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The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

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Theft by TSA employees of passenger valuables a nationwide problem

Doesn’t this make you feel safer? Theft by TSA employees of passenger valuables has become a nationwide problem.

According to TSA records, press reports, and court documents . . . some 500 TSA officers . . . have been fired or suspended for stealing from passenger luggage since the agency’s creation in November of 2001. The airports servicing New York City—John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty—harbor the most flagrant offenders, but virtually no city in the nation is safe from the TSA’s sticky fingers.

In 2009, a half dozen TSA agents at Miami International Airport were charged with grand theft after boosting an iPod, bottles of perfume, cameras, a GPS system, a Coach purse, and a Hewlett Packard Mini Notebook from passengers’ luggage. Travelers passing through the airport’s checkpoints reported as many as 1,500 items stolen, the majority of which were never recovered.

In May of this year alone, TSA agents were arrested on the suspicion of theft at airports in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

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

  • John M. Egan

    Which is the greater threat- terrorism or TSA employees helping themselves to our property?

  • Thomas Hoisington

    They were doing this long beform TSA was involved talk to anybody everybody has had something lost and this was long before TSA was involved. The problem is they hired same baggage handlers as before just retrained them. Old story somebody is just updating it because of TSA issue. If your going to do a story check your history.

  • Kelly Starks

    Though really – given TSA was formed as a political kickback to federal unions that used 9-11 as a excuse, but curiously TSA’s dramatically worse ability to find weapons and contraband gets no reaction from congress other then raising the agency’s budget. Well, if the agency was created as a rip off to the public, aren’t the agents just doing what the agency is for?

    ;[

  • Greg

    I am sure many persons do not even report theft. I know we didn’t. My girlfriend was missing a ring (not expensive) after a TSA check. You get so flustered with all your stuff, they can just lift it with out you knowing it.

    I also had a pair of pants ruined by TSA going through my suitcase. I got it back with the inspection sticker and later found a hole punched in a pair of my pants.

    My other bad experience was almost not making a flight, the mistake of trying to bring my non liquid laundry detergent back with me as baggage, no even carry on. The tsa agent did not even know what oxiclean was, and could not find it in his magic book of what is ok to bring on board, this caused a 45 minute problem for them. I even said just keep it or throw it away, but they would not.

  • Kelly Starks

    Worst case of TSA abuse I ever heard of was a WW-II vet flying back to give a speech at west point, and missed his flight because he was held up by TSA because they insisted on confiscating and throwing away his Congressional medal of Honor as being a potential weapon.

  • Kelly Starks

    Oh, also I suppose the fact they generally are reluctant to hassel anyone who looks like a mideast male for fear of being accused of profileing – but if your a pretty female, your highly likely to need a bit of a strip search – should be mentioned in passing.

    Maybe if Gov Perry from Texas wins as pres we can get him to make TSA accountable to sexual assault charges.

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