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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.

 

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U.S. withdraws from UN Human Rights Council

As long promised if it didn’t reform its anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli biases, the U.S. today officially withdrew from UN Human Rights Council.

I especially like the blunt statement by U.S. UN ambassador Nikki Haley in announcing the withdrawal:

“For too long, [the U.N. Human Rights Council] has been a protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias,” Ms. Haley said in announcing the move during a joint appearance at the State Department with Mr. Pompeo.

“Regrettably,” she added, “it is now clear that our call for reform was not heeded.”

It appears that this withdrawal means that the council will no longer be getting any U.S. funds.

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

11 comments

  • Tom

    About time. The Donald is truly about putting bad actors on notice, even if they are neighbors or treaty partners.

  • Localfluff

    The UN will not survive Trump’s presidency. He’s bilateral foreign policy will take over. Hasn’t the UN been at war with North Korea for over 60 years without any solution or improvement? It took Reagan to solve the cold war. The UN has never achieved anything.

  • Is there some alternate means by which actual human rights abusers could be held to account?

  • Localfluff

    @DougSpace
    You mean other than having the human rights abusers themselves deal with it in UN?

  • Phill O

    The antisemitic stance of the UN certainly needs to change! The problem is that most countries are lead by despots! Including Canada EH! The Donald attacked Canada’s supply management for dairy and eggs. Great!! To bad the Trudeau would not stand up for beekeepers. They say they have a low cost food policy so cheap crap honey from China comes in. Not so for dairy and eggs. It is about time somebody in the world stood up for the consumer. Go get em Don.

    My questions are “Why is it the leftists who attack Israel while the rightists give support?” “Why do the left disobey the law while they scream for the conservative to obey the law?” “Why does the left support the criminals while the right supports law abiding citizens?” This seems to be a world wide problem

  • Localfluff

    @Phill O
    Socialists envy the islamists for having created a society even worse than the socialists have done. Poorer, more oppressed, stuck in the stone age with total intolerance against all and any kind of learning and adaptation.

  • pzatchok

    How many nations are honestly democracies?

    How many nations are essentially run by dictators?

    Why are they given equal rights and votes in the UN?

    You are either and ally or to some degree an enemy.

    Its time for a League of Democratic Nations instead of wasting our time in the corrupt UN.

  • pzatchok, your suggestion is along the lines of what I was getting at. But not all nations that describe themselves as democracies are worthy of our respect. Venezuela legitimately elected Chavez. But would he have been a good judge of human rights?

    So, I’m thinking about a multilateral organization in which those countries with good human rights records and who are willing to sign on to reasonable principles of human rights would form their own organization. To give it some teeth, they would agree to national, economic sanctions, such as limiting access to banking and some sort of penalties against countries that overlook the human rights violations of the worst offenders. Something along those lines. I don’t know if there would be enough countries go go along with such an organization to make it effective.

  • pzatchok

    NATO was pretty small compared to the rest of the world but it was pretty powerful.

    Lets start with the original 12 NATO nations and start voting in the rest as they ask to join.

  • wayne

    Judge Napolitano:
    How Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson Destroyed Constitutional Freedom
    Reason TV 2012
    https://youtu.be/vSh_6n_haWw
    14:02

  • A Owen

    @pzatchok

    Like the EU? Let’s see how that finally works out.

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