Category: Essays And Commentaries

Long essays or op-ed length commentaries on the issues of the day or on topics of special interest.

Thank you for your support!

3:30 pm

Readers

My July fund-raiser for Behind the Black is now over. The support from my readers was unprecedented, making this July campaign the best ever, twice over. What a marvelous way to celebrate the website’s tenth anniversary!

Thank you! The number of donations in July, and continuing now at the beginning of August, is too many for me to thank you all personally. Please forgive me by accepting my thank you here, in public, on the website.

If you did not donate or subscribe in July and still wish to, note that the tip jar (below or in the column to the right) remains available year round.

8 comments

The hateful violent Antifa/Black Lives Matter rioters

1:13 pm

The new civility: Watch the numerous videos at this link of masked Antifa/Black Lives Matter rioters in Portland as they attack and abuse an old woman using a walker, who simply wants to protect a police precinct building from being vandalized and burnt to the ground.

Remember these facts about what you watch:

1. Democrat Jerry Nadler (D-New York) claims these hateful rioters are “a myth.” Nadler is also typical of most Democratic politicians, who have for the past four years, since Trump was elected, treated these Antifa rioters (now joined by the Marxist, white-hating BLM crowd) as the SS wing of the Democratic Party. While they will sometimes disavow their violence, they do nothing to stop it, since it instills fear and submission among their opponents.

2. Watch and listen. These rioters epitomize hate in every way, in their dress, in their behavior, in their irrational violence, in their bigotry (assuming all who disagree with them are evil). And we are somehow supposed to let them do as they wish, because of the First Amendment?

3. Speaking of the First Amendment, since when did free speech morph into allowing a mob to rampantly loot, burn, and destroy whatever they want? Since when did it include the right to attack cars and even threaten to kill people?

4. Note how our politicians, mostly Democrats but helped by numerous weasel Republicans, have now normalized the wearing of masks, based not on any science but on irrational fear. We have now all been forced to adopt the garb of these hateful thugs. It is as if some mustached national leader required us all to wear armbands carrying the symbol of his political movement, with the threat of arrest if we dare to dissent.

Other than these minor details, everything these Portland “protesters” are doing is wonderful and perfect and must be defended blindly, forever. And don’t dare say otherwise, or you will be doxed and they will come to your home to accost your family and your children.

27 comments

Masks, social distancing, and mass hysteria

4:34 pm

This past weekend Diane and I went hiking, as we try to do at least once a week. With the gyms closed by our petty dictator governor, Republican Doug Ducey, we need to find a way to get out and exercise, both for our sanity and to strengthen our immune systems, since outdoor exercise is probably the most effective way to prevent yourself from getting sick from any respiratory illness.

As we were hiking along a single male hiker, probably in his mid- to late- twenties, approached us from the other direction. When he saw me in the lead, he immediately cringed off to the side of the trail in what seemed literal terror, holding a bandana to his face.

I looked at him in irritation. “You don’t need the mask, we don’t have cooties and we won’t make you sick.”

“I don’t want to make you sick,” he said as I passed him.

“What makes me sick,” I responded as I continued past him down the trail, “is the irrational terror and fear I see in everyone’s eyes, over something that really is not much more different than the flu.”

I will admit to have become somewhat of a cranky grump these days when I see everyone wearing masks. And I feel this way because of the utter mindlessness of mask-wearing. This healthy young hiker, who almost certainly was not contagious in any way with any illness, including COVID-19, was only within four feet of me for about one second. Even if he had COVID-19 and was infectious to me and tried to pant in my face as I went by it would have been almost impossible for him to infect me. We were just not in close enough contact for long enough.

Moreover, he stood there holding the bandana to his mouth and nose, with his hand. That its exactly the wrong thing to do if you want to protect yourself, as your hands are the most likely transmission point for infection, and by pressing his bandana against his face with his hand he risked placing that infection at the very place he breathed.

He might have reduced my chances of getting infected by an infinitesimal amount, but he increased his own risk substantially.

Mask-wearing is just plain irrational, and for intelligent Americans to go along with this silliness is beyond shameful, especially because in almost every jurisdiction, even those that mandate mask use, you can opt out by simply stating you have medical reasons for not wearing a mask, and are not required under HIPPA regulations to even show documentation proving that statement in any way. It must be accepted on its face, without question.

Let’s review the absurdity of this situation, and maybe remind people why it is foolish.
» Read more

33 comments

Sunspot update: Hints of the next maximum

11:07 am

It’s time for another monthly sunspot update! NOAA yesterday updated its monthly graph for tracking the Sun’s monthly sunspot activity, and as I do every month, I am posting it below with additional anotations by me to show the past and new solar cycle predictions.

July 2020 sunspot activity

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community for both the previous and upcoming solar maximums. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007 for the previous maximum, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The blue curve is their revised May 2009 prediction. The red curve is the new prediction, first posted by NOAA in April 2020.

July continued the trend from June, with a slight uptick in activity. The SILSO graph below for July illustrates this.
» Read more

7 comments

Midnight repost: The real meaning of the Apollo 8 Earthrise image

11:59 pm

Tonight’s midnight repost essay, written to celebrate the 50th anniversary in December 2018 of the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon, I think is a fitting finale to my month-long retrospective of past essays from Behind the Black. Unlike many others, which document the culture decline of our once great country, this essay looks hopefully to the grand future of the human race, once we have escaped this prison of Earth and begin to explore and settle the wider universe.

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The real meaning of the Apollo 8 Earthrise image

Earthrise, as seen by a space-farer

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the moment when the three astronauts on Apollo 8 witnessed their first Earthrise while in orbit around the Moon, and Bill Anders snapped the picture of that Earthrise that has been been called “the most influential environmental picture ever taken.”

The last few days have seen numerous articles celebrating this iconic image. While all have captured in varying degrees the significance and influence of that picture on human society on Earth, all have failed to depict this image as Bill Anders, the photographer, took it. He did not frame the shot, in his mind, with the horizon on the bottom of the frame, as it has been depicted repeatedly in practically every article about this image, since the day it was published back in 1968.

Instead, Anders saw himself as an spaceman in a capsule orbiting the waist of the Moon. He also saw the Earth as merely another space object, now appearing from behind the waist of that Moon. As a result, he framed the shot with the horizon to the right, with the Earth moving from right to left as it moved out from behind the Moon, as shown on the right.

His perspective was that of a spacefarer, an explorer of the universe that sees the planets around him as objects within that universe in which he floats.
» Read more

2 comments

Midnight repost: A scientist’s ten commandments

11:59 pm

The tenth anniversary retrospective of Behind the Black continues: The post below, from September 27, 2010, reports on one of the simplest but most profound scientific papers I have ever read. Its advice is doubly needed today, especially commandment #3.

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A scientist’s ten commandments

Published today on the astro-ph website, this preprint by Ignacio Ferrín of the Center for Fundamental Physics at the University of the Andes, Merida, Venezuala, is probably the shortest paper I have ever seen. I think that Dr. Ferrin will forgive me if I reprint it here in its entirety:

1. Go to your laboratory or your instrument without any pre-conceived ideas. Just register what you saw faithfully.

2. Report promptly and scientifically. Check your numbers twice before submitting.

3. Forget about predictions. They are maybe wrong.

4. Do not try to conform or find agreement with others. You may be the first to be observing a new phenomenon and you may risk missing credit for the discovery.

5. Criticism must be scientific, respectful, constructive, positive, and unbiased. Otherwise it must be done privately.

6. If you want to be respected, respect others first. Do not use insulting or humiliating words when referring to others. It is not in accord with scientific ethics.

7. Do not cheat. Cheating in science is silly. When others repeat your experiment or observation, they will find that you were wrong.

8. If you do not know or have made a mistake, admit it immediately. You may say, “I do not know but I will find out.” or “I will correct it immediately.” No scientist knows the answer to everything. By admitting it you are being honest about your knowledge and your abilities.

9. Do not appropriate or ignore other people’s work or results. Always give credit to others, however small their contribution may have been. Do not do unto others what you would not like to be done unto you.

10. Do not stray from scientific ethics.

It seems that some scientists in the climate field (Phil Jones of East Anglia University and Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University are two that come to mind immediately) would benefit by reading and following these rules.

3 comments

Perseverance’s planned journey in Jezero Crater

1:34 pm

Jezero Crater delta
Jezero Crater delta

If all goes right, on February 18, 2021 the rover Perseverance will gently settle down onto the floor of Jezero Crater on Mars. The image to the right is probably the most reproduced of this site, as it shows the spectacular delta that some scientists believe might be hardened mud that had once flowed like liquid or lava from the break in the rim to the west.

They hope to put Perseverance down to the southeast of that delta, as shown in the overview map below.
» Read more

0 comments

Midnight repost: American Kristallnacht

11:59 pm

The tenth anniversary retrospective of Behind the Black continues: Though this essay was only first posted less than two months ago, it bears repeating, over and over and over again, whenever power-hungry thugs use violence to achieve their ends.

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American Kristallnacht

It might have been an accident, or maybe it was because of the events of the past three months, but earlier this year I decided to finally read William Shirer’s masterpiece, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Previously I had only read the first few chapters in order to learn something about Hitler’s background. Now it was time to read the whole book.

I am only halfway through it but no matter. Every page has sent terror through my soul, as it appears to not be a history of the 1930s foolishness and madness that allowed a megalomaniac to become the leader of a powerful nation, intent on conquering the world while committing genocide against millions, but a news report of modern America.

What we have seen for the past three months — accelerated to madness with riots this week — has been nothing more than a return to the Nazi tactics of the 1930s, with the only difference being that the targets have not been just Jews, but all private businesses as well as anyone who dares to oppose their wanton destruction. In fact, the use of rocks to break windows and loot businesses and attack and even kill their owners this week was so reminiscent of Kristallnacht that I find it more than horrifying. From the link:
» Read more

11 comments

Glacier country on Mars

12:47 pm

Glacial flow in Protonilus Mensae
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on May 24, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and provides a wonderful example of the kind of evidence of buried glaciers found extensively in the mid-latitudes of Mars.

This particular region, called Protonilus Mensae, is a region of chaos terrain at the transition zone between the southern cratered highlands and the northern lowland plains. I have featured a number of cool images in Protonilus, all of which show some form of buried glacial flow, now inactive.

The last cool image above was one that the MRO science team had picked to illustrate how to spot a glacier on Mars.

In this particular image are several obvious glacier features. First, we can see a series of moraines at the foot of each glacier in the photo, each moraine indicating the farthest extent of the glacier when it was active and growing. It also appears that there are two major layers of buried ice, the younger-smaller layer near the image’s bottom and sitting on top of a larger more extensive glacier flow sheet. This suggests that there was more ice in the past here, and with each succeeding ice age the glaciers grew less extensive.

Second, at the edges of the flows can be seen parallel ridges, suggestive also of repeated flows, each pushing to the side a new layer of debris.

Third, the interior of the glacier has parallel fractures in many places, similar to what is seen on Earth glaciers.

Protonilus Mensae, as well as the neighboring chaos regions Deuteronilus to the west and Nilosyrtis to the east, could very well be called Mars’ glacier country. Do a search on Behind the Black for all three regions and you will come up with numerous images showing glacial features.

Below is an overview of Protonilus, the red box showing the location of this image. Also highlighted by number are the locations of the three features previously posted and listed above.
» Read more

0 comments

Midnight repost: A society run by mob rule

11:59 pm

The tenth anniversary retrospective of Behind the Black continues: Why have the concepts of free speech and tolerance declined in the United States? Tonight’s midnight repost essay, from November 25, 2019, tries to answer that question.

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A society run by mob rule

In the past week several ugly events have illustrated forcefully how mob rule now dictates who can or cannot speak freely in America. Worse, these events show that we are no longer a civilized social order run by reason. Instead, we have become a culture where whoever can throw the loudest tantrum dictates policy.

First we have the horrible events last week at the State University of New York-Binghamton.

To understand how disgusting and despicable the first story above is, it is necessary for you to watch the video below. Pay special attention to the taller girl in the fur-lined parka who at about four minutes keeps looking at the camera-person (whom I think is also a girl) and aggressively and repeatedly asking, “Why are you shaking so? Why are you shaking so?” The reason is obvious. The girl filming is one the conservative students, and she is justifiably frightened. The taller girl, hostile and irrationally angry because a conservative dared to advocate opinions she doesn’t like, is clearly being physically threatening. As are all of her leftist compatriots.

The response of the college administration to this atrocious behavior was even more vile, essentially endorsing the actions of the mob:
» Read more

5 comments

COVID-19: Bad policy rules!

4:54 pm

U.S. daily COVID-19 deaths through July 28

Though it appears in the past two weeks that we are presently experiencing in the U.S. a small uptick in COVID-19 deaths, as shown by the graph to the right [source], overall the data suggests that the disease is on the wan. Since its peak in late April the daily death toll has steadily dropped, even as the number of detected infections has skyrocketed. Many more people are getting the disease, but many fewer are dying from it.

What the data now tells us is that our leaders failed us in their response to the virus, in every way possible that can be imagined. Such incompetence and bad judgment should result in wholesale firings in every county, city, and state government that imposed lock downs come the November elections. No one should be immune in these local governments.

(Note: The two spikes on the graph of daily deaths on May 7 and June 25 are because New York and New Jersey suddenly added a whole slew of new deaths, under suspicious circumstances.)

The failed lock down policies

» Read more

20 comments

Midnight repost: “They’re coming for you next.”

11:59 pm

The tenth anniversary retrospective of Behind the Black continues: Tonight’s midnight repost, written in July 2018, illustrates the danger to each and every one of us because of the rise and dominance of intolerance in the United States.

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“They’re coming for you next.”

This week we had a number of really ugly examples of the hate the left has for anyone who might dare express an opinion that might suggest even the slightest support for President Donald Trump.

But then, how is this week different from any other week since Trump was elected president in 2016?

The top example however is how Judge Jeanine Pirro was treated when she appeared on the The View. I have embedded the video below. You must force yourself to watch. It is painful and ugly, but the hate and very clear close-mindedness of those who disagreed with her, especially from Whoopie Goldberg, illustrates well the terrible state we are in.


» Read more

1 comment

Midnight repost: “If you have wrongthink, you will not be allowed.”

11:59 pm

The tenth anniversary retrospective of Behind the Black continues: Tonight’s repost, from April 6, 2018, provides more cultural evidence that America’s culture no longer celebrates freedom of thought and tolerance.

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“If you have wrongthink, you will not be allowed.”

The fascist, intolerant, and oppressive nature of today’s leftist culture has now gotten so bad that The Atlantic, a liberal publication long considered a reasonable intellectual voice from the left, can no longer tolerate for more than two weeks the hiring of a conservative, even though that conservative, Kevin Williamson, was also a vehement opponent of Donald Trump.

The quote that forms the title of this essay however comes not from the above Williamson story, but from a cogent essay by Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist about that intolerant leftist culture. As he says,

This story [Williamson’s firing] is a predictable continuation of the left’s ownership not just of media but indeed of all institutions. It is depressing. It is predictable. And it is where we are as a country now. It is not confined to the realm of ideas. Eich, Damore, Williamson and others are subject to blacklists and HR reports and firing in every arena of industry and culture. If you have wrongthink, you will not be allowed for long to make your living within any space the left has determined they own – first the academy, then the media, then corporate America, and now the public square. You will bake the cake, you will use the proper pronoun, and you will never say that what Planned Parenthood does is murder for hire, and should be punished as such under the law.

As Domenech notes, Williamson’s firing is only one example of a legion of similar stories. There is the fascist intolerance of modern academia for example. Or we can talk about the hateful scapegoating of innocent NRA members, blaming them for a murderer’s violence merely because they wish to defend their Constitutional rights as specifically outlined in the Bill of Rights.

Or maybe we should mention the hate and violence committed against children and students, merely because they either wear a “Make America Great Again” t-shirt or carry signs supporting Trump.

I wish these were only isolated examples. They are not. For most of the second half of last year I was able to post weekly updates listing anywhere from six to several dozen new stories describing this hateful leftist culture. Here are just a few more that I gathered in mid-March but found too depressing to report at the time:
» Read more

9 comments

Midnight repost: Buy dumb!

11:59 pm

The tenth anniversary retrospective of Behind the Black continues: The failures of modern technology (shaped sadly by a lot of government regulation) often illustrates well the coming dark age. Tonight’s repost from September 15, 2019 gives one good example, and what you can do to counter this trend.

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Buy dumb!

The dumb washing machine we hunted for and got
The used “dumb” machine we
paid $285 for that actually
cleans our clothes.

The smart washing machine we threw out
The “smart” machine that we
paid $923 for and sold for $40.

Two years ago our old Kenmore Series 80 washing machine broke down. The repair guy said it would be so expensive to fix that he recommended it was time to buy something new.

So off we went to Sears, where we ended up buying one of today’s modern “smart” machines for a mere $923. As the LG website proudly exclaims,

A Smarter Way to Wash: 6Motion™ Technology uses up to 6 different wash motions to provide a smart cleaning experience that is gentle on clothes and maximizes washing performance.

The problem was the machine never got any of our clothes clean. It also refused to provide enough water. The way it worked was to sense the weight of the clothes you put inside, and determine the needed amount based on this. Routinely, it wasn’t enough, so Diane did web searches to discover numerous owners faking out the machine’s brains by pouring several buckets of water on top of the clothes before turning on the machine, making them weigh more.

The machine also did not have an agitator, the new in-thing among washing machine manufacturers two years ago, probably forced on them by new federal regulations. And though the tub itself did shake, it did it so gently that the clothes hardly moved.

There were also other issues with the machine’s smart technology that frustrated Diane. The machine was boss, and would not allow for any flexibility to its predetermined wash and rinse cycles, even when they made no sense.

Last week Diane had had enough. » Read more

15 comments

Midnight repost: Freedom dying

11:59 pm

The tenth anniversary retrospective of Behind the Black continues: Last night’s midnight repost tried to predict what would happen politically following the big Republican victories in the 2010 midterm election. I was not sure, but worried that the Republicans would not have the courage to do what they promised (cut the budget and repeal Obamacare) and would fold like a house of cards when pressured with government shutdowns by Obama and the Democrats.

They did fold, and the result was that the Democrats were further emboldened, and the Republicans weakened in the long run. Tonight’s repost, written on November 7, 2018, illustrates the consequences of this by taking a look at the just completed 2018 midterm elections. There, the American people had rewarded the Democrats for their endless slander campaigns and power grabs. Times had changed, but not for the better.

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Freedom dying

The results of yesterday’s election, when taken in the context of the stories below, confirm for me the sad belief that freedom in the United States is steadily dying. Freedom might return, but for the next few decades I think we are headed for oppressive times. Be prepared.

The stories are only a sampling, and are cited because of what they show: In every case they describe attacks against individuals defending freedom of speech and diversity of thought, and all the attacks come from the students, the future of our society.
» Read more

11 comments

Today’s fake news in space

1:58 pm

In the past day we have had two space-related stories that sadly illustrate the shallowness of our modern press. Modern mainstream reporters literally know nothing of the subject they are reporting on, and expend zero effort to improve their knowledge.

First we have the story making the rounds about a Russian anti-satellite test. This BBC story,
“UK and US say Russia fired a satellite weapon in space“, is typical. It takes at face value the claims of the military bureaucracies in the United States and the United Kingdom, and makes it sound as if the Russians were doing something new and unique that no one has ever done before.
» Read more

6 comments

Midnight repost: Squeal like a pig

11:59 pm

The tenth anniversary retrospective of Behind the Black continues: Tonight’s repost was written just prior to the 2010 mid-term elections. I correctly predicted that the Democrats would get creamed in that election. I then tried to predict what would happen next politically due to that Republican victory. I leave it to my readers to determine how good my analysis was, and how well it applies to what is happening right now.

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Squeal like a pig

Let’s take a trip into the future, looking past Tuesday’s midterm election.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that, come Tuesday, the Republicans take both houses, in a stunning landslide not seen in more than a century. Let’s also assume that the changes in Congress are going to point decidedly away from the recent liberal policies of large government (by both parties). Instead, every indication suggests that the new Congress will lean heavily towards a return to the principles of small government, low taxes, and less regulation.

These assumptions are not unreasonable. Not only do the polls indicate that one or both of the houses of Congress will switch from Democratic to Republican control, the numerous and unexpected primary upsets of established incumbents from both parties — as well the many protests over the past year by large numbers of ordinary citizens — make it clear that the public is not interested in half measures. Come January, the tone and direction of Congress is going to undergo a shocking change.

Anyway, based on these assumptions, we should then expect next year’s Congress to propose unprecedented cuts to the federal budget, including the elimination of many hallowed programs. The recent calls to defund NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcastings are only one example.

When Congress attempts this, however, the vested interests that have depended on this funding for decades are not going to take the cuts lightly. Or to put it more bluntly, they are going to squeal like pigs, throwing temper tantrums so loud and insane that they will make the complaints of a typical three-year-old seem truly statesman-like. And they will do so in the hope that they will garner sympathy and support from the general voting public, thereby making the cuts difficult to carry out.

The real question then is not whether the new Congress will propose the cuts required to bring the federal government under control, but whether they, as well as the public, will have the courage to follow through, to defy the howls from these spoiled brats, and do what must be done.
» Read more

0 comments

Midnight repost: Elon Musk and the forgotten word

11:59 pm

The tenth anniversary retrospective of Behind the Black continues: Today’s repost comes from October 20, 2011, following Elon Musk’s National Press Club speech where he announced he was going to vertically land the Falcon 9 first stages so they could be reused. In comparing the new commercial competitive space industry with NASA’s government-run space program, I tried to outline the fundamental reason the former was always going to do better than the latter.

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Elon Musk and the forgotten word

Elon Musk at National Press Club

When Elon Musk gave his speech at the National Press Club on September 29, he was asked one question to which he really did not know the answer. He faked it, but his response illustrated how completely forgotten is one fundamental fact about American society — even though this fact is the very reason the United States became the world’s most wealthy and powerful nation less than two centuries after its founding.

To explain this fundamental fact I think I need to take a step back and talk about the ongoing war taking place right now over how the United States should get its astronauts into space. On one side we have NASA and Congress, who want NASA to build a new heavy-lift rocket to carry its Orion capsule beyond Earth orbit. On the other side we have a host of independent new space companies, all vying for the chance to launch humans and cargo into space for fun and profit.

Which is right? What system should the United State choose?
» Read more

2 comments

Denying Americans the simple pursuit of happiness

12:59 pm

The Declaration of Independence

The last four months in the United States have probably been the ugliest seen in generations. Not only were Americans summarily put under house arrest, with churches shut and free speech muzzled, in major urban Democratically-controlled cities elected officials played favorites, allowing free speech and free movement to the leftist political activists whom these Democrats preferred, while using their police power to aggressively oppress conservatives and anyone who might be considered an opponent.

On top of this ugliness, we had our first experience of an American Kristallnacht. Not only were those leftist protesters free to protest while other Americans were on lockdown, these leftist radicals were allowed by these Democratic politicians to use violence and looting to terrorize the general population.

The nation we have today is no longer a land of liberty. Many things we only four months ago took for granted are now denied us.
» Read more

9 comments

Rover update: Curiosity pauses to drill

11:27 am

Curiosity's entire journey so far in Gale Crater

Overview map of Curiosity's recent travels

The artist’s oblique drawing above, as well as the map to the right, provide some context as to Curiosity’s present location and its entire journey in Gale Crater. For the overall context of Curiosity’s travels, see my March 2016 post, Pinpointing Curiosity’s location in Gale Crater. For all rover updates since then through May 2020, go here.

Since my last update on July 7, 2020, Curiosity has quickly moved a considerable distance to the east, as planned, skirting the large sand field to the south in its journey to the best path upward onto Mt. Sharp. The science team however has detoured away from their planned route, shown in red on the map, heading downhill a bit in order to find one last good location in the clay unit to drill. They are at that location now and are presently scouting for the best drilling spot.

About a week ago, before heading downhill, they had stopped to take a set of new images of Curiosity’s wheels. » Read more

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