Genesis of Planetary Orbits

Umm, yeah. You do realize most people here already know that, right?

Yes, that was mostly for the benefit of the two people on this site who DIDN'T know that.

(If we're explaining why orbits aren't square, we might as well teach the vocabulary for that that level of teaching while we're at it. It saves AP#1 from asking the silly OP question, and it saves AP#2 from calling AP#1 rude names for asking the question.)

(I've been here long enough to know that AP#1 and #2 are almost completely predictable⁽¹⁾, despite each of them being Legion.)

Notes:

1. If AP#1 isn't the OP, then AP#1 generally says mean things about the OP. If AP#1 is the OP, then AP#2 calls AP#1 mean names and claims that AP#1's question is stupid and should not have been asked⁽²⁾.
2. This is all within the predictions of GIFT: the Greater Internet F---wad Theory. Normal, otherwise sane people, when given anonymity and an audience, turn into complete A-holes.

I truly hope you were not aiming that crap at me: "Yes, that was mostly for the benefit of the two people on this site who DIDN'T know that."

I admit that astronomy is not my primary strength, but I am well aware of the mathematics.

No, you were not one of the 'two people' I was referring to.

I have a lot of respect for your abilities, and I value your opinions, even if the topic of politics cause us to react to each other like Sodium and Water.

Its one reason I try to avoid talking politics or religion.

...and it is probably a reason I dive into either as a seal on a rock dives into water....and the shark suddenly devours him. LOL

I will never hold your hand on those topics, I suspect, but when it counts, I would have your back. Even Mr. JE in Chicago. I don't really hate Chicago, or Illinois, I just think you guys are stupid when it comes to politics. Sorry.

My abilities keep getting me in trouble, mainly because I am lazy, and fail to set things up in a way to cover all the possibilities.

The disagreements are mostly from varying points of view. We 'urbanites' see how our actions affect the 'Wider World' and how the 'Wider World' affects us in return. I had a neighbor I was good friends with, I had helped when she and another neighbor were trying to cut down a dead 'decorative' (aka 'garbage') tree. We always got along well, talking about the weather, or pets (the other neighbor, the one removing the dead garbage tree, owned an American Boxer, and was being persecuted by a crazy lady a few doors down who was terrified of pitbulls⁽¹⁾), and it was only after she moved away, leaving her propane grill to my next door neighbor⁽²⁾ that I found out that her husband was working at the Embassy, and that their tour of duty in America had wrapped up. (That was the reason for giving away the grill; it couldn't be shipped internationally by air.) From the cities we see the entire world encroaching in, and because of the already cosmopolitan nature of urban life, we are more likely to treat the new and unusual with interest and curiosity, and we are constantly weighing the value of our traditions when faced with something new.

My knowledge of rural life is admittedly spotty and incomplete. However, I will hazard a few guesses. Feel free to correct me on anything I get wrong. In Rural America, it is the small towns and the few remaining family farms dominating. People don't travel much, and there is seldom more than two churches and one synagogue in the town. Everyone knows everyone else, and, in some way, everyone looks like everyone else. There's a strong sense of Tradition; the father is the head of the household and the master of the family, and he leads the family the way his father led, and his father before him, with every generation gently steered by the local parish into a general uniformity, not like soldiers marching in formation, but more like leaves drifting down the same stream.

Visitors are welcome, and treated with hospitality, but strangers looking to move in and settle down cause a sense of unease. There is little sense of 'the Wider World' as events the next county over seldom affect local life. The people of these towns would prefer to leave the world alone and have the world leave them alone to carry on 'as they have always done.'

What they forget is that things were not so pleasant a few generations ago, and while the adults are 'just showing respect for their elders' by letting the seniors rant on about how this group or that group are no-good hoodlums, they forget that the kids are listening to this, and seeing the adults NOT speaking up to give an opposing viewpoint, so they think that these are the values they are supposed to have.

Rural America calls Urban America 'crazy' for wanting to 'appease' the rest of the world, Urban America calls Rural America 'Insular and Xenophobic' for their desire to ignore what is going on outside the US.

The Republican party leaders appear to LIKE this divergent viewpoint; they enjoy driving wedges in, separating this group from that group and having them fight each other, and then telling both groups that the GOP will protect them from the 'other side.' However, when it comes to actual policies, the republicans only do things to help the rich, while fostering more hatred between their constituents, and blaming any 'failures' on 'those meddling Lib'rals.'

Notes:

1. I know Boxers are not pitbulls, and this boxer, named Buster, was such a sweet, loving dog, he would not hurt a fly. The only 'critters' in danger around him were the ones made of cloth and stuffed with fluff. The crazy lady convinced a judge to order 'violent animal training' for Buster, and the trainer could not complete the training; Buster was too laid-back to engage in the activities he was supposed to learn the command word to cease. (How do you train a dog to release an arm from his jaws on cue if the dog won't even open his mouth to bite, no matter how hard he is prodded?)
2. I wasn't upset that I didn't get the grill; I already had two on my porch, one charcoal, one natural gas. If they HAD offered me the grill, I would have just donated it to a neighbor anyway. Tokens of friendship don't matter, the friendship itself is the reward.

Stereotype:

"My knowledge of rural life is admittedly spotty and incomplete. However, I will hazard a few guesses. Feel free to correct me on anything I get wrong. In Rural America, it is the small towns and the few remaining family farms dominating. People don't travel much, and there is seldom more than two churches and one synagogue in the town. Everyone knows everyone else, and, in some way, everyone looks like everyone else. There's a strong sense of Tradition; the father is the head of the household and the master of the family, and he leads the family the way his father led, and his father before him, with every generation gently steered by the local parish into a general uniformity, not like soldiers marching in formation, but more like leaves drifting down the same stream."

Spoken like a true ignorant urbanite, with no knowledge at all of what really makes this nation work. It is not your fault you are ignorant, it is the failure of an entire generation worth of educational system. Not taking anything away from your skills, which are considerable, please do not condescend to the supposed slow-minded backward rubes from the country or small towns, because we are not driving our father's Oldsmobile. It is a whole 'nother beast now.

Nobody I know is saying this: "Rural America calls Urban America 'crazy' for wanting to 'appease' the rest of the world, Urban America calls Rural America 'Insular and Xenophobic' for their desire to ignore what is going on outside the US."

What we object to is the denegration of what we hold to be true, to the immediate acceptance of some other country's idea of what we should do, think, or believe. We are American, and we don't take sh** off anyone. Not now, not ever.

"What we object to is the denegration of what we hold to be true, to the immediate acceptance of some other country's idea of what we should do, think, or believe. We are American, and we don't take sh** off anyone. Not now, not ever."

However, when nations notice that each other has been metaphorically 'stepping in doggie doo,' and look down to see their own shoes are covered, does it not make sense for is to all agree to clean our shoes off before walking on the fancy carpets?

We have not been 'bowing to outside pressure' to change the country; we are either leading the changes, as we did with the abolishment of slavery⁽¹⁾, or we are in agreement about the problem and actively involved in the debate over a solution⁽²⁾. The only problem we seem unable to address is the excessive power that Corporations are wielding over the government.

Notes:

1. We never got a letter from France saying "Free your slaves, or we will stop sending our good champagne over and only sell you our crap wines."
2. On topics like pollution or global warming/climate change, our scientists have been in agreement with scientists of other nations, it's only certain politicians who seem to keep pushing the idea that global warming/climate change ISN'T happening⁽³⁾.
3. We're having an extended Autumn here in Chicago instead of a proper winter. last winter was mild, so we were expecting a Blizardgeddon this year.

The year I spent in Illinois experienced one of the milder winters. No snow, only a small flurry of sleet once. But having said that, on clear morning walks to campus, my spit would crackle, before hitting the ground, and did bounce off the ground. Too cold for me, then or now.

Americans need to place our national interest first, but not parallel to the so-called America First movement of the depression. We need to spend money on America.

Our wealth is gone, our shores plundered by evil foreign nations selfish in their intent to raid our good fortune, our natural resources, and to take food out of the mouths of our babies. No more. They want food? They need to stop killing the mother goats we send them. Stupid bastages are too dumb to suck air.

Want food - grow it. Want shelter - make it. Stop raiding Americans, or else.

"The year I spent in Illinois experienced one of the milder winters. No snow, only a small flurry of sleet once. But having said that, on clear morning walks to campus, my spit would crackle, before hitting the ground, and did bounce off the ground. Too cold for me, then or now."

'Now' we are having a 40 degree F day, in Mid-January. This Is Not Normal.

"Americans need to place our national interest first, but not parallel to the so-called America First movement of the depression. We need to spend money on America."

I agree with you here.

"Our wealth is gone, our shores plundered by evil foreign nations selfish in their intent to raid our good fortune, our natural resources, and to take food out of the mouths of our babies."

This needs a little correction, it's not "evil foreign nations," it's "evil, greedy billionaires."

"No more. They want food? They need to stop killing the mother goats we send them. Stupid bastages are too dumb to suck air."

Now who's stereotyping? You're assuming that the "evil foreign nations" are the same ones as the "impoverished nations that have had their resources stolen and are struggling to survive."

"Want food - grow it. Want shelter - make it. Stop raiding Americans, or else."

The people raiding America are not the poor, impoverished people of the African continent. They are the Corporate CEOs, the ones who ship a factory to Mexico because of the cheaper labor and weaker environmental protection; the ones who push for 'right to work' laws that starve the Unions out of the factories, which then allows the factory boss to underpay the workers, since they no longer have the ability to organize against management's abuse. You are falling for the smoke and mirrors, the enemy isn't the 'evil foreign nations,' it's the Kochs, the Waltons, the ...(you could probably guess I was leading to this)... Trumps. Don't look at the poor 'others' that these people hording the nation's wealth are calling out at the bad guys, look at the people who are greedily hoarding the nation's wealth. Do those 'uber rich' actually follow the same moral standards as you? Does Trump, now on his third wife, after discarding the first two like yesterday's suit, represent the same 'christian family values' as you? Do the Waltons, who hoard Walmart profits while the employees make so little they qualify for FOOD STAMPS, represent the same 'christian charity' you live by?

Why do you think that artist made those statues of a naked Trump, and why do you think they were displayed across the country as 'gurellia art'? This wasn't just to make fun of Trump, it was a message: The Emperor Has No Clothes. We liberals try to spread the message that the GOP is lying to their voting blocks, try to show that the people you elect into office do not share the values they claim to have when they ask for your vote⁽¹⁾. But it seems that every time we try to get the message across, it either falls on deaf ears, or the listener is angrier at having his foolishness revealed than he is at being fooled.

Look, please. Just look at what your Republican politicians DO while in office. Don't listen to their words, you already know works can be used to mislead; we Liberals are accused of using misleading words often. Look at what they do, and ask yourself, "Is this something my father would have told me to do? Is this something I would tell my son to do?" Just look, and ask.

Notes:

1. It's possible you DO share a 'value' with the Republican officials, but that is a 'value' that I would prefer not to mention here. I want to keep this civil and polite.