A federal judge has approved the installation of surveillance cameras by the police — on private property without a warrant.

2:49 pm

Big Brother arrives: A federal judge has approved the installation of surveillance cameras by the police — on private property without a warrant.

Let me repeat that: The judge said that the police have the right to enter private property, without a warrant, in order to secretly install surveillance cameras so that they can record whatever happens on that property.

Doesn’t that make you feel safe?

2 comments

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 or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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

Sierra Nevada is moving its mini-shuttle, Dream Chaser, into its own facility.

8:43 am

Sierra Nevada is moving its mini-shuttle, Dream Chaser, into its own facility.

This article isn’t really as positive as I’d like. For one, they haven’t even signed the lease for the building. Instead, it appears that the company is using this announcement, and the subsequent media coverage, to pressure the local city council to provide them subsidies. For another, the article mentions that drop tests of Dream Chaser will occur next spring, a significant delay from previous announcements. Both points make things appear far more tenuous than they should be.

2 comments

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.

We ain’t going away

6:01 pm

An evening pause: I posted this video song the evening of election, 2010. I think its point remains the same today, the eve of election day 2012. The people do not go away, no matter how much the elite leadership of society wishes they might. Even in a dictatorship they hover over everything.

Leave a comment

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

Genesis now available on Kindle

10:00 am

It took Amazon a bit longer than everyone else, but the ebook edition of Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 is now available for Kindle at amazon.com.

And of course, it can also be purchased at all other ebook bookstores, as well as here at Behind the Black.

Update: My Tuesday appearance on John Batchelor has been moved up to tonight (Monday) from 11 to 11:30 pm, during which we will be discussing Genesis, the election, and some space news of the day,

One comment

The proposed IRS tax form every American will have to fill out when Obamacare goes into effect.

4:11 pm

Finding out what’s in it: A proposed IRS tax form every American will have to fill out when Obamacare goes into effect.

This form is not from the IRS, but it is based on the actual law, and is I think a reasonably good facsimile of the kind of information the IRS will require when the individual mandate goes into effect and the IRS will have to determine whether you have health insurance or need to pay higher taxes because you don’t.

I especially like the section of the form that asks these questions:

  • Are you claiming a religious exemption from the individual responsibility mandate?
  • Are you an incarcerated criminal and therefore exempt from the personal mandate?
  • Are you an illegal immigrant and therefore exempt from the personal mandate?

All three exemptions exist, though the Obama administration has already made it clear that the first will only be available to actual religious organizations, and even there the exemption will be limited. However, if you are a criminal or illegal immigrant (also a lawbreaker) you are exempt from this law, though you receive all its benefits.

As I’ve said, Repeal this turkey! And vote out every idiot that supported it.

8 comments

One of the major backers has pulled out of a solar energy power plant plan for Africa and the Middle East.

9:31 am

One of the major backers has pulled out of a solar energy power plant plan for Africa and the Middle East.

“We see our part in Dii as done,” says spokesman Torsten Wolf of Siemens, one of 13 founding partners of the consortium, which is also based in Munich. Siemens also said that it will pull out of the solar-energy business altogether. Its decision was made in response to falling government subsidies for solar energy and a collapse in the price of solar equipment. But to DESERTEC’S critics, Siemens’ exit also adds to doubts about the plan, which is expected to cost hundreds of billions of dollars. “DESERTEC is an ambitious attempt to do every­thing at once,” says Jenny Chase, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in Zurich, Switzerland. “I think it’s something that will be achieved organically, bit by bit, which will probably be cheaper, easier and achieve the same results.” [emphasis mine]

The cited reasons suggest some fundamental problems with this particular project. That Siemens is abandoning the solar energy entirely, citing the lose of government subsidies as one reason, also suggests there is something fundamental wrong with the industry itself.

Then again, it could be just like the new commercial space industry. Some companies are willing to take the risks to make the money even without subsidies, while others are not.

3 comments
1 … 880 881 882 883 884 … 1,121