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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.

 

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.


Some reasons to keep money out of Paypal

How Paypal is hacked.

The point here is not that Paypal is a bad vehicle for transferring money from place to place, but that it isn’t the best place to keep a lot of cash. Do your transfers there, but then remove the money quickly to a much more secure location.

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

5 comments

  • Cotour

    I have used Paypal only a couple of times for purchase transactions, never used it enough to have a problem, never for money coming to me. I now use SQUARE exclusively to clear all my credit card transactions, which I love.

    Simple, no transaction fees other than your agreed upon percentage (as advertised, 2.75% for swiped cards and 3.5% for manual entry transactions, no additional transaction fees. Lower rates available for higher numbers) wireless, super fast and you get your money the next day if your transactions are done before 8PM. In addition if you are turning significant numbers they will front you capital if you so desire and its paid back automatically everyday until satisfied, no applications, no muss no fuss. And you are able to go to your screen and see exactly your transactions, activity, payments and customer feedback.

    Square good.

  • wayne

    Cotour:
    Q: How do you deal with the newer cards, that have embedded chips?
    -Gas station (regional-chain) where I frequent gave up on their brand-new chip-readers, but they manually enter the last 4 digits on the card after it’s swiped. (People were getting upset having to wait an extra 10-15 seconds.) (craziness)

    As for PayPal- I use it for EBay exclusively. Never had a problem, although I do tend to get a lot of fake Ebay/Paypal phishing-email, when I run a lot of auctions.

    As Mr. Z advises, do your transactions & transfer the money in/out.
    I just leave a token balance at PayPal, and it’s only connected to a savings-account, again with a token balance, & I turn any PayPal transfers into cash as soon as I mail the package’s.
    (This surprises me– I changed my email identifier account at PayPal early last year, they made me go through the whole process of “re-verifying my identity,” & the test-deposit’s into/out-of the linked account, –took like 4 days in total & the account was frozen. What’s going down at PayPal!?)

  • Cotour

    I have the equipment for reading chips but have not set it up yet (I rarely have an issue with charge backs and that extra layer of security that the chip offers is what the chip is about as far as I know). I did use my own card at Target the other day and they read my chip and it did take a bit longer, which surprised me.

  • wayne

    Cotour- thanks.
    WSJ article recently; VISA for one, has issued embedded cards to 90% of their customers but apparently only 60% of their Merchants are on-board with the equipment. (yeah, fraud protection, chip generates a one time code for authorization.)
    Yeah–transaction takes slightly longer than just swiping, yet people complain as to the speed.
    >I worked at a gas station in college, we had to use those carbon copy receipts & a mechanical imprinter, and they paid us $5 for every stolen credit-card we seized. The little paper booklets with the “hot-list” came in twice a week.
    My, how times have changed…

  • Edward

    Wayne wrote: “Yeah–transaction takes slightly longer than just swiping, yet people complain as to the speed.”

    I have been noticing that the delay-time is less, these days, than when they first started using the chip readers, a few months ago. The chip-reader delay, a few months ago, was still less than the delay of waiting for the clerk to look up your card number in the “hot-list” booklet, which looked so worn that they seemed weeks old, not days or hours old.

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