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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.

 

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A Texas woman did not want a smart meter installed in her home, and when the power company employee would not take no for an answer she stopped him — by showing him her legal gun.

A Texas woman did not want a smart meter installed in her home, and when the power company employee would not take no for an answer she stopped him — by showing him her legal gun.

She placed herself between the installer and her old meter but, “He just kept pushing me away.” That’s when she showed him her handgun. “He saw it, and went back the other way.”

The response of the power company is also interesting.

“We are deeply troubled by anyone who would pull a gun on another person performing their job,” reads a statement from the company. “CenterPoint will be taking additional steps – including court actions – because what happened is dangerous, illegal and unwarranted.”

First, the employee was on this woman’s property. Second, it appears the employee pushed the woman. Since when is it illegal to protect both your property and your person from assault?

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

5 comments

  • Steve C

    If I ran a power company and a customer pulled a gun on one of my people, my former customer had better get used to sitting in the dark.

  • Kelly Starks

    When you have them install power company connections and meters on your land, they get the legal right to access it and maintain or change it.

  • John M. Egan

    The employee did not respect the woman’s wishes so it’s his fault.

  • wade

    have you Tried to call a Utility Company or cell phone provider? they can contact You but it is a One Way street as to actually talking to a Rep. while this circumstance seems to be an extreme “case” i none the less see many avenues for the customers defense. this story appears to be either a contrived instance or….a C I A study of What IF. i cannot see this circumstance as it was reported meaning, there are facts that are omitted in its presented form, for What Ever the Reason.

  • Jim

    Agreed…pulling a gun out as an appropriate response to a utility maintaining its equipment is just ridiculous. Clearly this whole episode could have been tragic for everyone.

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