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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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
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A Florida judge has ruled that it is illegal to live completely off the grid.

Freedom dies: A Florida judge has ruled that it is illegal to live completely off the grid.

The judge stated that a woman, who has been trying to live without using any utilities, has to reconnect her water line, though she won’t be forced to use it. He also admitted that the law is outdated and should be changed. This quote however is revealing.

The widow and former real estate agent now has two choices. She can either restore her hookup to the water system by the end of March or appeal Eskin’s ruling to the courts. It is not known what action the city will take but city officials told Fernandez that they would be willing to let Speronis stay in her home if conditions are “sanitary.” At the hearing, Eskin noted that city officials have not actually been in Speronis’s home to make that determination.

It is so nice the government is “willing to let her stay in her home.”

Thugs.

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

7 comments

  • wade

    I spent a great deal of my life in Florida and up to a few years ago, owned a dwelling that i no longer had time or expense to maintain. I believe the water source hook up law goes back to the mid ’60s as a legal act to squelch roadside squatters from living in broke down automobiles along the roadside.

  • Cotour

    So now there are two mandated things that a naturally born human being born an American must do to remain a law abiding citizen and not run afoul of the law.

    1. You must own a healthcare insurance policy

    and

    2. You must have a hookup to utilities?

  • Cotour

    That actually makes sense, I am not so sure that it applies in this case though, this is an existing home.

  • mpthompson

    To be fair, I believe there are details in this story that are missing. It seems the woman’s home was connected to the sewer line which she was indeed using. In her area it seems payment for sewer services is attached to the water bill. Therefore, by not paying for a water connection meant she was able to avoid paying for sewer services for a number years. Without payment her sewer service was capped which enabled the city to declare her property “uninhabitable” for unsanitary conditions.

    The obvious answer is to fix the billing issue that allows a person to use sewer services without a water connection, but there is more to this story than local government harassing a person for simply living off the grid.

  • wade

    good point. Yet, the reference within the article as to “living off the grid” also reminds me of the Required law of an electrical utility hook-up Even when your dwelling is self sufficient through solar and wind and /or other power supply.

  • wade

    Well there is A Lot more . As in, when we die, we are not dead until a government official declares us dead and our family members Must abide by Federal Regulated burial methods and Approved agencies

  • wade

    My “over-all” thought and point stated in regards to the news story is in fact ; IF they have a Reason to or Interest to strip You of everything that you worked for and Saved, then our Federal Government can and will. We are Property to Them. So there in , any , Any property we Acquire through out our Lives is actually Borrowed even if we made On-time Payments and was handed a Title or Deed.

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