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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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.

Scott Walker’s epic battle to beat the unions in Wisconsin.

10:30 am

Scott Walker’s epic battle to beat the unions in Wisconsin.

When they and Democratic legislators failed to prevent passage of Act 10 [the law that defanged the unions], they tried to defeat — with a scurrilous smear campaign that backfired — an elected state Supreme Court justice. They hoped that changing the court’s composition would get Walker’s reforms overturned. When this failed, they tried to capture the state Senate by recalling six Republican senators. When this failed, they tried to recall Walker. On the night that failed — he won with a larger margin than he had received when elected 19 months earlier — he resisted the temptation to proclaim, “This is what democracy looks like!”

Read it. It describes the way our country can defeat the fascists.

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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

A Progress freighter was manually docked with ISS today when its automatic docking system suffered a malfunction 200 feet from the station.

8:21 am

A Progress freighter was manually docked with ISS today when its automatic docking system suffered a malfunction 200 feet from the station.

This freighter was using a new rendezvous radar system, and had spent two extra days approaching the station to do rendezvous tests. What failed has not yet been released.

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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.

The Falcon 9 rocket had an abort at launch today at 5:39 Eastern.

3:42 pm

The Falcon 9 rocket had an abort at launch today at 5:39 Eastern.

The rocket is safe on the launchpad. They are assessing the situation. SpaceX has a remarkably good record of launching quickly and successfully after a launch abort, sometimes within an hour.

The countdown has been reset for a 6:44 pm Eastern launch, the latest they can in their launch window, and has resumed. You can watch it live here.

It appears that they have resumed the countdown, even as they continue to assess, so that if all is well they will be able to launch within their window. This means however they are not yet go for launch.

They now say they are go for launch, even as they assess. In addition, their customer, SES, has given them 20 more minutes on their launch window.

I just love how SpaceX seems to always have an abort-at-launch whenever I am free to watch. I think this is the fourth abort-at-launch nail-biter I have seen.

They have aborted the countdown again at T-48 seconds. They have also scrubbed for the day. It appears they had not completed their assessment of the original abort and decided to scrub. The next launch attempt date is not yet known.

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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

Though this conclusion is not final, it appears that Comet ISON was destroyed today in its close fly-by of the Sun.

2:11 pm

Though this conclusion is not final, it appears that Comet ISON was destroyed today in its close fly-by of the Sun.

A sad end to what has been a cometary disappointment. First spotted while it was very far from the Sun, astronomers thus hoped that Comet ISON would blaze brightly when it got closer. Instead, it hardly brightened at all during its journey inward, barely reaching naked eye visibility in the last week. Now it appears to be gone forever.

Scientists will gain some knowledge from this comet, as it was a first time visitor to the inner solar system and thus provides information about the solar system’s beginnings. Nonetheless, for those of us that enjoy watching the beautiful things the heavens give us, this comet will always remain a dud.

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A cancer patient who went on Fox to talk about how Obamacare has made him lose his health insurance is now being audited by the IRS.

12:41 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: A cancer patient who went on Fox to talk about how Obamacare has made him lose his health insurance is now being audited by the IRS.

Another way to describe this despicable behavior by the Obama Administration and the IRS is that they are fascist, jack-booted thugs. But that would be uncivil of me, even if it is entirely accurate.

Update: The insurance broker who saw the Fox news report and then helped the cancer patient keep his insurance is now also being audited.

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A new housecat-sized feline species has been discovered in Brazil.

9:10 am

A new housecat-sized feline species has been discovered in Brazil.

Oncillas are housecat-size felines found throughout much of South America, and are also known as little tiger cats, little spotted cats or tigrinas. But not all oncillas are the same: New research suggests that little tiger cats in northeastern Brazil belong to a different species from those elsewhere on the continent, although they look virtually identical.

Researchers analyzed the genetic material of oncillas in northeastern Brazil, and compared them with nearby populations in the south. They found that there was no flow of genes between the two populations of oncillas, and hasn’t been any for millennia, according to the study, published today (Nov. 27) in the journal Current Biology.

This, along with other genetic differences, led researchers to conclude the two populations do not interbreed and are in fact different species, said study co-author Eduardo Eizirik, a researcher at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.

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Two brothers, also college students, have formed a company to build cubesats for researchers

8:52 am

The competition heats up: Two brothers, also college students, have formed a company to build cubesats for researchers.

Mark and Eric Becnel are aiming their company Radiobro at providing turnkey cube satellite services to researchers who have experiments they’d like to fly, but who don’t have the resources to build their own satellites to fly them. “There’s an unfilled niche there in supplying a need if a scientist wants to take an experiment and fly it in space,” Eric Becnel said. “The idea is to provide that researcher with an off-the-shelf solution.”

The solution will encompass both the hardware and software necessary for the research to take place and be monitored, the brothers said. “Maybe you’ve got a launch opportunity and a window to launch,” Mark Becnel said. “We can help you by delivering that satellite in as fast as 12 months.”

This is the kind of creative capitalism the American aerospace industry hasn’t seen from its new engineers in years. In my experience giving lectures at student chapters of the AIAA, aerospace students have routinely been focused on looking for a job, either at NASA or with one of the big aerospace companies. These guys are instead trying to create their own. I say, they have the right idea, and have picked the right venue at exactly the right time. If they do it right, they and their company Radiobro stand to be a big success.

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Comet ISON makes its close flyby of the sun today.

8:40 am

Comet ISON makes its close flyby of the sun today.

Three possible fates await Comet ISON, according to Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

“It could be tough enough to survive the passage of the sun and be a fairly bright naked-eye object in the early morning sky in the first week of December,” Yeomans said in a statement. “Or, the sun could actually pull it apart. The tidal forces could actually pull this comet apart and so it becomes several chunks rounding the sun and putting on a great show again in early December. Or, if the comet is very weak, it could break up into a cloud of dust and be a complete bust in December.”

So far the comet has been a big disappointment in terms of brightness. However, its flyby today will be interesting as scientists will get a chance to observe one of the largest sun-grazers they’ve ever seen do this.

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Faced with an almost certain recall over her gun control votes, a third Colorado state legislator has resigned.

11:38 am

Pushback: Faced with an almost certain recall over her gun control votes, a third Colorado state legislator has resigned.

By resigning she allows the Democratic governor to appoint a Democratic replacement, thereby keeping control of the state legislature in Democratic hands. Had she been recalled the voters would have had the option to vote for a Republican replacement, as happened with the first two legislators who were recalled.

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The Obama administration yesterday proposed outlawing political speech by any non-profits.

9:27 am

Working for the Democratic Party: The Obama administration yesterday proposed outlawing political speech by any non-profits.

The IRS would enforce these new rules, which would make official the harassment of conservatives that the IRS did during the run-up to the 2012 election. Though they claim these rules would apply to all political groups, you and I know that they will likely use these rules selectively to squelch the speech of the administration’s opponents.

If you have any doubt, consider the selective manner in which the National Park Service enforces its laws. The leftist Occupy movement was allowed to do whatever it liked during its protests, despite being in clear violation of the law, but veterans were blocked from visiting open-air national monuments during the government shutdown in October.

This decision by the Obama administration also reveals Obama’s total support for that IRS harassment of conservatives. He liked it, and now wants to make it official. Moreover, the failure of his so-called investigation into the IRS scandal to contact any of the groups harassed, even after six months, tells us again that President Obama actually supported the harassment and is acting to stonewall the investigation.

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Using Kepler data, astronomers have discovered a solar system with seven planets and configured similar to our own, with rocky planets close to the star and gas giants farther away

9:20 am

Using Kepler data, astronomers have discovered a solar system with seven planets and configured similar to our own, with rocky planets close to the star and gas giants farther away.

The system is far more compact than ours, with the gas giants in orbits similar to Mercury, Venus, and Earth.

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This year’s hurricane season, predicted to be above average, was the weakest in decades.

9:30 am

The uncertainty of climate science: This year’s hurricane season, predicted to be above average, was the weakest in decades.

This failure also continues a pattern seen in recent years, where the number of actual hurricanes ends up far below their prediction, but the number of named hurricanes still ends up about right (see the charts on the prediction link above). I noted this in 2012, and now it has happened again. As I said then,

I wonder if their naming process was fudged to get them the numbers they wanted. While it might be possible to do that with the naming process of tropical storms, it is far more difficult to fudge the number of actual hurricanes. My skeptical nature and the recent willingness in the climate field to fiddle with data probably makes me more suspicious than I should be.

Thus to me, these seasonal hurricane predictions are becoming increasingly suspect.

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Another wave of mortgage loan defaults is about to hit.

9:09 am

The day of reckoning looms: Another wave of mortgage loan defaults is about to hit.

The loans are a problem now because an increasing number are hitting their 10-year anniversary, at which point borrowers usually must start paying down the principal on the loans as well as the interest they had been paying all along. More than $221 billion of these loans at the largest banks will hit this mark over the next four years, about 40 percent of the home equity lines of credit now outstanding.

For a typical consumer, that shift can translate to their monthly payment more than tripling, a particular burden for the subprime borrowers that often took out these loans. And payments will rise further when the Federal Reserve starts to hike rates, because the loans usually carry floating interest rates.

Read the whole article. The possibilities, especially for some large banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America, are not good.

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Five disastrous predictions that the Republicans got right about Obamacare.

9:00 am

Five disastrous predictions that the Republicans got right about Obamacare.

Before Obamacare was passed, when Democrats were telling the public that it would make health care cheaper, better, and would cure cancer right after it makes your bed in the morning and cuts your grass, Republicans were pointing out the very flaws that the American people are bitterly complaining about today.

Sadly, the worst is yet to come, all of which have also been predicted by conservatives. And the most important prediction of all has been that there will no way to repair the damage created by this law by minor fixes. It must be repealed.

Update: Here’s another prediction that is going to hit 80 to 100 million people just before next year’s midterms. I wonder if it will cause any of those diehard low information Democratic voters to finally consider changing their votes.

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A Progress freighter, launched yesterday, will not dock with ISS for four days in order to test upgrades to its rendezvou radar system.

8:52 am

A Progress freighter, launched yesterday, will not dock with ISS for four days in order to test upgrades to its rendezvou radar system.

Unlike recent Progress vehicles that used the 2AO-VKA and AKR-VKA antennas of Kurs-A system, M-21M is sporting a AO-753A antenna of the Kurs-NA system instead. Once the Progress reaches its preliminary orbit, it will conduct a series of automated engine burns to put it on track to fly within one mile of the station on Wednesday, allowing for the test of the lighter, more-efficient Kurs automated rendezvous system hardware for upgraded Soyuz and Progress vehicles.

After it finishes its flyby, the Progress will loop above and behind the station, returning Friday for a docking.

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China next lunar mission, set to launch next month, will have a rover named “Yutu”.

8:41 am

China’s next lunar mission, set to launch next month, will have a rover named “Yutu”.

In Chinese folklore, Yutu is the white pet rabbit of Chang’e, the moon goddess who has lent her name to the Chinese lunar mission. Legend has it that, after swallowing a magic pill, Chang’e took her pet and flew toward the moon, where she became a goddess, and has lived there with the white jade rabbit ever since.

Chang’e 2 is the name of the entire mission.

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