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, 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 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

The list of companies receiving healthcare waivers

7:20 pm

The actual list of companies receiving healthcare waivers, from the government itself.

What I find interesting about this list is the number of insurance companies and unions on it. The insurance companies would be the ones most familiar with the consequences of Obama’s healthcare bill and therefore the likeliest to react quickly to it. The unions, however, were almost all shilling for the bill’s passage, which suggests that the leaders of these unions are simply idiots for backing something without knowing what was in it. Now that they know they are scrambling to avoid it.

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Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands. Instead, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. 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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation:

4. A Paypal subscription:


5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.

Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

 

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

 

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

NASA’s arsenic biology discovery slammed

11:33 pm

The uncertainty of science! A microbiologist is slamming last week’s NASA discovery that claimed a microbe had incorporated arsenic instead of phosphorus as part of its DNA. Key quote:

In an interview Monday, Redfield said the methods used by the researchers were so crude that any arsenic they detected was likely from contamination. There is no indication that the researchers purified the DNA to remove arsenic that might have been sticking to the outside of the DNA or the gel the DNA was embedded in, she added. Normally, purifying the DNA is a standard step, Redfield said: “It’s a kit, it costs $2, it takes 10 minutes.” She also questioned why the researchers analyzed the DNA while it was still in the gel, making the results more difficult to interpret: “No molecular biologist would ever do that.”

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Falcon 9/Dragon launch likely delayed to at least Thursday

11:25 pm

The Falcon 9/Dragon test launch is likely delayed to at least Thursday. Key quote:

During reviews of vehicle closeout photos this morning, engineers found a possible crack in the second stage engine nozzle. If the nozzle needs to be replaced, the first launch opportunity would be Friday or Saturday. Officials called “remote” a possibility that the problem could be resolved in time to fly Wednesday.

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What We Can Learn from 120 Years of Climate Catastrophe Reporting

6:38 pm

What can we learn from 120 years of climate catastrophe reporting? We are all gonna die! Or to put it more clearly:

1: The mainstream media outlets are going to publish whatever sells. If someone publishes a story about the world getting colder and people buy it, you can be sure there will be many more stories touting the same headline.

2: There is a long lag between what nature is doing and what the media will report. The lag seems to be anywhere from 10 to 15 years after the climate changes. There is an inertia problem with the mainstream media even when the evidence is clear.

3: When all the stories are about warming or cooling, you can be sure they are all wrong.

When government agencies or United Nations Climate Change conferences warn you that the climate is changing you can be sure that is true — the climate is always changing. Determining the direction is the hard part. Based on the past reporting of these changes, be it from global cooling or warming, the trend will have reversed many years earlier than reported.

Incidentally there has been no global warming for a decade. Get a good grip on your long johns. Maybe a trip to Cancun is not such a bad idea after all, but I’ll wait until the delegates have gone home.

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Britain, Brazil to seek end to Kyoto climate impasse

11:04 pm

Meanwhile, the political negotiations in Cancun continue: Britain and Brazil are going to try to break the deadlock between first and third world nations over extending the Kyoto climate protocol and thus prevent a collapse of the Cancun talks. Key quote:

Japan, Russia and Canada have been adamant that they will not sign an extension and want a new, broader treaty that will also bind emerging economies led by China and India to act.

Note that nothing going on in Cancun has anything to do with climate science. It is politics, pure and simple, rules and regulations created by a bunch of elite intellectuals and UN apparatchiks to be imposed on everyone else — while they play in the sun and fly on their jets to and from climate conferences.

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Cancún climate talks in danger of collapse over Kyoto continuation

11:02 pm

To me, this is good news: The Cancún climate summit is in danger of collapse. Key quote:

The UN climate talks in Cancún were in danger of collapse last night after many Latin American countries said that they would leave if a crucial negotiating document, due to be released tomorrow, did not continue to commit rich countries to emissions cuts under the Kyoto Protocol. . . . The potential crisis was provoked by Japan stating earlier this week that it would not sign up to a second period of the Kyoto Protocol. Other countries, including Russia, Canada and Australia are thought to agree but have yet to say publicly that they will not make further pledges.

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Tinkering with the atmosphere to prevent climate change gains ground in Cancun

2:07 pm

What could possibly go wrong? The environmental global warming activists at the Cancun climate summit appear increasingly eager to encourage governments to tinker with the atmosphere to prevent climate change. The most frightening quote:

Funding may not be far off.

In September, the U.S. Government Accountability Office recommended in a 70-page report that the White House “establish a clear strategy for geoengineering research” within its science office. A month later, a report from U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, a Democrat from Georgia who chairs the House Science and Technology Committee, urged the government to consider climate-engineering research “as soon as possible in order to ensure scientific preparedness for future climate events.”

The U.S. panel had collaborated in its study with a British House of Commons committee. “We may need geoengineering as a `Plan B,'” the British report said, if nations fail to forge agreement on a binding treaty to rein in greenhouse gases.

Perhaps most significantly, the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, the global authority on climate science, agreed in October to take on geoengineering in its next assessment report. Its hundreds of scientists will begin with a session next spring.

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