Newmark's Door

"What Happened at Haymarket?"

Sacco and Vanzetti, Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, and now, apparently, Haymarket. The Progressives are losing so much history so fast they'll have to make up some more. 

"The Crazy Keyboards of Yesteryear"

A look at some of the history of the "sewing machine of thought".

Laugh along with the 2007 Fed staff

Stop, you're killing me! "Fed Chief Economist In 2007: The Economy Won't Go Into Recession And No I Am Not On Drugs".

"It wasn't the Russian winter that stopped Napoleon."

News to me.

Given that Napoleon was the great captain of his time -- perhaps of all time -- and that his armies had conquered and held most of Europe, the tragic events on the Beresina demand explanation. His defeat is something of a puzzle, too, as the Grande Armée won the campaign's pitched battles fought at Smolensk and Borodino. Harsh winter weather, the commonly assumed culprit, cannot explain the result either; the first frost didn't arrive to bedevil the retreat until just a few weeks before the Beresina crossing.

"The Hunt for Genghis Khan’s Tomb"

Maybe they've finally found him. 

Another instance of the huge differences in how people see the world

Manohla Dargis, reviewing the forthcoming film Zero Dark Thirty in the New York Times:

The abuse scenes are crucial to “Zero Dark Thirty” because they serve as a claim — one made cinematically rather than with speeches — that these interrogation methods are unreliable when it comes to producing actionable information. The second session ends with the screaming, babbling, weeping Ammar insisting that he doesn’t know about a coming attack as he is sealed in the box. The final moment is shot from his point of view, and what follows is a scene of a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia. This juxtaposition of the abuse and the massacre suggests, in cinematic terms, that torture does not save lives. It is only later, when Dan and Maya lie to Ammar, sit across from him at a table, talk to him like a human being and give him food and a cigarette, that he offers them a potential lead.

Kyle Smith, reviewing the same movie in the New York Post:

The turning point of “ZD30” comes when a terrorist whose name once appeared on a wire transfer to one of the 9/11 attackers reveals to Maya and fellow spook Dan (Clarke) some of the other terrorists he has worked with. He gives up this information freely, over a casual lunch. So, harsh interrogation is unnecessary, right?

Wrong. In the opening scene of the film, the same prisoner is shown undergoing treatment the left keeps erroneously calling “torture.” The prisoner is sexually humiliated. He is kept awake for long periods of time (up to 96 hours) and strung in manacles. He is stuffed in a small box, he is led around on a dog leash and he is waterboarded.

Only after all of this has happened do we get to the lunch scene. When asked who he worked with, the al Qaeda financier answers, “Some guys.” Dan says that isn’t good enough and threatens to take him back to the interrogation room for more harsh treatment. Only now does the terrorist crack: He gives up three names, one of which, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, is new to Maya. Further, the terrorist reveals that Abu Ahmed was carrying a message from bin Laden. . . . 

The soft treatment only works because of the nasty stuff. The guy eating lunch wants to stay at the table, badly, and knows what the alternative is.

"The Fantasy of a 91% Top Income Tax Rate"

Precise, concise dissection of a dopey Progressive idea. 

Louis vs Schmeling, 1938

Had heard about this but had never seen it. Over at 2:04 in the first round.

Louis "cracked several vertebrae in Schmeling's back". 

"Tour The Man-Made Crater That's Been Burning For More Than 40 Years"

". . . a monument to Soviet imperial failure, a roiling wound of failed engineering."

Yeah, there was a lot of that. 

"What This British Soldier Did When Ambushed And Outnumbered Was Truly Amazing"

"Fix bayonets." 

Echoes Col. Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine on Little Round Top.