I present a series of diagrams which illustrate why the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data favor certain values for the cosmological parameters. Various methods to extract these parameters from CMB and non-CMB observations are forming an ever-tightening network of interlocking constraints. I review the increasingly precise constraints in the Omega_m - Omega_Lambda plane and show why more cosmologists now prefer Lambda-CDM cosmologies to any other leading model.
Categories: astro-ph
