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You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:

 

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Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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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.

An open letter to Eric Holder from an ATF agent in Mexico

10:05 am

Truth to power: An open letter to Eric Holder from an ATF agent in Mexico.

So this is the “Most Transparent Administration” in history? Well, on that issue, that’s right. With your performance in front of the Committee, and your obstruction of justice and obfuscation of the issues, you were completely transparent. Everyone could see right through you. And you’re refusing to release any more documents? What could be more transparent than that? Wow!

It seems to me that Holder and anyone else involved in Fast and Furious should be prosecuted as accessories to murder, whenever one of the guns they allowed to go into Mexico is used to kill someone.

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Southwest orders 208 Boeing 737s valued at $19 billion

9:49 am

Some good news: Southwest Airlines has ordered 208 of Boeing’s 737, a deal valued at $19 billion. Plus this:

Last month, Boeing said Indonesia’s Lion Air committed to pay $21.7 billion for 230 Boeing 737s. Lion Air also has options for 150 more planes, valued at $14 billion, bringing the deal’s total potential value to $35 billion. But the Lion Air deal is not a certainty; it still has to complete the order. Also in November, Emirates Airlines ordered $18 billion worth of 777s.

Maybe Boeing should pump some of those profits into building the CST-100 manned space capsule and thus win more profits in the space tourism industry.

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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 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.

A Maryland post office bans Christmas carolers

9:46 am

A Maryland post office bans Christmas carolers.

“He told them that they had to leave immediately because they were violating the post office’s policy against solicitation,” Duffy said. “He told them they couldn’t do this on government property. He said: ‘You can’t go into Congress and sing and you can’t do it here either.’”

I like this from the comments:

So our freedom of speech is suspended upon entering government property?

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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 ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from 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

Sir David Attenborough admits to shooting fake polar bear footage for a BBC documentary

9:38 am

Another global warming activist who fakes it: Sir David Attenborough admits to shooting fake polar bear footage for a BBC documentary.

What’s worse is that he sees nothing wrong with what he did!

But wait, there’s more! The BBC, also in the tank for global warming, has also now admitted that a great deal of the footage in its nature documentaries is staged.

In a further blow to wildlife fans, corporation bosses yesterday confessed that staging footage was standard ­practice in natural history programmes. They insisted such editing tricks were necessary to create the ­documentaries, and added the programme met the expected editorial standards.

A spokesman said: “While the great majority of footage for Frozen Planet is filmed entirely in the wild, on occasion certain sequences need to be filmed in controlled conditions – otherwise we wouldn’t be able to bring these stories to our audiences. “This type of filming is standard practice across the industry when creating natural history programmes.”

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Leaving Earth cover

There are now only 3 copies left of the now out-of-print hardback of Leaving Earth. The price for an autographed copy of this rare collector's item is now $150 (plus $5 shipping).

 

To get your copy while the getting is good, please send a $155 check (which includes $5 shipping) payable to Robert Zimmerman to
 

Behind The Black, c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

Leaving Earth is also available as an inexpensive ebook!

 

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

CERN announces an update on the search for the Higgs Boson

8:59 am

Not there yet: CERN announces an update on the search for the Higgs Boson.

The main conclusion is that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 116-130 GeV by the ATLAS experiment, and 115-127 GeV by CMS. Tantalising hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery.

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Deal reached on Defense authorization bill that had included language allowing the military to hold U.S. citizen indefinitely

10:01 pm

A deal has been reached on a Department of Defense authorization bill that had included language allowing the military to hold U.S. citizens indefinitely without charge, both in and outside the U.S.

Not surprisingly for a modern journalist (who routinely miss the lead in their own stories), this article really doesn’t tell us whether that language is still in effect.

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Long faces in Durban

2:56 pm

They might have cobbled together what they call a deal, but nonetheless (and for good reasons), there are long faces in Durban.

I like this quote best:

The leading alarmist among American scientists, James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has been as spectacularly wrong as Mr. Gore. Mr. Hansen said in a 1988 interview the sea level off Manhattan would rise 10 feet within 40 years (if atmospheric CO2 doubled). In the 23 years since, the sea level has risen just 2.5 inches. Sea levels fell over the past year.

But alarmism has been good for his pocketbook. Mr. Hansen failed to report $1.6 million in outside income, much of it in violation of NASA’s rules, according to Power Line’s John Hinderaker.

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Orbital Sciences has renamed its Taurus II rocket the Antares rocket

2:49 pm

Orbital Sciences has renamed its Taurus II rocket the Antares rocket.

To clear up any marketplace confusion and provide clear differentiation between this new launch vehicle and our Taurus XL rocket. Antares is significantly different – it serves the medium-class space launch market and its liquid fuel first stage technology is major departure from previous Orbital space launch vehicles. In addition, a project of this scale and significance deserves its own name like Orbital’s Pegasus®, Taurus® and Minotaur rocket programs that have come before it.

I think they have also realized they needed to distinguish Antares from the Taurus XL rocket’s recent problems, failing twice to put NASA climate satellites into orbit.

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Doug Ross notes the fawning lack of any real questions to President Obama during an interview by a CBS journalist.

9:39 am

Pravda reborn! Doug Ross notes the fawning lack of any real questions to President Obama during an interview by a CBS journalist.

Kroft apparently had a brief case of amnesia and forgot about a few mildly important issues:

  • The increasing calls for Eric Holder’s resignation and/or impeachment for Operation Fast and Furious, etc.
  • The newly revealed Obamacare emails that appear to show Elena Kagan lied under oath
  • The catastrophic failure of MF Global, headed by none other than one of Obama’s leading fundraisers, John Corzine
  • The billions in “green energy” funds that went to Obama’s fundraisers and political cronies, Solyndra being only the most visible example
  • The “historic” $4.2+ trillion budget deficits thanks to Obama’s disastrous stimulus debacle and the Democrats’ failure to pass a budget for 1,000+ days

Ross provides links to each of these scandals, none of which are trivial and all of which are true.

Sadly these kinds of pointless how-can-I-make-a-Democratic-President-look-good interviews are the rule from the mainstream almost-exclusively-Democratic press.

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A thoughtful analysis as to why tea party supporters are breaking to Gingrich

10:36 pm

A thoughtful analysis as to why tea party supporters are breaking to Gingrich.

Much of what Bill Quick writes parallels what I have said previously: Gingrich might have said or done some disagreeable things, but he was able to win Congress and force the spendthrifts from both parties to produce a balanced budget. And when it comes time for him to face Obama in the debates, Gingrich alone among these Republican candidates appears capable of handing the situation strongly, with skill. To me, that combination appears to be a winning combination, both for the election and the nation afterward.

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LightSquared actually disrupted 75% of the GPS receivers used during government testing

9:14 am

Actually, those tests weren’t so good after all: LightSquared’s broadband system actually disrupted 75% of the GPS receivers used during government testing.

Morrissey also notes these disturbing facts, considering the Obama administration’s strong support for Lightsquared:

  • The CEO of LightSquared has been a big Democratic Party contributor.
  • Barack Obama was an early investor in LightSquared.
  • The Obama administration has put pressure on military officials to change their opposition to Lightsquared.
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A college mate of Obama describes the President’s political beliefs

6:34 pm

A college mate of Obama finally gives us a peek into the President’s political beliefs at that time.

Drew: I’m the only person in Obama’s extended circle of friends who is willing to speak out and verify that he was a Marxist-Leninist in his sophomore year of college from 1980 to 1981. I met him because I graduated from Occidental College in 1979, and I was back at Occidental visiting a girlfriend.

Kengor: Was Occidental known for radical-left politics? Would that have been an attraction to Obama?

Drew: It was considered the Moscow of southern California when I was there. There were a lot of Marxist professors, many of whom I got to know pretty well. … What I know absolutely for sure — and this is where I really sought you out and I really wanted to be helpful in terms of the historic record — was to verify that Barack Obama was definitely a Marxist and that it was very unusual for a sophomore at Occidental to be as radical or as ideologically attuned as young Barack Obama was.

The article as well as this one discuss thoughtfully whether Obama still holds to these beliefs.

While I’m not sure if this guy is telling us the truth, it seems to me that everything that Obama has done fits into this mindset quite nicely.

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The draft treaty being proposed in Durban

6:20 pm

Some of the madness contained in the draft treaty being proposed in Durban, as reported by Lord Christopher Monckton:

  • A new International Climate Court will have the power to compel Western nations to pay ever-larger sums to third-world countries in the name of making reparation for supposed “climate debt”. The Court will have no power over third-world countries. Here and throughout the draft, the West is the sole target. “The process” is now irredeemably anti-Western.
  • “Rights of Mother Earth”: The draft, which seems to have been written by feeble-minded green activists and environmental extremists, talks of “The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony between humanity and nature”. Also, “there will be no commodification [whatever that may be: it is not in the dictionary and does not deserve to be] of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose”.
  • War and the maintenance of defence forces and equipment are to cease – just like that – because they contribute to climate change. There are other reasons why war ought to cease, but the draft does not mention them.

There’s more stupidity detailed by Monckton at the link.

All in all, this treaty draft once again reveals these activists for what they are: power-hungry socialists whose real goal isn’t to save the Earth but to take from some to enrich themselves and others. I pray the Obama administration and Congress refuse to go along.

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