The planet Neptune has never been seen by anyone looking at the night sky through just their own eyes. So distant is it from the sun that the light it reflects toward the Earth is so faint that the planet is effectively invisible in the darkness of night. And yet, the outermost large planet of our solar system was discovered by astronomers who knew exactly where to look....

Following William Herschel's discovery of Uranus in 1781, the world's astronomers went to work to observe and describe the seventh planet of the solar system, taking detailed measurements of its trajectory in space.

Illustration of the Pull of a More Distant Planet Forty years later, French astronomer Alexis Bouvard published detailed tables describing Uranus' orbit about the sun. More than that however, his tables incorporated the lessons learned about planetary orbits from Johannes Kepler and Sir Isaac Newton to chart the path Uranus would follow into the future.

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42 Comments So Far
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PhilGW Wrote: Dec 12, 2012 8:06 PM
You cannot have a serious discussion about income disparity/inequality and only discuss median income levels. Income disparity doesn't exist as a statistical artifact confined within the median income ranges. It relates to the difference between the lower or even the median income levels and the upper income ranges, which you totally ignore. The Gini Index is a measure of how uneven the income distribution is in this country…across all income levels, and not just within the median income levels. I suggest you reread my essays, and then perhaps you can present a more informed and balanced discussion of this issue. Somehow I don't think Newton would be impressed with your take on this either. ---Phil Wendt
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inkling_revival Wrote: Dec 11, 2012 11:26 PM
"So income inequality among U.S. households isn't increasing because the rich are getting richer. That means that policies intended to right this situation by going after the rich in the name of "fairness" are guaranteed to fail, because the real cause of the increase in income inequality among U.S. households over time is something that cannot be fixed by such actions.

If only the people pushing such policies could see that.... "

The people pushing such policies are not trying to fix any problem, they are trying to institute worldwide socialism. They are not interested in why the stats make it look as though the rich are getting richer. They're just using that statistic as a Trojan horse in order to gain power.
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bgavone Wrote: Dec 09, 2012 8:57 AM
WTF! over. So many of the comments on this post claim to be "conservative" but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. You might actually believe you are conservative, but your logic and convoluted conversations give away your true agenda. IF it was wrong for a ANY president to implement an unfunded entitlement it was WRONG. To even bring this up where the current administration is doubling down on unfunded MANDATES means what? 4x the error means 4x the error not an excuse for your lame apologetic justifying Keynesian economics - look around the policy's are failing/have failed everywhere they have been tried. When you blame Bush to obliquely justify Obama - you are showing yourselves for who and what you really are.
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rmccarthy Wrote: Dec 09, 2012 2:29 AM
Many thing complained about balance out but people complain
and when you have a complaint, you must need to be enlightened by God's wisdom
anything else will not work.
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rmccarthy Wrote: Dec 09, 2012 1:56 AM
The main purpose of the law is to show us that we sin
and the main purpose of government is to attempt to remedy the fact that we sin
and those who would think that government can fix the world deny God's wisdom.
Government is based on a lie...and then it only gets worse!
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Roy323 Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 8:54 PM
I'm not particularly big on Graphs, but even I got the "Message"--And the message seems crystal Clear to me: If you (or ANYONE) aspire to get ahead financially, then a JOB is of paramount import! Is than an incorrect assumption?
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1Falcon1 Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 8:38 PM
BTW you CAN see Neptune with the naked eye during an alignment
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TommyMaq Wrote: Dec 09, 2012 4:09 PM
No, you can't. No matter what the 'alignment' (with what, exactly) it won't get any closer, hence won't get any brighter.

A human eye is just capable of picking out magnitude 6.5 objects, if you have great acuity and are totally dark-adapted. (Magnitude is a reverse scale; zero and first magnitude stars are the one's anyone can see like Rigel, Sirius, etc. The sun is -26th magnitude. Larger numbers equal dimmer objects)

Neptune never gets brighter than 7.8; no human can see it with their naked eye. Owls and cats could see it, if they knew where to look.
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Reginald10 Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 4:07 PM
That's fascinating. So the growth in "income inequality" is caused by the change in the composition of families, with respect to the number of earners? Adding more single-parent (one earner) families makes the distribution wider, and thus the disparity greater.

Yet another reason to preserve marriage and the two-parent family.
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SpaceVegetable Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 4:05 PM
Beautiful! Too bad the Democrats don't understand real math. They'll never believe it, even when presented with mathematical proof.
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inkling_revival Wrote: Dec 11, 2012 11:30 PM
The problem is not that Democrats don't understand math, it's that they don't care even a little bit what it says. The big dogs are using the statistics as a Trojan horse to gain power, by convincing the little dogs that they are creating "fairness" for "the little guy." The little dogs are using the statistics to pretend that they are virtuous. Neither will thank you for exposing their illusion.

Never make the mistake of thinking that a Democrat gives a rat's @$$ what is true.
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Isahiah Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 3:35 PM
next time you are called a Bible thumping science denier- tell 'em so was Sir Issac Newton!! English physicist and mathematician, who was the culminating figure of the scientific revolution of the 17th century------studied Bible prophecy and predicted end of the world ...
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inkling_revival Wrote: Dec 11, 2012 11:32 PM
...and so were all the founders of the line of inquiry that we now call the sciences. The sciences were brought to birth by the Church. They were funded by the Church, taught by the Church, encouraged by the Church. Most of the early scientists were clergymen.
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Moonbat Exterminator Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 1:52 PM
During the campaign, Barry and ide liked to hector ther opponents about "arithmetic" but if either ofthem tried to comprehend or even just read the article, it would cause teir brains to vapor lock. If you told Joe to find Uranus, he's drop trou
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poorgrandchildren.com2 Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 11:25 AM
Leftists call it income inequality. People risking everything to get here call it the American Dream.
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SpaceVegetable Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 4:07 PM
The Democrats love to talk about the American Dream. The problem is, they want to keep it a Dream. Once you have the audacity to achieve your own American Dream, they'll be there to slap you back down with one hand, while picking your pocket with the other. After all, if you're not dependent on the government, they can't control you.
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Don't Tread On Me3 Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 11:07 AM
"Income inequality" is a bogus smokescreen intended to gin up class envy among the gimmes anyway.

So long as income depends on producing what others want & need, there will be income inequality because of productivity inequality. I NEVER see serious proposals to make the gimmes productive, other than to endlessly send them back to school at taxpayer expense to learn jobs that don't exist in anything like their numbers, & are too much like work for most of them anyway.
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SpaceVegetable Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 4:08 PM
I still haven't heard any leftists explain why income inequality is a bad thing, either. What does it matter that someone else has more than I do? They usually just blither a bit and then change the subject.
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inkling_revival Wrote: Dec 11, 2012 11:34 PM
They cannot explain why it is a bad thing because they take that as an axiom. To a leftist, it is self-evident morality that nobody should be permitted to get wealthy.
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El_Loco_JP Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 8:50 AM
"Nonworking" = unearned entitlements = welfare = hooray! I don't ever have to work and the suckers who do will suport me and my illegitimate children for the rest of our lives.
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JHow Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 7:27 AM
Cool stuff.
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Joe 145 Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 7:26 AM
NONE of this fits President Obama's narrative. So forget it. And don't attempt to make any of the leadership of the Democrat part listen. "We need to pass this bill so that YOU can find out what is in it."

The republic is in danger like we have NEVER seen before.
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Pistol Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 7:19 AM
And why are there so single person households, and rising? Because there is no reason for young men to get married. If the men choose not to marry, the women can't either. I didn't get married until 33, when i decided it was time to start a family. I'm a long way from God's gift to women, basically monogamous, and still i had a choice between 3 proposals.

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ironman Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 7:42 AM
You asked a good question. What you described is part of it, but a much bigger part of it is the increasing size of the nation's retirement age population over time. The median income data we were able to extract for non-working men and women would appear to primarily consist of income from retirement savings and investment income, pensions and also Social Security's pension, survivors and disability benefits.
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Fred_PA_2000 Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 10:42 AM
And it is troubling that so much of Obama's policy appears designed to attack / to destroy that "income from retirement savings and investment income, pensions and also Social Security's pension, survivors and disability benefits." Those single elderly -- already our poorest households -- are about to get substantially poorer.

Why is it that Liberals so frequently produce results that are the opposite of what they said they were striving for? Did they start stupid and then prove unable to learn from their mistakes? Or were they lying from the get-go about what they intended? Was the strategy always "Me first, and to H_ with grandma"?
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Fred_PA_2000 Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 10:42 AM
And it is troubling that so much of Obama's policy appears designed to attack / to destroy that "income from retirement savings and investment income, pensions and also Social Security's pension, survivors and disability benefits." Those single elderly -- already our poorest households -- are about to get substantially poorer.

Why is it that Liberals so frequently produce results that are the opposite of what they said they were striving for? Did they start stupid and then prove unable to learn from their mistakes? Or were they lying from the get-go about what they intended? Was the strategy always "Me first, and to H_ with grandma"?
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SpaceVegetable Wrote: Dec 08, 2012 4:10 PM
Fewer reasons for women to marry, too. Women no longer need a man as a breadwinner, since they can support themselves. Unfortunately, there's also the growing contingent of single mothers on welfare. For them, staying single is a better financial move, since they can wring more benefits out of the taxpayers.
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