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Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent independent analysis you don’t find elsewhere. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn’t influenced by donations by established companies or political movements. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:

 

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The Secret Service raided a man’s home expressly and solely because he was a frequent critic of President Obama.

The new freedom: The Secret Service raided a man’s home expressly and solely because he was a frequent critic of President Obama.

The man wasn’t violent, had never threatened Obama in any way (something the Secret Service admitted). His only crime was that he expressed his first amendment rights to criticize the president. For that, his house was searched and he was threatened.

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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

2 comments

  • JGL

    I wonder why a man apparently familiar with his rights under the Constitution would agree to their request to search his private house without a valid warrant ?

  • Edward

    According to him, Tom Francois had nothing to hide, so he let them search.

    (BTW, if you claim that you have nothing to hide, then I can have a webcam installed in your shower this afternoon, and I’ll include on the webcast your name, address, phone number, social security number, financial account numbers – complete with pins and other security passcodes, and a host of other private information that you would rather keep private. You have plenty to hide; keep it hidden.)

    He did, however, get some documentation that demonstrates that he was being searched without any kind of probable cause. He may have been wrong about the Secret Service getting a warrant, because of the lack of probable cause. And what judge would violate the Fourth Amendment and issue a warrant without it?

    His innocence (I mean this in both senses) demonstrates that he thinks that just because you are innocent, they can’t come up with some form of guilt.
    http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=8278, Essay: “You Do Too Have Something To Hide”

    There are hundreds of thousands of pages of laws, and there is no way that a law abiding citizen can know all of them or all of the ways that the courts have interpreted them. Even lawyers spend huge amounts of time studying these subjects, so what chance do the rest of us have?

    No matter what we do, the chances are that we have inadvertently violated some portion of the law. This is how some of those recent IRS audits have been so effective.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

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