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Businessman found innocent of all charges after years of persecution by the Justice Department.

Our fascist government: A medical company and its head was pursued and persecuted for five years by the Department of Justice, based on a false accusation by a former employee, only to lose its case when it finally presented its case to a jury.

It all started when one of our salesmen became upset he didn’t receive a promotion. So he quit and filed a baseless complaint with the U.S. attorney’s office in San Antonio, alleging a multitude of offenses to try to justify a $20 million claim. Simply by hiring a lawyer and making wild accusations, this former employee with an ax to grind became entitled under the law to receive 20 percent of whatever money the government could “recover” from Vascular Solutions.

The government lawyers reviewed his allegations and chose to pursue just one. I offered to meet with them to correct their misinformation, but two days before that scheduled meeting, they called my lawyer and canceled it. And they never would reschedule. So before deciding to bring criminal charges, these prosecutors never heard my side of the story.

Instead, they subpoenaed over 2 million pages of our documents and interviewed over 60 customers and employees. In the process, they received evidence that conflicted with the story told by that money-motivated former employee. But instead of changing their conclusions to fit the evidence, these prosecutors engaged in obscene tactics to try to change the evidence.

In conversation with our lawyers, they called conflicting statements by witnesses “a line of sh*t.” They referred to one employee as “a poor f***er” who needed to return “on bended knee” to “fix” his testimony. They told a female employee to think about what would happen to her firstborn son if she were indicted because she refused to “cooperate.” And by “fix” and “cooperate,” I mean retract their prior testimony and support the government’s case.

Granted, this is written by the man whom the government was trying to prosecute. Still, I believe him, especially because of one key fact he outlines once they went to trial:

In the end, after I endured four weeks sitting in a San Antonio courtroom while still running Vascular Solutions in Minnesota, the jury rejected each and every allegation. And that was without hearing from any of our 20 witnesses, since we made the decision to rest immediately after the government finished its case. So the government’s own witnesses proved our innocence — simply stunning.

The company says it spent $25 million defending itself. It is now calling for an investigation and a firing of these Justice Department lawyers. How many of you expect the Obama administration to follow through with this? I don’t.

Getting higher on Mount Sharp

Looking across Gale Crater

Cool image time! The above image, cropped and reduced slightly for presentation here, was taken by one of Curiosity’s navigation cameras on March 2. Though the science team has not captioned it, I think it is looking down from the heights that Curiosity has climbed and across the plains of Gale Crater to its rim in the far distance. The image itself appears to have been taken after the rover spent several days climbing up to what they have dubbed Naukluft Plateau.

Be sure to check out the full resolution image that can be found here.

Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

 

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

Methane ice on Pluto’s mountain peaks

New images from New Horizons of the dark Cthulhu region have revealed white-capped mountain peaks, thought to be methane ice.

Scientists think this bright material could be predominantly methane that has condensed as ice onto the peaks from Pluto’s atmosphere. “That this material coats only the upper slopes of the peaks suggests methane ice may act like water in Earth’s atmosphere, condensing as frost at high altitude,” said John Stansberry, a New Horizons science team member from Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland.

We as humans are attracted to features on other worlds that remind us of Earth, mainly because this allows us to quickly understand what we are seeing. It is important however to remind ourselves continually that Pluto is not Earth, and is in fact a very alien place. Many things we think we recognize are really very different than what we assume. For example, the methane ice here is coating mountains made of water ice that is as stable as granite in Pluto’s super cold environment.

One more thing: It appears that at this point, seven months after New Horizons flew past Pluto, they have still only downloaded less than half the data obtained. This is not a problem, as this is how things were planned, but it does mean that there are likely many more discoveries yet for us to see.

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 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

Building a log cabin, alone

An evening pause: This is the first part of a longer work. To quote the youtube webpage,

“Alone in the Wilderness” is the story of Dick Proenneke living in the Alaska wilderness. Dick filmed his adventures so he could show his relatives in the lower 48 states what life was like in Alaska, building his cabin, hunting for food and exploring the area. Bob Swerer has taken the best footage from Dick’s films and he has created 3 videos about Dick, “Alone in the Wilderness”, “Alaska, Silence and Solitude” and “The Frozen North”

I like this because it gives a good hint at what life was really like for the original mountain men who first explored the American west. They were resourceful, clever, strong-willed, and technologically very sophisticated. Dick Proenneke shows us how to do it again.

Hat tip Rocco.

Hubble finds galaxy with record-breaking redshift

The uncertainty of science: Using the Hubble Space Telescope astronomers have discovered a galaxy with the largest redshift ever measured, 11.1, making it the most distant object so far measured and only about 400 million years after the Big Bang..

The uncertainty is that all theories have said that this galaxy was not supposed to exist at that time.

However, the discovery also raises many new questions as the existence of such a bright and large galaxy is not predicted by theory. “It’s amazing that a galaxy so massive existed only 200 million to 300 million years after the very first stars started to form. It takes really fast growth, producing stars at a huge rate, to have formed a galaxy that is a billion solar masses so soon,” explains Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Marijn Franx, a member of the team from the University of Leiden highlights: “The discovery of GN-z11 was a great surprise to us, as our earlier work had suggested that such bright galaxies should not exist so early in the Universe.” His colleague Ivo Labbe adds: “The discovery of GN-z11 showed us that our knowledge about the early Universe is still very restricted. How GN-z11 was created remains somewhat of a mystery for now.”

Leaving Earth cover

There are now only 3 copies left of the now out-of-print hardback of Leaving Earth. The price for an autographed copy of this rare collector's item is now $150 (plus $5 shipping).

 

To get your copy while the getting is good, please send a $155 check (which includes $5 shipping) payable to Robert Zimmerman to
 

Behind The Black, c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

Leaving Earth is also available as an inexpensive ebook!

 

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

 

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

Titan’s changing shorelines

Shoreline changes on Titan

Cool image time! Using radar images taken during the past decade by Cassini scientists have discovered changes taking place along the shorelines of Titan’s hydrocarbon seas.

Analysis by Cassini scientists indicates that the bright features, informally known as the “magic island,” are a phenomenon that changes over time. They conclude that the brightening is due to either waves, solids at or beneath the surface or bubbles, with waves thought to be the most likely explanation. They think tides, sea level and seafloor changes are unlikely to be responsible for the brightening.

The images in the column at left show the same region of Ligeia Mare as seen by Cassini’s radar during flybys in (from top to bottom) 2007, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

These shoreline changes are not the only ones spotted by Cassini. However, because these are radar images, not visual, there are many uncertainties about what causes the changes, which is why they list several possibilities. For example, with radar, a simple roughness on the surface (such as waves) could cause a brightening.

Free government money for Aerojet Rocketdyne!

Crony capitalism: Even though ULA prefers Blue Origin’s engine for its Atlas 5, the Air Force continues to fund Aerojet Rocketdyne’s new engine.

The U.S. Air Force announced Feb. 29 it was investing $115 million this year, and with options, as much as $536 million over the next five years, in [Aerojet Rocketdyne’s] AR1, a new liquid oxygen- and kerosene-fueled main-stage engine. The contract award is part of an Air Force initiative to end reliance on the Russian-built RD-180 engine that powers ULA’s Atlas 5 workhorse rocket.

Aerojet says it has two potential other customers to use the engine, but will not name them. In reviewing the field, the only customer I can think of that might be interested would be Orbital ATK (for its Antares rocket), and even there I have doubts. Thus, it appears to me that these funds are really being distributed to prop up a company that is failing, not to build anything useful the government needs.

Trump winning open primaries, Cruz winning closed ones

Link here.

If true, why does this matter? Because so far the primary calendar has been heavily tilted toward open primaries. But there have been four closed elections: the Iowa caucus, the Nevada caucus, and Super Tuesday’s Oklahoma primary and Alaska caucus. Ted Cruz won three of those four closed elections.

This suggests that, as a number of polls have indicated, Trump’s victories have largely been aided by moderate Democratic voters crossing over to vote for him, mostly I suspect out of disgust at the extreme leftist tilt of their own party.

A more important factor to consider, however, is that the primaries will be increasingly shifting to closed primaries in the coming weeks. This weekend alone there are four primaries/caucuses, and they are all closed. No Democrats can vote in them. If Cruz tops Trump in most, it will indicate Trump’s true weakness within the Republican Party, a fact that could make it far more difficult for him to achieve the nomination than presently indicated.

And if Trump does well in these closed primaries? Then the nomination is likely his.

India’s space agency ISRO gets a budget boost

In its new budget approved by India’s government the country’s space agency ISRO was the only science agency to get a significant budget increase, approximately 7.3%.

In the short run this is good, as ISRO has been using its funds wisely and accomplishing a lot for a little, while trying to encourage private development in India’s aerospace industry. In the long run, however, this will not be good, as government agencies always grow more than they should while sucking the innovation and creativity from the private sector. This is what NASA did in the U.S.

Hopefully, India will see how things are changing in America with private enterprise reasserting itself after a half century of government stagnation in space development and copy what we are doing.

Astronauts return after 340 days on ISS

After 340 days in space astronauts Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko safely returned to Earth early today.

Now the real research begins. Because Kelly has an identical twin, Mark Kelly, who is also a former astronaut, researchers will be able to gain a great deal of knowledge comparing the differences in how their bodies changed over the nearly full year, with one in weightlessness and the other on Earth.

However, what I want is longer missions, two or three years long, thus far exceeding what it would take to travel to and from Mars. Only then can we find out if humans will be able to make the journey safely.

Al Bowlly – Melancholy Baby

An evening pause: Even though it is more seven decades since this was recorded, it remains as fresh and as vibrant as anything sung today. Almost more so because of its simplicity. Bowlly was a big name singer in the 1930s, and he shows why here.

Hat tip Edward Thelen.

The suicide of the GOP establishment

Link here.

Time and time again, grassroots and movement conservatives have expressed their opposition to all five of the key planks in Rubio’s platform. These Republicans do not support the Gang of Eight bill. They do not support Obama’s trade deals. They do not want to spend huge amounts of blood and treasure again in the Middle East. And they most certainly do not want the economy to look like it did in the fall of 2008.

These voters have tried, through every means available, to make their opposition felt. They are the reason that Eric Cantor is no longer in the House. They are the reason that the Gang of Eight bill didn’t pass. They are the reason that John Boehner is no longer speaker. And they are the reason that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have dominated the polls for months.

Many people have urged the Rubio donor network, think-tank fellows and media supporters to back off on their policy demands — to do more than simply acknowledge “the voters are right to be angry.” In fact, Gov. Chris Christie advocated for compromise during a speech at St. Anselm’s College earlier this year. People such as former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote recently that the GOP must be more sensitive to the concerns of working-class voters, whom she dubbed the “unprotected.”

Nevertheless, even today, the Rubio supporters refuse to budge.

The Rubio supporters are also the same people in the GOP who tried to push Jeb Bush on us. The real tragedy is that if they had thrown their support to Ted Cruz, they might have been able to quell Donald Trump’s dominance in the polls. Instead, they have refused to face the reality that the general public does not support they policies, and have run like lemmings to the cliff by splitting the conservatives between Cruz and Rubio.

The result: The Republican Party stands a very good chance right now of nominating as its Presidential candidate someone who is as liberal as Bill Clinton and as reliable in what he says. Worse, polls continue to show him losing to the worst Democratic candidates offered in decades.

China’s next manned mission

The competition heats up: The next Chinese manned mission will occur in the fall of 2016 and will have the astronauts remain in space for 30 days on a new space station launched during the summer.

After the astronauts have completed their flight, China will then launch their first unmanned cargo craft, dubbed Tianzhou-1, to dock with the station, using a new medium-lift rocket, Long March 7, which will get its first test flight this coming June.

Honing the search for alien civilizations

Worlds without end: In order to increase the odds of contacting extraterrestrial civilizations, astronomers have calculated the area in the sky where an alien-built Kepler could have seen the Earth transit the sun, thus increasing the chances that those alien-astronomers have discovered Earth and have tried to contact us.

“The key point of this strategy is that it confines the search area to a very small part of the sky. As a consequence, it might take us less than a human life span to find out whether or not there are extraterrestrial astronomers who have found the Earth. They may have detected Earth’s biogenic atmosphere and started to contact whoever is home,” explains René Heller from the MPS.

Not every star is equally well suited as a home of extraterrestrial life. The more massive a star, the shorter is its life span. Yet, a long stellar life is considered a prerequisite for the development of higher life forms. Therefore the researchers compiled a list of stars that are not only in the advantageous part of the sky but also offer good chances of hosting evolved forms of life, that is, intelligent life. The researchers compiled a list of 82 nearby Sun-like stars that satisfy their criteria. This catalogue can now serve as an immediate target list for SETI initiatives.

Tom Lehrer – Poisoning Pigeons In The Park

An evening pause: Tom Lehrer has always been a favorite musical satirist of the modern intellectual community. In the 1960s he was radical, cute, and refreshing. There are many comedy songs by him that I like. This song, performed here on September 11, 1967 (a date quite appropriate in retrospect), illustrates however why in many ways the humor of the left has become somewhat shrill. Too many times, they actually mean it.

Hat tip Edward Thelen.

UC-Berkeley Chemistry College to shutter?

The coming dark age: The University of California in Berkeley is considering disbanding its College of Chemistry to deal with $150 million pf debt.

One commenter noted this key fact: “What about African American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies? Are those programs going to be affected too?” with two others adding sarcastically, “No, they are essential,” and “Because they teach such marketable skills.”

Steve Martin – The Great Flydini

An evening pause: The silliness couldn’t be greater.

Hat tip Peter Fenstermacher.

As always, I welcome suggestions from anyone for evening pauses. If you have made them before, please feel free to send me more. You know how to reach me. If you’ve never suggested any but want to, comment here (without including the suggestion-that would give it away) and I will contact you myself.

Brownshirts try to silence conservative speaker

The coming dark age: Ben Shapiro speaks at California State U, despite fascist mobs, violent threats, and an attempt by the college president to silence him.

Be sure to watch all three video clips at the first link above. One shows Shapiro speaking as the fire alarm goes off. The other two clips show the hostile mob outside. The contrast is striking. All the mob needs are pitchforks and torches to complete the picture.

That it was possible for the left to harness such a large mob so quickly in an effort to silence Shapiro’s dissent suggests strongly to me that we are heading for very bad times. In a few short years, the students in that mob, who far outnumber the peaceful students who came to listen to Shapiro, are going to have powerful jobs and influential positions. And these fascists are going to be eager to use that power to squelch their opponents.

Addendum: Be sure to read this comment at the link from someone who was there. It is really frightening. As she notes,

I know from this site and others that this is what goes on. But actually being there and being shoved and taunted and blocked from hearing a speaker … it’s just another dimension. You can’t believe the insanity. You can’t believe the completely undeserved sense of moral superiority coupled with the simmering threat of violence. Really, really disheartening. …

The Young Americans for Freedom gang are a brave, brave group. Just completely outnumbered. Talked with one of them from the Reagan Center and she’d met Professor Jacobson and Mrs. Jacobson when they were at the center last year.

Seeing that in person, I think we’ve passed the point of no return. It’s not something you fix. It’s a stain you can’t get out … a complete mess. You cannot reason with people who refuse to listen to reason. At one point, one of the protestors was telling the guy next to me that Ben Shapiro was a racist and a supremacist because he was an Orthodox Jew, and thus should not be allowed to speak.

Tolerance. Behold.

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