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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.


Saturday Night Live – Washington’s Dream

An evening pause: When SNL understood the importance of being utterly silly.

Hat tip Rex Ridenoure.

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

  • Ballonmann

    This skit is, surpringly, only a year or two old. Nate Bargadze (Washington) is a fantastic stand-up comedian, and I highly recommend his Netflix specials.

  • Steve

    Only a year or two old! I thought this harked back to ancient times when it most always funny (1980’s). How’d they get this past Network management?

  • Jeff Wright

    They’d rather target kids
    https://reactormag.com/movie-review-boys-go-to-jupiter-by-julian-glander/

    They don’t listen to talk radio

  • Steve Richter

    They laugh about 5280 feet to a mile. A number everyone has to memorize. But a mile is a good unit of measure in that it is the distance that a young man can travel at a trot to completion. Temperatures of 0 to 100 is the range that people in a temperate climate will experience throughout the year. 0 is shivering cold. 100 is sweating hot. Weights from 0 to 100 is the range that people can intuitively understand. 100 being the max that a man can lift overhead. And then 100 to 200 pounds is the healthy weight range of men and women. Women down to 100 and men up to 200.. And yeah, 5280 looks pretty arbitrary. But then, the conversion of 0 – 100 Fahrenheit is -18 to 38 Celsius. Not a people friendly way to measure temperature.

  • Max

    How many stones is that?

    SNL remembered how to be funny?

    Fahrenheit invented the mercury thermometer and began his system patterned after the familiar nautical and astronomical 360° With minutes and seconds. (that’s how degrees became part of temperature)
    With influence presumably from masons, he changed it to have prominent temperatures divisible by 33°. He lived on the northern coast of Europe where he took the average winter time temperature as zero, and the average summer temperature as 100 for a starting point. (50° remains near earths average still to this day)
    Zero was adjusted to the temperature where salty sea water begin freezing to decks of ships. (The most dangerous occurrence for that area of Europe) freezing freshwater at 33°, human body temperature at 99°, boiling water at 231° etc…. but then the metric system was devised with more precise measurements and Fahrenheit attempted similar alterations. Intentions and reality did not coincide and it ended up the way it is today.

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