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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:

 

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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

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.


Like your health insurance? You may be losing it.

Like your health insurance? You may be losing it because of Obamacare.

I like this quote best:

“You’re going to be forcibly upgraded,” said Bob Laszewski, a health care industry consultant. “It’s like showing up at the airline counter and being told, ‘You have no choice, $300 please. You’re getting a first-class ticket, why are you complaining?'”

Sadly, I don’t think it will be this good. Many will decide the first class plan is simply unaffordable, and will instead opt out, paying the IRS fine instead. The result, fewer people having health insurance.

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

4 comments

  • jwing

    What’s the real difference between this and being held up and forced to empty your wallet?

    “Stick em up, this is your federal HHS and the IRS. About your healthcare insurance….you’ll either pay up now for this mandatory overpriced premium health policy or you’ll be fined, your wages will be garnished or you’ll go to jail. That’s your choice. Thank you for cooperating with your friendly federal IRS agent and HHS navigator thugs.”

  • JGL

    This is the most un Constitutional law that has ever been conceived and passed in America, both party’s have finally found a way to control the people from birth to death.

    All of these offences and abuses of power are beginning to add up.

  • “The result, fewer people having health insurance.”

    But, I suspect, more people able to access health care, as they find the many providers I expect to go to a cash business model.

    It’s been one of the Big Lies, promulgated by both parties, but mostly by Democrats, that health insurance is synonymous with health care. It isn’t, and never has been, but most people have been brainwashed into believing that it is so. Politicians want folks to believe that, because it gives them power.

    As with most things, when you start throwing large amounts of money into a system (see Big Education), you disrupt market forces, leading to a ‘problem’ that needs to be ‘fixed’.

  • jwing

    Yes, it’s the economic theory of “crowding out” whereby regulations, fees and barriers to entry force private enterprises out of business leaving only government agencies and those organizations accepting government subsidies to survive and thrive.

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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