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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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California high schools to get diploma for failing

The coming dark age: Among a number of new laws going into effect in California on January 1 is a law that requires high school students to get a diploma regardless of their grades.

High school seniors will receive their diploma whether or not they pass or even take an exit exam; the law also applies retroactively to students who have graduated since 2004.

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

6 comments

  • D K Rögnvald Williams

    Why bother with schooling?

  • pzatchok

    Talk about a bunch of idiots.

    Californians talk about and make fun of those “hillbillies” in the mountains of the east or the Southern states.
    But at least those states don’t hand out fake diplomas to anyone who attends. Even the Amish will now be better educated than Californians.

    Seriously. This law applies to high school kids. You are now telling them that they just have to show up a few times and they will get a diploma. Does anyone actually think a vast number of them will not do just that.

    Other laws being implemented. From the story.

    AB 329: Makes participation in sex education courses mandatory for students unless parents opt-out, would also inculcate the teaching of a fluid gender identity;
    Seriously? “the teaching of a fluid gender identity”

    AB 775: Forces crisis pregnancy centers” to post a sign alerting clients of the existence nearby of public family planning programs, including abortions;
    Now anti abortion crisis centers must advertise abortion centers.

    AB 1014: Will permit family members to obtain a restraining order to keep relatives who might commit gun violence from owning a gun;
    Great now my crazy hoplophobe aunt can make up some stupid claim and take my rights away.

  • Edward

    Pzatchok pointed out: “AB 1014: Will permit family members to obtain a restraining order to keep relatives who might commit gun violence from owning a gun”

    What defines “might commit gun violence”? If you can hold a gun, couldn’t anyone say that you *might* commit gun violence?

    Ironically, California got rid of the ability for relatives to have someone committed to an insane asylum, because too many people were committing their relatives just to get control of their money or property. It seems that Californians are prone to abusing our privileges (perhaps especially hoplophobic aunts). We Californians may *think* that we are better than everyone else (e.g. hillbillies or Southerners), but now that our children can’t pass a high school exit exam, the reality is catching up to us.

    Speaking of reality, New York City has banned reality:
    http://wmbriggs.com/post/17575/
    “NYC will fine employers up to $250,000 for referring to ‘transsexuals’ by their natural gender.”

    Californians with swelled heads often say that this state starts trends that spread across the country, and they likely will count this among them, because California already allows me to use the women’s restroom any time that I choose to identify as a woman. (Unfortunately, I identify as a major deity, but I don’t know which restroom that entitles me to use.)

    Not all trends are good. Do you remember the Proposition 13 tax revolt spreading across the country? Me neither. It turned out badly in California, when the government decided to counter-revolt by reducing proper services, such as education, and increase wasteful spending, such as our expensive bullet-train to nowhere. Which brings us back to why Johnny can’t read his exit exam questions in order to get a diploma.

  • Keith

    I didn’t think that any major deity needed to ever use a restroom.

  • pzatchok

    Neither does the great and powerful Edward use a restroom, outhouse, water closet, or whatever you want to call it.

    He neither ingests nor excretes.

    All hail the great Edward.

  • PeterF

    So Jethro Bodine, having done graduated sixth grade in Kentucky in the 1960s, would raise the average education level of the entire state of California if he moved to Beverly with his uncle in 2016.

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