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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.

 

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Another age discrimination lawsuit against Dick’s

Pushback: An 18-year-old Michigan man has filed an age discrimination lawsuit against Dick’s for refusing to sell him a firearm.

This is on top of the other lawsuit in Oregon earlier this week.

Personally, I usually support the freedom of stores to choose whom they will sell their products to, even though I know that this approach has generally not been the law of the land since the 1960s. However, what we have here is pushback by the right, using the same tactics that the left has been using to go after Christian bakeries, wedding dress companies, and wedding photographers. At this point in the culture wars, I think it is time to use these tactics against leftist intolerance, and use them hard and often. If it it somehow okay for leftists to destroy a Christian baker, photographer, or dressmaker simply because they do not wish to do something against their conscience, then maybe it is time to make some corporations feel some pain for joining sides with this intolerant left.

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

8 comments

  • wayne

    I can’t readily find the text of the complaint, but the relevant Michigan Law is the Elliot-Larson Civil Rights Act.
    And much like the Oregon statute, they are going to rely on “age discrimination in public accommodation’s.”
    PDF of the Act is here: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/act_453_elliott_larsen_8772_7.pdf
    –This guy apparently lives in Battle Creek, and intentionally drove (quite a way) to Troy and sought out a Dick’s. He would have driven past literally scores of mom-n-pop guns shops that would have been happy to serve him.

    I’m normally a big fan of turning the Administrative State against itself, but concurrently I’m highly leery of the unintended consequence’s that can result from playing their games.

    Just not convinced, yet, this is the hill to die on.

  • Cotour

    If the speed and force multiplying and deadly nature of the AR is the concern and it is believed that raising the age to purchase one to 21 may tend to solve the problem then why not increase the minimum age to drive to 21 also?

    “In 2015, 2,333 teens in the United States ages 16–19 were killed and 235,845 were treated in emergency departments for injuries suffered in motor vehicle crashes.1 That means that six teens ages 16–19 died every day from motor vehicle injuries. In 2013, young people ages 15-19 represented only 7% of the U.S. population. However, they accounted for 11% ($10 billion) of the total costs of motor vehicle injuries.1”

    https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/teen_drivers/teendrivers_factsheet.html

    “At least 84 people have been killed and 119 have been injured so far this year in 86 shooting incidents involving assault-style rifles, according to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit corporation that tracks gun violence. Those numbers include the casualties at Pulse nightclub over the weekend.

    There have been at least 267 incidents involving assault-style rifles in 2016, including reported weapons thefts, crimes in which the guns were brandished, arrests for illegal possession and other legal interventions in which they weren’t fired.

    Those deaths account for about 2 percent of the 6,153 gun deaths and less than 1 percent of the 12,560 gun injuries the Gun Violence Archive has counted so far this year. This tally consists largely of homicides and assaults, but also includes suicides that were part of a murder-suicide. It also counts accidental deaths, the majority of which involve handguns, not rifles.” Huffington Post 6/17/16

    In pure numbers many, many more young people are killed by automobiles every year than semi automatic rifles, so what is the real issue here? I think its the terror and portability aspect of the power factor multiplied, once again, by the mentally unstable nature of insane people that is the real issue. And that is the more appropriate subject to focus on, besides hardening what even venue needs hardening.

    Not an issue that will resolved any time soon. (I bet that kid David Hogg would know exactly what to do)

  • Phill O

    It all comes down to the Human condition!

    Personally, I have no objections to using left’s tactics against them.

  • wayne

    Phill O
    I am generally not opposed to using the left’s tactics against them, (up to & including full scale kinetic action, applied without mercy or restraint) however I would put forth: We play a very dangerous game in attempting to manipulate the Administrative State against themselves. (we have to accept their initial premise to Play their Game, and I for one reject their underlying thinking.)
    Best to tear down, defund, & smash the administrative state, rather than embrace it’s power.
    Dick’s wants out of the gun-business anyway, and has been moving in that direction for quite some time. They sell almost a billion/year in “sporting goods,” and firearms make up a tiny fraction of their revenue.
    Best to support locally owned gun-shops.

  • Phill O

    Wayne, I can agree with you except that locally owned (say Tucson) are also moving in the same direction. I have a friend who was refused a long gun and did not go according to the law even when he had an AZ CCW.

  • Cotour

    Legal Eagles:

    Please weigh in on the subject a little deeper, a Legal Eagles point of view might be enlightening.

  • Commodude

    ref the Legal Eagles link…

    The first quality of a good lawyer is probably one who doesn’t spam websites for his practice.

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