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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.
 

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Behind The Black
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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.


Without permission California’s Obamacare exchange distributed the contact information of tens of thousands of people who had visited their website.

O joy. Without permission California’s Obamacare exchange distributed the contact information of tens of thousands of people who had visited their website.

I love this quote from the guy in charge:

Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, acknowledged that these consumers did not ask to be contacted by the state or its certified insurance agents. But he said the outreach program still complies with privacy laws and it was reviewed by the exchange’s legal counsel. “I can imagine some people may be upset,” Lee said in an interview Friday. “But I can see a lot of people will be comforted and relieved at getting the help they need to navigate a confusing process.”

To be so cavalier about handing out people’s contact information without permission suggests that they are likely to be as cavalier about poking into people’s confidential medical information without permission.

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

7 comments

  • D. K. Williams

    Mr. Lee will go far in government service.

  • steve mackelpprang

    Those who love big brother see no harm in sharing the benevolence.

  • Pzatchok

    Everything is fine, he asked his legal guys if it was OK and they said so.

    Have no fear everything a lawyer says is the truth and legal. Why I don’t even know why we have a court system.
    We just need to ask a lawyer his opinion and that will be the judgement on the accused. They will no longer be defendants since they will not be defending anything.
    Heck we don’t even need a legislature anymore. Just ask a lawyer his opinion and that’s the new law.

    Wow this makes things so simple why have we never thought of it before? Just leave everything to those big city lawyers and we will all be fine. They always know whats best.

    They so smart. We need them lawyers to make our decisions for us ignorant fools. We idiots living in between NY and LA should be glad they know best. Hell I is.

    Got to go, my Obama fone is ringin.

  • wodun

    Wonder if there was a kickback in exchange for the contact information and if they will sell or give contact information to other groups. O’keefe already did a sting where navigators were willing to give contact information to Democrat activist groups.

  • “But I can see a lot of people will be comforted and relieved at getting the help they need to navigate a confusing process.”

    Condescending, much?

  • Edward

    In a state that pioneered privacy, and the requirement to tell customers when their data was compromised, one would have expected his quote to be more along the lines of:

    “I can imagine some people may be upset that we don’t care in the least about their privacy, but I can see a lot of people will be comforted and relieved at knowing that an incompetent government has given to them a confusing and useless process that requires that we abandon their privacy in order for a more competent private sector to help them straighten out the mess that we stupidly made of their once carefree lives.”

    Do they really think that anything that complies with the law must be a good idea?

    With apologies to those at NASA, it seems to be true that public service attracts the stupid more than it attracts the intelligent.

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