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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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.

White House Ignores Interest Payments in Claiming to Control Debt

This is beyond belief: The White House has decided to make believe the interest payments required to pay back the federal debt do not exist in their claim that their budget is reducing that debt. Key quote from Senate hearings yesterday:

To justify the administration claim, [White House Budget Director Jack] Lew said the administration was merely referring to “primary balance” — or federal spending minus interest payments. Lew sought to forgive the public for their confusion. “The terminology that we use in Washington of primary balance is a little confusing,” Lew said.

“It’s because I believe it’s dishonest,” [Senator John] Ensign (R-Nevada) shot back.

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

Liberal journalist trashes raped CBS reporter because he doesn’t like her politics

Another liberal shows how he tones down the rhetoric: NYU fellow and leftwing journalist Nir Rosen appears to justify the rape of CBS reporter Lara Logan because he doesn’t like her politics. Key quotes:

  • “At this moment when she is going to become a martyr and glorified, we should at least remember her role as a major war monger.”
  • “Lara Logan had to outdo Anderson (Cooper)…but it would have been funny if it happened to Anderson, too.”
  • Rosen went on the say that he even doubted she was assaulted saying she “was probably groped like thousands of other women.”

GOP bill zeroes out programs, puts curbs on Obama initiatives

Another look at the GOP budget cuts: Republican proposal will zero out programs and puts serious limits on many Obama initiatives. Key quote:

“In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs,” said [House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio)]. “If some of those jobs are lost, so be it. We’re broke.”

Not surprisingly, Democrats are squealing.

Democrats challenged the 200,000 job number and said he showed a callous attitude toward those who would be out of work. “Maybe ‘so be it’ for him, but not ‘so be it’ for people who are losing their jobs,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii Democrat, said Republicans’ cuts amounted to a “meat cleaver” approach.

Stardust images of comet locate crater from Deep Impact’s impact

More news from Stardust: scientists have now identified what they think is the crater produced by Deep Impact’s impact in 2005. Key quote:

The images revealed a 150-metre-wide crater at the Deep Impact collision point that was not present in 2005. The crater is a subtle feature in the images, but it appears consistently in multiple views from the spacecraft. “So I feel very confident that we did find the [impact] site,” said mission member Peter Schultz of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, at a press briefing on Tuesday. The crater’s features are “subdued” rather than sharply defined, like those of craters made in hard materials like rock. “The message is: This surface of the comet where we hit is very weak,” said Schultz. The crater also has a small mound in its middle, indicating that some of the material thrown up by the impact was drawn by the comet’s gravity back down into the crater, he said: “In a way, it partly buried itself.”

Healthcare Reform Law Requires New IRS Army Of 1,054

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Austrian Court fines speaker for describing Islam accurately

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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