its harshness). Ombudsman Bryan Calame at the New York Times (HT Allah at Hot Air) calmly but completely crucifies (probably requires registration) the paper’s laughably inaccurate “majority of women are unmarried” story from a couple of weeks ago.

There aren’t enough Allahs, Calames, or in the case of the “unmarried” story, Michael Medveds, to catch it all, or to comment on it all. The old editorial controls, as ineffective as they often were in the past, no longer seem to be present at all. Be skeptical — very skeptical.