To read this post please scroll down.

 

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.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Citizens are fleeing cities run by Democrats in record numbers

This story is simply another data point in a well known trend that became very clear during and after the panic over COVID: The populations of cities run by Democrats are dropping faster than ever before, as citizen flee these badly run crime-ridden hellholes where only honest citizens get punished for defending themselves.

The number of people who used to live in Los Angeles County and Cook County in Illinois continues to plummet.

Los Angeles County posted the largest population decline of all counties in the United States in 2022, falling by 90,704 and continuing a downward trend. It lost nearly twice that amount (180,394) in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2022 estimates released Thursday. Cook County, home to Chicago, lost 68,314 people from July 2021 to July of last year.

…The biggest losers were Los Angeles County, California (-90,704); Cook County, Illinois (-68,314); Queens County, New York (-50,112); Kings County, New York (-46,970); and Bronx County, New York (-41,143).

Not surprisingly, the counties with the greatest influx of new residents were in traditionally conservative states, Texas, Florida, and Arizona, though Arizona will probably lose that status as its many refugees from California arrive and continue to vote for Democrats.

Can anyone explain this trend? It seems so puzzling that people would flee cities run by Democrats to go places where Republican rule has dominated.

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

3 comments

  • Call Me Ishmael

    “The number of people who used to live in Los Angeles County and Cook County in Illinois continues to plummet.”

    I don’t think the number of people who used to live in those places is plummeting; the number of people who still live there is plummeting. (Yes, I know, this is a direct quote from the other web page, so it’s their unclear phrasing.)

    Also, New York City actually has a clear lead here, with a loss of ~138,000; it’s just spread over three counties (Kings County is Brooklyn).

  • David Eastman

    Since these are census bureau estimates, they will of course be wildly inaccurate. Comparing things like cell phone usage, cars on the roads, sewage, water, electricity consumption, etc., yields an estimate of the population of Southern California, for example, that is anywhere from 50% to 250% greater than the census reports, depending on what methodology you rely on most. It’s not clear whether these estimates of people fleeing share the same problem and are on the same scale, of if the “dark” population that the census misses are fleeing in greater or lesser numbers, or even continuing to immigrate into those areas. It would not surprise me to learn that the productive, acknowledged members of the public are fleeing, but that illegals and such are still flowing into these areas in numbers sufficient to replace them and more. Of course, that’s not exactly a good thing for these areas, either, but it’s data these reports and articles don’t mention.

  • Edward

    David Eastman wrote: “Since these are census bureau estimates, they will of course be wildly inaccurate. Comparing things like cell phone usage, cars on the roads, sewage, water, electricity consumption, etc., yields an estimate of the population of Southern California, for example,

    Care must be taken when using proxy data for actual data. These proxies could be changing due to other reasons, and the reasons could be related to each other and not to actual population. Cell phone usage and cars on roads could be due to people going back to in-person work. Water usage could be increasing now that the drought has been declared over, and sewer flow rates may increase correspondingly. Electricity consumption could be due to in-person work or the all-electrification of California.

    In-person counting has its own problems, especially when some of the countees fear getting into trouble or deported by responding to the government census taker.

    U-Haul and other moving company reports tell a story that is difficult to dispute. Income tax reports are another indicator. However, as David suggests, illegal immigrants into the area may not be well reflected in these proxies.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *