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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.

 

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Fieldsports Britain – Rat removal using dogs

An evening pause: Best to play this with the captions on, considering the thick accents. As noted on the youtube webpage:

Andy Crow is clearing the barn of straw which has become home to lots and lots of rats – and he wants them off the farmyard. As a final effort to get rid of as many as possible Andy has enrolled the help of a couple of terriers, a lurcher and a lab/springer cross. As he moves the bales the dogs and sticks start flying.

Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.

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

9 comments

  • wayne

    Very interesting! I was not aware of this.
    …down the rabbit hole, so to speak, Mink are apparently quite good at rodent control as well.

    Mink & Dog Cleanup Backyard Rats
    Joseph Carter The Mink Man (2018)
    https://youtu.be/RjebAlfrexA
    9:28

  • Alex Andrite

    A good ratter will not eat the catch, but one-two visicous shakes and the dead prey is dropped, on to the next rodent.
    High speed.
    My Aunt and Uncle, cattle ranchers, north eastern Oregon, would pass the word to the ‘local’ ranchers when it was time to de-rat the barns. A good gathering was guaranteed.
    Neighbors would show up, with their best ratter’s, bets were even placed for max number of rats per dog. Pot luck stuff was made ready for ‘after’.

    Meanwhile, a 55 gallon drum 1/2 filled with grain, stood in a far off corner, a couple of hay bales stacked up to the drum lip, local cat mouser would perch on a bail, patientlly waiting as local mice would run up the bails and down into the grain, no escape. Mouser cat would wait until there were a few fat ones, look down and pounce. Then back up and out with its meal. Mice did not count.
    All the while the ratters were having a grand time.

    Life on the ranch.

  • Jason Lewis

    My miniature dachshunds have killed about a dozen rats in my back yard. Development has driven out most natural predators and we have too many of them. They’ve also killed dozens of rabbits (also missing natural predators), a squirrel, and grabbed a bird out of the air.

  • Alex Andrite:

    Thank you. A new perspective.

  • Ron

    We used to have ‘rat killins’ back on the farm too! It was quite the spectacle Alex described for us, mostly just family. Just a week or two ago one of my brothers had a mini one that we were texting about!

    Don’t know if anyone he listens to the comedian Jerry Clower but he has a good rat killin’ story!

    https://youtu.be/9Z0q2p8tVpM

  • wayne

    Ron-
    Good stuff!

  • Jeff Wright

    Jerry passed away not long before a big tornado hit Yazoo City. It would have broken his heart.

  • David M. Cook

    This is what dogs live for!

  • John C

    I’ll run the forklift. With the door locked!

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