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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.

 

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Dog sits on editorial board of seven medical journals

An Australian professor wondered if he could get his dog Ollie picked to be on the editorial board of a number of medical journals, and was astonished to discover seven who agreed without reservations.

Ollie’s owner is Mike Daube, Professor of Health Policy at Curtin University in Perth. Ollie likes to watch Mike working on his computer, and Mike gets a lot of emails from predatory journals. Wondering just how low these journals would go, he put together a curriculum vitae for his dog – detailing research interests such as “the benefits of abdominal massage for medium-sized canines” – and sent it off to a number of these journals, asking for a spot on their editorial boards.

Remarkably, the vast majority accepted Ollie without demur, and her name now adorns several journal websites. Ollie is a trailblazer, Professor Daube says, being the first dog ever to get on the editorial board of a journal.

“What makes it even more bizarre is that one of these journals has actually asked Ollie to review an article. It’s entitled “Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumours and their management.” Some poor soul has actually written an article on this theme in good faith, and the journal has sent it to a dog to review.”

The article provides a nice look at the problems facing the modern peer review journal field.

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

12 comments

  • pzatchok

    I know that dog.
    That dog is outstanding in his field.

    Literally he is out standing in a field.

  • Nick P

    What makes the owner so certain Ollie is the first dog to get on the editorial board of a journal?

  • chris r

    Is this crap for real? I thought it was bad when my co-workers get paid to spend half the day shopping on Amazon and wasting time on Facebook.

  • itizen Quasar

    Are these female dogs?

  • wayne

    I can’t resist….

    “Doggie Bag”
    Subaru TV Commercial
    https://youtu.be/OC3xHFHxr80
    (0:42)

    Chris r–when I worked for my County government– I can anecdotally confirm, that’s exactly what they did. (Certainly not everyone, but enough of them to matter.)
    We had one guy, waiting out his retirement, who ran quite the EBay Empire from his office, and would go missing to the Post Office for hours, 2-3 times a week.

  • Cotour

    Ollies next extensive research and resulting paper is rumored to be titled : The long term health benefits of Glossa / genital / anal interaction in Carnovoria.

    Now that’s a page turner!

  • wayne

    oh, my, gosh….
    The good Professor, is a progressive totalitarian nut-job.

    Professor Mike Daube –
    “How to achieve a tobacco free Australia by 2030”
    https://youtu.be/9iXDSjyYB4g
    (1:46)

  • mike shupp

    Memo to self:

    It reflects on your intelligence so do Do NOT make the obvious jokes about SOBs. Do NOT make crude comments about SOBs. Do NOT even hint at confusion between humans and dogs and SOBs.

    Oh! sometimes, life is hard!

  • ken anthony

    The punchline is Ollie gives the best reviews on the board!

  • Richard Day

    Didn’t the Romans have a horse in their senate?

  • Richard Day

    Snoopy shot down the Red Baron.

  • LocalFluff

    And my elementary school teacher didn’t believe me when I said that the dog ate my homework.

    The names of the peers reviewing should be published in the paper. It is sometimes an embarrassment to publish a paper later proven wrong, and that kind of personal incentive needs to be applied to the peer reviewers. If that makes it harder to publish papers, maybe that’s a good thing. Increasing the quality of what is let through the filters.

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