Quarter-mile diameter asteroid to pass only 200,000 miles from the Earth on November 8, 2011

2:06 pm

Get those telescopes out! A asteroid, a quarter-mile in diameter, is going to pass only 200,000 miles from the Earth on November 8, 2011. Key quote:

Although classified as a potentially hazardous object, 2005 YU55 poses no threat of an Earth collision over at least the next 100 years. However, this will be the closest approach to date by an object this large that we know about in advance and an event of this type.

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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

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 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

McIntyre finds more fraud by Mann and Jones

6:12 pm

Hide the decline: Steve McIntyre has found more fraud by Mann and Jones. Key quote:

It’s therefore evident that they had, at one time, plotted the Science 1999 spaghetti graph showing data before 1550, but elected to delete the pre-1550 data as well as the post-1960 data.

If you look at the graph on Steve’s webpage, climateaudit.com, you will see why. The data clearly shows that the tree ring data they used in their Science paper was basically useless as a proxy for estimating past climate temperatures. To make it work they eliminated any data that didn’t fit their theories, a action that is completely unacceptable for any scientists.

Moreover, that a journal like Science permitted them to do this suggests strongly that there must be a great deal of corruption there as well.

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A modern journalist, disconnected from reality

9:42 am

First, watch this short youtube clip of NBC anchor Brian Williams on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Fallon expresses his discomfort with President Obama’s activities during the last week (picking the winners in the NCAA finals, traveling to South America) while simultaneously getting us involved in a war in Libya.

Williams, almost as if he is a White House press spokesman, immediately defends Obama.

During Williams’ aggressive effort to defend the actions of the Obama administration, he said two other things that I think are important, though not for the reasons Williams thinks. » Read more

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Hideaki Akaiwa: Badass of the week

10:50 pm

What heroes do.

Surrounded by incredible hazards on all sides, ranging from obscene currents capable of dislodging houses from their moorings, sharp twisted metal that could easily have punctured his oxygen line (at best) or impaled him (at worst), and with giant fucking cars careening through the water like toys, he pressed on. Past broken glass, past destroyed houses, past downed power lines arcing with electrical current, through undertow that could have dragged him out to sea never to be heard from again, he searched.

Hideaki maintained his composure and navigated his way through the submerged city, finally tracking down his old house. He quickly swam through to find his totally-freaked-out wife, alone and stranded on the upper level of their house, barely keeping her head above water. He grabbed her tight, and presumably sharing his rebreather with her, dragged her out of the wreckage to safety. She survived.

And that’s only the beginning. Read the whole thing.

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Hoyer Calls $100 Billion in Cuts to $3.7 Trillion Budget ‘A Meat-Axe Approach’

7:28 pm

My idiotic congressman: Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) today called the $100 billion in cuts to the $3.7 trillion federal budget “A meat-axe approach.”

Way to go, Steny! Show us all how you can’t add or subtract. Somehow, to your childish brain, cutting less than three percent of a budget that was doubled (increased by 100 percent) in the years you and your party were in charge in Congress is “reckless.”

What a fool.

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The death panels of Obamacare

11:05 am

Repeal the damn bill! The death panel that is part of Obamacare.

The board would cap the total amount of money Medicare recipients could get for care. Roe, a practicing doctor before he entered politics, said that means health care decisions will end up being based solely on cost, instead of what the best possible option is for Medicare patients. . . . Congress can recommend different spending amounts, but has to offset any increase in one area with a decrease in another. If Congress doesn’t change anything in the board’s “recommendations” for how much money should be spent per Medicare recipient, their recommendations become law – even without congressional approval or the president’s signature.

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