Overnight Open Thread (9 Aug 2014)

Obama: Bad intelligence behind IS underestimation (Warning autoplay video). Um, no. Maybe it was HIS national security folks that underestimated IS but the intel was there. Hell, even the prime minister of the Kurdistan region, Nechirvan Barzani, says he warned Baghdad and the United States months ago about the threat IS posed to Iraq. The White House response? Radio silence. You can't blame the underestimation on bad intelligence when you ignore all the warnings.

On November 1, 2013, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the White House, and made a rather stunning request. Maliki, who celebrated when the last U.S. troops left his country in 2011, asked Obama to quietly send the military back into Iraq and help his beleagured Air Force develop targets for air strikes; that’s how serious the threat from Sunni insurgents led by the extremist group ISIS had become.

Twelve days later, Brett McGurk, a deputy assistant secretary of state and the Obama administration’s senior U.S. official in Baghdad since the crisis began last month, presented to Congress a similarly dark warning. ISIS was launching upwards of 40 suicide bombers a month, he said, encouraged in part by the weakness of Maliki’s military and the aggressively anti-Sunni policies of the Shi’ite prime minister. It was the kind of ominous report that American intelligence agencies had been delivering privately for months.

Image via Michael Ramirez.

Naval Aviation History

If you look closely at the picture above, you'll see an aviator sticking up out of the shattered canopy. Here's the story of the crewmember who survived a partial ejection from a KA-6D.

Uh and Um

Men say 'Uh' and women say 'Um'. I'm just curious as to the source of this study. Was it the NSA?

For his analyses, Liberman has been parsing 14,000 transcribed phone conversations, which together comprise more than 26 millions words and involve about 12,000 speakers from all over the U.S.

Moron Lifestyle

Championship Fishing Wasted.

Maps

Internet speed by state.

Here's one more map. Causes of death that they keep covering up.

Sexfit

Sexfit, a pedometer for your junk, just sounds like a bad idea.

5 Fun Physics Phenomena

OK, I had fun trying some of these with my kids.

Cocktail Prices

Where do cocktail prices come from? Pretty good read.

Receipt Control

Minnesota Democrats are outraged that a business would actually put the cost of the new higher minimum wage on their receipts. Math creates an us against them mentality. Democrats do hate people knowing what they're paying for and why.

Cat Video

Tonight's ONT brought to you by:

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to maet or CDR M. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

posted by CDR M at 10:00 PM

| Access Comments