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Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands. Instead, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

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

4. A Paypal subscription:


5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
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.

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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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.

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

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

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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Lockheed Martin unveils Orion spacecraft and test center

10:42 am

The program-formerly-called-Constellation moves forward: Lockheed Martin yesterday unveiled the Orion spacecraft and the test center to be used to prepare it for space.

Though this press announcement was actually intended to encourage Congress to continue funding, it also illustrated how this portion at least of Constellation had made significant progress before it was undercut by both Obama and Congress.

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Lockstep Liberalism

10:19 pm

Lockstep liberalism. Key quote:

First was the hostility. People were really tearing into me and one common accusation was that I was a conservative troll. In fact, many suggested that I’d pretended to be liberal – like I was in a sleeper cell. These sort of accusations are a common argument.

The other shock was a really antipathy to facts. I mean, actual facts – like John Edwards was caught by reporters who saw him firsthand. My critics did all sorts of backflips to get around this; the reporters were lying, the Enquirer can’t be trusted, they are going after Edwards because of his stance on poverty and so on. I pointed out that while the Enquirer will stretch the truth, it seemed highly unlikely they would outright lie about seeing Edwards firsthand – especially since he was a successful attorney – and that tellingly, Edwards hadn’t denied the facts. I made phone calls to the Beverly Hills police to confirm facts…and still the mob on DailyKos went ballistic.

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The savage barbaric murders of Jewish children by Islamic killers

9:26 pm

On March 11, a Palestinian terrorist (nothing more than a savage if you ask me) broke into the Jewish home in the West Bank and brutally murdered two adults and three of their children, aged 11, 3, and 1. When the news reached Gaza, there were celebrations, with candy being handed out to children.

On March 13, Melanie Phillips, a blogger in Great Britain, decided to comment on these horrible and barbaric murders by Islamic killers.
» Read more

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The real disaster in Japan

10:48 am

The situation at the Japanese nuclear power planets continues to improve. Key quote:

It’s hard to imagine, but it’s now been eight days since the Honshu quake and tsunami, and evidence continues to accumulate that while it was certainly a bad industrial accident, the “doomsday” and “worst case” scenarios just haven’t happened. Every day longer makes those scenarios even less likely — the reactors are cooling, the Japanese are getting them supplied with power, and the fuel rods haven’t burned.

Meanwhile, the scope of the real disaster in Japan is becoming more clearly known: No bodies or survivors found in tsunami-hit Miyagi community.

Kobe fire department rescue team members, who also worked in areas affected by the Great Hanshin Earthquake, have been operating in Minami-Sanrikucho. But they do not have any idea of the whereabouts of the legions of missing people swept away after massive tsunami swallowed up houses. In all, 8,000 town residents remain missing.

What is it with today’s modern American press, that is obsessed about a non-problem at a nuclear power plant, while close-by whole cities have been laid waste, with literally tens of thousands of people killed?

My heart goes out to the Japanese people. Faced with such destruction, they still seem undaunted and unbowed. May they rebuild their country quickly and with courage.

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