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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.

 

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The ticking IRS IT department time bomb.

The ticking IRS IT department time bomb.

It’s one thing to get a political hack to lie under oath or to take a fall to keep himself viable in that world, it’s quite another to get the non political people who have no real skin in the game to be willing to perjure themselves before congress in an attempt to claim incompetence.

These guys simply aren’t going to take the fall for a bunch of political hacks.

The clock is ticking, as soon as the IT guys are under oath the IRS scandal is going to explode and that blast is going to take a lot of people with them.

The only way this bomb will go off, however, is if the Republicans in Congress light the fuse. They have to push the issue, forcing these lower level IT people to testify. Sadly, these Republicans too often act like they are afraid of their own shadow, thus letting the worst acts of corruption slip without so much as a peep.

Hopefully the results of the November election will give these guys some backbone.

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

7 comments

  • Cotour

    I agree with you completely, there may only be a few that will seemingly step out front on the issue, but the majority will play it safe until its strategically understood that there will be no negative consequences. A little too practical for me. These wheels grind slowly.

  • Abe Windsor

    So far . . . . . The Eric Cantor Defeat has yet to get the
    Republican’s attention! May the Dims loose at least
    one Hundred seats as the GOP sees another 50 of their
    members go down in flames!
    Will they listen even then?

  • Abe Windsor

    COO – Continuatioon of Operations from the Eisenhower Administration requires that all data be stored so the government Can Continue in the event of a National Energency (Nuclear War). The Iron Mountain facility (PA), holds All manner Of information, digital and even magnetic tape on reels and ancient paper tape rolls!

    That is in addition to the standard IT daily, weekly and monthly backup procedures, not to mention the servers that hold copies of the emails she
    sent out in the backup files for each recipient…………

    Lies piled higher and deeper . . . . . . The real White House PhDs.

  • Joe

    All of this supposes that the I T guys aren’t politically on the side of the Left, many of the I T guys I know are left leaning. I do not know how far they would take their ideology.

  • Abe Windsor

    Just like the climategate emails, it only takes one person
    to hot USB the backup emails out to a public library
    connection for uploading to a dozen Congressional
    and Media inboxes. The other IT persons under the
    law have already committed felonies by protecting
    the current lawless executive branch…….

  • DK Williams

    The Regime has thus far silenced Benghazi witnesses, so they might be able to do similarly with the IT geeks.

  • Kelly Starks

    The real question is, what about the unaccountable to political appointees, civil service staffs? If they get pulled into hearings they rae not likely to risk a perjury charge for some lame duck political hacks.

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