Author: Robert Zimmerman

The Obama administration has delayed deployment of 50 Marines to protect its embassy in Khartoum because of objections of the Sudanese government.

2:49 pm

The Obama administration has pulled back the deployment of 50 Marines to protect its embassy in Khartoum because of objections of the Sudanese government.

In other words, the Obama administration is more willing to obey the orders of the Sudan government than it is willing to protect the lives of U.S. citizens abroad.

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Disgrace in Benghazi.

9:22 am

Disgrace in Benghazi.

The men who organized this attack knew the ambassador would be at the consulate in Benghazi rather than at the embassy in Tripoli. How did that happen? They knew when he had been moved from the consulate to a “safe house,” and switched their attentions accordingly. How did that happen? The United States government lost track of its ambassador for ten hours. How did that happen? Perhaps, when they’ve investigated Mitt Romney’s press release for another three or four weeks, the court eunuchs of the American media might like to look into some of these fascinating questions, instead of leaving the only interesting reporting on an American story to the foreign press.

For whatever reason, Secretary Clinton chose to double down on misleading the American people. “Libyans carried Chris’s body to the hospital,” said Mrs. Clinton. That’s one way of putting it. The photographs at the Arab TV network al-Mayadeen show Chris Stevens’s body being dragged through the streets, while the locals take souvenir photographs on their cell phones. A man in a red striped shirt photographs the dead-eyed ambassador from above; another immediately behind his head moves the splayed arm and holds his cell-phone camera an inch from the ambassador’s nose. Some years ago, I had occasion to assist in moving the body of a dead man: We did not stop to take photographs en route. Even allowing for cultural differences, this looks less like “carrying Chris’s body to the hospital” and more like barbarians gleefully feasting on the spoils of savagery.

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The first results from the two GRAIL space probes have revealed the Moon has a much thinner crust than previously believed.

6:01 pm

The uncertainty of science: The first results from the two GRAIL space probes have revealed that the Moon has a much thinner crust than previously believed.

These preliminary results have also found that the Moon’s surface topography closely matched the variations in the gravitational field, and that there appears no evidence in the gravitational field of the giant ancient impact basins that scientists have for decades assumed were there, based on surface evidence. This last result is especially surprising, and will force an almost complete rewrite of the Moon’s geological history.

Interestingly, these results are only peripherally related to GRAIL’s main research goal, which was to map the Moon’s deep structure and core. I suspect there are even more surprises coming when this data gets released.

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The science cuts from sequestration

3:47 pm

The journal Science today published this detailed look at the cuts that would occur in all the federal government’s various science programs should the automatic budget cuts outlined in the sequestration legislation occur on January 2, 2013.

Not surprising, the article includes a great deal of moaning and groaning about the terrible harm the cuts would have on science research should they occur. From the Obama administration:
» Read more

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Germany announced yesterday that it has approved funding for the design of an in-orbit test of a robot satellite servicing mission.

10:04 am

Germany announced yesterday that it has approved funding for the design of an in-orbit test of a robot satellite servicing mission.

The DEOS project will for the first time demonstrate technologies for the controlled in-orbit disposal of a defective satellite. In addition, DEOS will practice how to complete maintenance tasks – refueling in particular – that extend the service life of satellites. DEOS consists of two satellites, a ‘client’ and a ‘servicer’. The client acts as the satellite requiring maintenance or disposal. The servicer carries out the necessary work on the client. The two satellites will be launched together and brought into orbit at a height of 550 kilometers. According to current planning, DEOS will be ready for launch in 2018.

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“Those who produced the movie should be tried and killed.”

8:28 am

Islamic tolerance and justice: “Those who produced the movie should be tried and killed.”

Notice he didn’t simply say “Put them on trial,” which would have been bad enough, arresting someone for something he said. He wants them “tried and killed.” In other words, no trial in an Islamic nation is worth the electrons we use to read about it. They are merely kangaroo courts. If an Islamic preacher declares that you are guilty, you are guilty.

Which makes his other statements calling for peaceful demonstrations completely worthless and absolutely bullcrap. What is really going on is that they are now terrified that all that good U.S. money is going to be cut off, and want to placate the naive idiots in the U.S. To quote Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky):

“My position is not one penny more for Libya or Egypt or Pakistan until they act like our allies,” Paul said on the Senate floor Thursday. “Some say we’ve got to keep sending it. Fine. Let’s send it when they act like our allies. Let’s send it when they start behaving like civilized nations and come to their senses.”

As they used to say in the 1960s, “Right on!”

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The murder of four Americans in Libya, including the ambassador, appears to have been the result of failed security.

6:25 pm

Focused like a laser: The murder of four Americans in Libya, including the ambassador, appears to have been the result of failed security.

Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the “safe house” in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed “safe”. Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts.

According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and “lockdown”, under which movement is severely restricted.

This is a disaster, and suggests incompetence at all levels of the State Department and the White House.

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An American professor of religious studies has called for the arrest of a filmmaker because his film insults Islam.

10:44 am

Words fail me: An American professor of religious studies has called for the arrest of an American filmmaker because his film insulted Islam.

The most revealing moment in this disgusting op-ed is when Butler explains that somehow this filmmaker’s free speech rights are less valuable than the filmmaker who made The Last Temptation of Christ.

Bacile’s movie is not the first to denigrate a religious figure, nor will it be the last. The Last Temptation of Christ was protested vigorously. The difference is that Bacile indirectly and inadvertently inflamed people half a world away, resulting in the deaths of U.S. Embassy personnel.

So in other words, free speech is only allowed when it offends Christians or Jews. Offend a Muslim, however, and you must go to prison.

As I said, words fail me. Though I might add that you can reach the head of Anthea Butler’s Department of Religious Studies here. It might be worthwhile to politely ask him what he thinks of his associate professor’s interpretation of freedom of speech.

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A new and very large study now suggests that — even though no one really knows why — acupuncture might actually be effective.

9:27 am

The uncertainty of science: A new and very large study now suggests that — even though no one really knows why — acupuncture might actually be effective.

The key mystery here is the lack of any explanation for why acupuncture seems to work. And without that explanation, a large number of doctors will justifiable still refuse to use it as a course of treatment.

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Not only has Barack Obama not attended an intelligence briefing since Sept 5, he canceled the briefing yesterday, the day after the attacks on our embassies in Egypt and Libya.

9:12 am

Focused like a laser: Not only has Barack Obama not attended an intelligence briefing since Sept 5, he canceled the briefing yesterday, the day after the attacks on our embassies in Egypt and Libya.

And why did he not have a briefing yesterday? He had a campaign fundraiser he just had to attend in Las Vegas.

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