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.


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 or subscription:


4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to:


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c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
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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.

Healthcare Reform Law Requires New IRS Army Of 1,054

6:44 pm

Repeal the damn bill! The IRS announced today that it will require over a thousand new agents and $359 million more money to implement Obamacare in 2012. Key quote:

The detailed IRS budget documents spell out exactly what most of the new workforce will be doing. For example, some 81 will be tasked just to handle the tax reporting of 25,000 tanning salons. They face a new 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services. Another 76 will be assigned to make sure businesses engaged in making and imported drugs pay their new fee which is expected to deliver $2.8 billion to the Treasury in 2012 and 2013. The new healthcare corps will also require new facilities and computers.

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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

Researchers discover a new set of deep-sea volcanic vents in the south Pacific

6:21 pm

Researchers have discovered a new set of deep-sea volcanic vents in the south Pacific, suggesting these vents are more common than previously believed. Key quote:

Using an underwater camera system, the researchers saw slender mineral spires about 10 feet tall, with hot water gushing from their peaks, and white mats of bacteria coating their sides. The vents are at a depth of 1,706 feet in a newly discovered seafloor crater close to the South Sandwich Islands, a remote group of islands about 310 miles southeast of South Georgia.

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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.

Pelosi says that GOP budget puts ‘women and children last’

6:18 pm

The head squealer goes oink! Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said yesterday that the proposed GOP budget would put “women and children last.”

Meanwhile, her assistant squealer, Steny Hoyer, insisted that a government shutdown could only be the fault of the Republicans. According to Hoyer, the Democrats in the Senate are mere bystanders, having nothing to do with any of this at all.

What incompetent idiots.

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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

Austrian Court fines speaker for describing Islam accurately

2:18 pm

Bad news for freedom: An Austrian court today convicted Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff for speaking out against Islam. Key quote:

It seems the case turned on the judge’s reasoning that her statement that Islam’s prophet Mohammed was a “pedophile” was defamatory since his child bride Aisha (age six at the time of marriage and nine at the time it was consummated) remained his wife when she turned 18.

More details at Gates of Vienna.

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A retraction

11:02 am

Concerning Obama’s proposals for NASA’s 2012 budget, a closer look by me since yesterday has caused me to reconsider my earlier post. I think I spoke too soon, before I had time to review the Obama budget proposal entirely.

Though the Obama administration has pulled back somewhat from its initial 2011 budget proposals for commercial space, it does appear that they are not abandoning that effort as I had thought at first. Their 2012 proposal ($850 million per year) is still significantly higher than what Congress had authorized ($500 million), which suggests a willingness to fight for this program.

As for the program-formerly-called-Constellation, however, it does appear that this pork program is going forward. Instead of trying to cancel it like last year, the administration now appears to have become resigned to its existence, and this year includes significant funds for its construction.

Regardless, considering the insane state of the federal deficit, it seems to me both unrealistic and foolish to fund either of these programs at this time. Pork politics unfortunately will probably help keep alive the funding for the program-formerly-called-Constellation, while the lack of a powerful constituency for commercial space leaves these subsidizes very vulnerable to Congressional trimming.

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Science an Early Budget Winner … But Fight Has Just Begun

10:44 am

Await the squeals from scientists: The journal Science notes the differences between the budget proposals coming from the House Republicans (cutting funds to science) and Obama (increasing funds to science) and hopes for the best. (You can also get a good idea about the increases to science that Obama proposes by going to this ScienceInsider story and scanning down the various articles.) Key quote:

Both conservatives and liberals agree: the main pressure pushing the federal deficit is entitlements; the discretionary budget is dwarfed by mandatory Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security spending. And yet neither the House of Representatives Republican appropriators’ proposal to tackle the deficit starting in 2011 nor Obama’s new budget for next year tackles the real challenge of entitlements. Instead, both pick and choose the discretionary cuts they want to start with.

From my mind, we should accept the cuts from both sides, then go after the entitlements.

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In his new budget, Obama kicks the can one more time

11:36 pm

Another critical look at Obama’s budget proposal, this time from liberal Dana Milbank at the Washington Post! Key quote:

Obama’s budget proposal is a remarkably weak and timid document. He proposes to cut only $1.1 trillion from federal deficits over the next decade – a pittance when you consider that the deficit this year alone is in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion. The president makes no serious attempt at cutting entitlement programs that threaten to drive the government into insolvency.

And here’s another: “Steep cuts?” Even the left Is starting to notice.

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A clarification of the Obama NASA manned space budget

4:07 pm

To avoid confusion, I want to clarify why I consider Obama’s commercial space budget proposal today to be a decrease, not an increase, from past budget proposals. The history of this budget goes like this:

  • In February 2010 Obama proposed to spend $1 billion per year on new commercial space.
  • Congress responded by reducing that budget to $312 million for 2011 and $500 million per year thereafter.
  • The new Obama budget for 2012 proposes to spend $850 million per year for commercial space, more than presently authorized by Congress but less than proposed by Obama only last year.

It is almost certain that Congress will trim these numbers. Meanwhile, the amount of money to the program-formerly-called-Constellation goes up.

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A victory for aerospace pork

1:52 pm

Update: See my partial retraction here.

The NASA budget announced today by the White House proves how right I was when I stated back on July 8, 2010 that I had no faith in Obama’s new-found commitment to private commercial space. The new budget reduces the funds for private commercial space while putting the bulk of its support behind the unbuildable program-formerly-called Constellation. First read what I wrote in July:

The problem is that I simply do not believe the Obama administration. Everything I have learned about the current President, including the specifics (or lack thereof) of his proposal, tells me that none of his promises are going to be fulfilled. » Read more

Astronauts simulate Mars landing

9:14 pm

Astronauts on the Russian Mars500 simulated Mars mission simulated a Mars landing on Saturday. Key quote:

Three astronauts on the Mars500 simulated mission will make a simulated walk on the Mars “surface” Monday. After working 30 days on the simulated planet, the crew will then embark on a simulated 240-day return trip to Earth. Officials said the 520-day Mars500 mission is designed to test how humans cope with the physical and mental stresses of a long space flight.

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