Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black., You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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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The new civility: A Wisconsin Republican lawmaker has canceled public meetings due to vandalism and death threats.
After an almost seven year journey, Messenger has successfully entered orbit around Mercury. More here.
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.
"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
This is a good sign: The Senate vote on restricting the power of the EPA has been postponed by Harry Reid as he struggles to get Democrat votes.
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.
“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 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.
The Wisconsin assembly’s bold leap. Key quote:
It was these freshman legislators who stood on the assembly floor following Knilans’ speech that day, while their orange-T-shirt-clad Democratic colleagues shouted “SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!” in their faces. They could feel the ambient rumble of the thousands of pro-union protesters that stood mere feet outside the assembly chamber. Newly elected representative Michelle Litjens had earlier been the target of a threat from a Democratic assemblyman, who pointed at her and said, “You’re f***ing dead.”
Knilans himself felt the intimidation. In his capitol office one day, he heard a group outside his door say, “We know where you live.” Picketers showed up at his house. He said he didn’t personally feel threatened, but he was anxious about the safety of his wife and two small children at home. One day, his five-year-old son asked him, “Do they hate you, Dad?”
Yet they stood together, endured the insults, and passed the bill on to Walker, who signed it the next day.
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.
"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
Sour grapes: Satellite builders express contempt for MDA’s refueling plans for Intelsat orbiting satellites.
No surprise here. If Intelsat can extend the life of its satellites, than it won’t have to buy them as often from these builders, something the builders clearly don’t want.
The new civility: The windows at Republican headquarters in Washington, DC were shattered by small caliber pellets last night.
And you think we aren’t spending our way to obliviion? Mandatory spending now exceeds all federal revenues, fifty years ahead of schedule.
A boxing gym, fighting its state’s eminent domain proceedings for being “blighted”, gets its day in court.
The budget wars: Winning the future three weeks at a time. To me, this says it all:
The Obama White House on Tuesday endorsed the Republican House-passed federal spending extension bill and urged the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass it and avoid a federal government shutdown Friday.
An evening pause: On the ides of March, why not watch Marlon Brando at his best, as Mark Antony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (1953).
The truth at last! The nation was left reeling yesterday by the revelation that the presidential election of 2008 was a hoax. Key quote:
O’Keefe said he also expected the ruse would be unmasked when Obama said that “under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” and again when Obama claimed, “I’ve now been in 57 (U.S.) states,” with “one left to go.”
“We modeled the 57-states gaffe on Dan Quayle’s ‘potatoe’ mistake,” said O’Keefe, referring to a 1992 incident at a Trenton, N.J., elementary school in which then-Vice President Dan Quayle added an “e” to “potato.” “We figured Obama would become a national laughingstock like Quayle, (but we) underestimated the tendency of the press and the public to forgive mistakes by people they like.”
Read the whole thing.
Time to stop the nuke hysteria. Key quote:
It’s not bad enough that thousands of people may be dead from Japan’s earthquake and devastating tsunami. No, the media is instead obsessing over a nuclear reactor that has killed no one and probably never will.
A college student who was arrested for stripping down at airport security to reveal the Fourth Amendment written across his chest is now suing the U.S. government.
Two dogs defy the wave. This is the key quote, however:
Mr. Kikuchi and his daughter said they will come back every day to look after the dogs, but they are not going to bring the dogs to the shelter. “There are lots of people dead and it’s too much to ask to bring the dogs,” said Mr. Kikuchi. “It would be inconsiderate to other people’s sadness.”
Intelsat signs MDA to perform in-space refueling of its communications satellites.
The concept of refueling geosynchronous satellites has been lurking about the aerospace industry for years. According to this deal, we should see an actual mission in about five years.
