NEW DISCOVERY: Mercury is hot. Actually the article is interesting in that the Messenger spacecraft discoveries challenge some current theories about how the planet was formed.

UNSAVORY NEW ELEMENT to join Occupy Wall Street -- lawyers.

ARE YOU RICH? There's been an awful lot of talk over the last year or so about 'taxing the rich' so let's ask the question: "Who's rich?" I used Political Calculations' household income calculator for data and subdivided the income distribution into three categories: rich (those in the top quarter); poor (those in the bottom quarter) and middle income (the middle 50%).

Each category was further subdivided as shown in the chart below. The upper and lower quartiles were subdivided at the extremes (5% and 10% levels), and I added the 1/3 and 2/3 distribution limits to the middle income bracket to accentuate the asymmetry of the distribution.


Here's a chart showing the percentage of income of each household in $10,000 increments up to $300,000. Above about $200,000 the incremental percentage is less that 1%, and less than 0.1% above $350,000. The skew (asymmetry) is obvious, and combined with the progressivity of the income tax system explains why such a large minority of Americans pay no income taxes.


There are roughly 120 million households in America, of which a bit less than 3 million earn over $300,000. If each of those households were taxed an additional $10,000, it would bring in about $30 billion to the government coffers annually, about 3% of the annual deficit which has averaged over $1 trillion for the past 3 years of the Obama administration.

IF ONLY: Gary Hart (remember him?) to challenge Obama?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Railing Against Reality. "[A] smaller, older and whinier West will just keep blaming others as their good life slips away. So it's past time to stop borrowing to import energy and most of the things we use but have given up producing -- and get back to competing in the real world."

BIDEN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2016? Why not 2012?

WE'RE ALREADY hoarding incandescent light bulbs; will table salt be next?

WILL THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION destroy the Franciscan University of Steubenville? It certainly seems to be the case.

I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that freedom of association should have a role to play in these disputes.

AUTUMN LEAVES.




Photos from around the yard.

WALL STREET!

SO THE RICH aren't paying their fair share? The top 25% of (household) wage earners -- of which I am (just barely) a member -- pay 86% of all federal income taxes.

Also, here's a link to a Congressional Budget Office gallery of charts on federal tax rates for the four largest sources of federal revenue: individual and corporate income taxes, social insurance taxes, and excise taxes. It's interesting reading.

AVIATION HISTORY: ten military aircraft that never made it past the test phase.

I'm old enough to remember most of them.

A HOVERCRAFT that flies.

JOHN C. GOODMAN: Keeping Poor People Poor. For their own good, of course.

GUN RIGHTS: Only 4 states -- Alaska, Arizona, Vermont, and Wyoming (that tiny sliver at the top of the chart) -- are in full compliance with the Second Amendment.

CLASS WARFARE at Occupy Wall Street? Read it all and follow the link.

X-37B SPACE PLANE could evolve to carry astronauts.

I wrote earlier about the X-37B here.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Lessons from Libya? More like questions unanswered.

HEH. Al Gore’s Current TV has lost nearly a third of its viewers since it paid Keith Olbermann $10 million to bring his show to the network.

GOT $90K? The (electric) DeLorean is coming back.