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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

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4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


California Democrats legalize child prostitution

Yes you read that right: The Democratically controlled California legislature has passed a law, signed by Democrat Governor Jerry Brown, that legalizes child prostitution beginning on January 1, 2016.

SB 1322 bars law enforcement from arresting sex workers who are under the age of 18 for soliciting or engaging in prostitution, or loitering with the intent to do so. So teenage girls (and boys) in California will soon be free to have sex in exchange for money without fear of arrest or prosecution.

Obviously, we don’t have the right to stop underage children from working the streets to make money, do we? We mustn’t be judgmental, or deny them their freedom. That would make us racist, tyrannical conservatives!

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

3 comments

  • Tom Billings

    So, California still makes it illegal (a misdemeamor) for people *over* 18 to do sex work. They still make it illegal for *anyone* to buy sex from either an over 18 year old(a misdemeanor) *or* a under 18 year old(a felony). They just don’t throw the under 18 year old in jail?

    This seems another law to make it easier to enforce what is a fundamentally bad law in the first place, by slicing away from punishment the most pitiful victim in the scenario originally held out as the reason for making all sex work illegal. That being the underage prostitute. This is mostly a way to take the pressure off the enforcers of the fundamentally bad law.

    Yes, …here and there, …now and then, …an underage prostitute who otherwise would stay quiet, will out the pimp pushing them to “produce” money, because they know they won’t get put in jail for going to the police. In addition, corrupt cops won’t be able to pressure them for “freebies” nearly as easily. This still doesn’t get rid of a basically bad law. It does not admit the basic motivation behind political support for the basically bad law.

    That motivation is from married mothers with children, who want all the money of the family earned by the husband to go to support them and their children. It is an anti-competition measure, in that husbands will spend less on prostitutes when there are fewer around, because they are scared away. That way the wives need compete with no one for their husbands’ paychecks.

    We really need to admit basic motivations here, but that isn’t what sounds nearly as high-minded and competent as “rescuing” underage prostitutes, while only prosecuting prostitutes who’ve reached their legal majority.

  • LocalFluff

    In Sweden you cannot be arrested if you are under 15, no matter what crime you commit. So criminal organizations use children to commit crimes. Children are openly selling drugs on the street and the police can’t do anything about it. The law effectively promotes child criminality. The severely demented politicians, and the general public too actually, are incapable of considering the consequences of their actions, so they necessarily fail. Nothing can be done about it, other than maybe large scale head amputations.

  • ken anthony

    I can already see 30 year olds self identifying as teenagers. You heard it here first.

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