Old Painless, at The Box of Truth, investigates the old story of the shirt pocket bible saving the soldier’s life by stopping a bullet, testing the book penetration capabilities of a variety of pistol and rifle rounds.

Repeating the blood libel, the accusation that Jews used human blood in religious rituals and performed human sacrifice, was a crime in Poland and Lithuania in the Middle Ages; while, in most of Europe, it was merely an opportunistic means of debt restructuring. After the rioting was over, Jewish moneylenders were dead or had vanished from the land, and no one, particularly the king, owed anybody anything.

Enlightened Christians, including Popes as early as Innocent IV (1195-1254) and Pope Gregory X (1271-1276) have consistently rejected the accusation as inconsistent with well known teachings of Judaism.

This week, however, several reports appeared indicating that a forthcoming book by Arial Toaff, professor of Jewish History at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and author of a number of previous well-received and respected titles on Jewish Life in Medieval Italy, gives credence to the legend.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Toaff’s latest book, soon to be published in Italy, is titled: Bloody Passovers: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders.

According to a review by Sergio Luzzatto, appearing in Corriere della Serra:

from 1100 to about 1500…several crucifixions of Christian children really happened, bringing about retaliations against entire Jewish communities – punitive massacres of men, women, children. Neither in Trent in 1475 nor in other areas of Europe in the late Middle Ages were Jews always innocent victims…

A minority of fundamentalist Ashkenazis…carried out human sacrifices.”

The Telegraph has a less informative report.

Washington Post.

The journalistic accounts reaching English readers make Toaff’s thesis sound extremely implausible and his reasoning unpersuasive. One is curious as to what the book actually says.

A short excerpt featuring Bagua training from the 1983 film Wu lin zhi, known in English as Pride’s Deadly Fury, and The Honor of Dongfang Xu, an unusual case of Martial Arts cinema using real martial artists.

Emlyn has a good deal of information on the film, and identifies the older female martial artist as Ge Chun Yan.

6:56 video

John Hinderaker, at Power Line, comments on the latest attack by Pouting Spooks upon this Administration.

During the halcyon early years of the Bush administration, it still seemed possible that the President and his appointees could prevail over the inertia and, often, outright hostility of the almost-entirely-Democratic federal bureaucracy. One instance of the administration’s effort to get beyond the bureaucracy’s stale thinking was the Defense Department’s Office of Special Plans, which was overseen by Douglas Feith, who was then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

Feith’s group became known for challenging the CIA’s dogmatic belief that Iraq’s “secular” dictatorship couldn’t possibly collaborate with radical Islamic groups like al Qaeda. The Office of Special Plans argued that the CIA consistently played down its own raw evidence of relationships between Iraq and al Qaeda because such evidence didn’t fit the agency’s theoretical framework. That act of lese majesty must naturally be punished.

So tomorrow, the Pentagon’s own Inspector General will present a report to the Senate Armed Services Committee on whether–I’m not kidding–it was illegal for the Defense Department to independently analyze the data gathered by the intelligence agencies.

You can breathe a sigh of relief, though; the Inspector General concluded that disagreeing with the CIA is not a crime.

Franz, Duke of Bavaria will be surprised.

The British Government historical advisory agency recently made a public appeal seeking to identify living descendants of Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwinson, or Edgar the Aetheling, who had William of Normandy not won the Battle of Hastings in 1066 might, instead of Elizabeth II, be occupying the English throne.

The Telegraph reports:

A retired engineer from Newcastle and a financial director from Berkshire emerge victorious today in a worldwide hunt to find alternative heirs to the English throne.

They were among 500 people who responded to an English Heritage appeal to identify those who might have been crowned King or Queen had William the Conqueror not defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings.

Claimants had to prove that they were linked to Edward the Confessor, whose death in 1066 led to a conflict over the rightful heir to the throne; Edgar the Aetheling, who was chosen as monarch but never crowned; or King Harold who was killed by the arrow in his eye.

They also had to provide the name of their most likely “gateway ancestor” — St Margaret of Scotland being the key player because as a direct descendant of Alfred the Great, she was related to both Edward the Confessor and Edgar the Aetheling. An advertisement placed in newspapers across the world asking people if they could trace their family tree back to 1066 prompted responses from America, Canada, France, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia and Britain.

Albert Turnbull, from Newcastle, provided some of the strongest documentary evidence supporting his lineage back to St Margaret, King Alfred and William the Conqueror.

The 70-year-old retired engineer, who started tracing his family tree 35 years ago, said it was by chance that he discovered he was 55 generations descended from King Cerdic — the first King of Wessex — who invaded Britain around 500AD.

“It was a complete fluke,” he said. “I was in the castle library and I was looking at findings of an old history society. In the index I was looking for Turnbull and saw Threlkeld. I saw the family tree and realised it was a famous line. It was pure luck. My father’s grandmother was called Threlkeld. When I traced that branch back it came from Cumbria and married into the barons of Westmorland. They married into the Royal Family. I’m descended from the 10th Baron.”

Asked what the Prince of Wales might think of his claim to the throne, Mr Turnbull replied: “He’s my 23rd cousin. He seems to have a sense of humour. I think he would take it in good fun. But there would have to be quite a lot wiped out until it came to me.”

Mark Golledge, from Berkshire, had access to the “Stemmata Chicheleana” historical documents, which were published in 1765 and record all the descendants of Archbishop Henry Chichele, the founder of All Souls College, Oxford.

With the Archbishop as one of his ancestors, Mr Golledge is not only entitled to Fellowship of the College, but can accurately trace his family back from Chichele to Alfred the Great.

Mr Golledge said: “My family and I are very proud of our ancestry and very fortunate to have such a unique reference to illustrate our heritage.”

ABC News reports:

Pipe bombs found in an aqueduct that supplies water to millions in Southern California were probably not intended for sabotage, but for fishing, state officials said Thursday.

The five small bombs found in a branch of the California Aqueduct were typical of those used to stun and collect fish, the state Department of Water Resources said in a statement.

“Similar devices have been found previously when water levels in State Water Project facilities are drawn down for maintenance and other purposes,” the statement read.

The bombs were found this week in a section of an aqueduct branch in the Mojave Desert about 100 miles east of Los Angeles. Two had already been exploded, and the others were detonated by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

The bombs turned up along with cars and other debris when water levels were lowered for a routine cleanup.

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5-meter-long (16.4-foot-long) anaconda

Washington Post:

A 66-year-old Brazilian saved his grandson from the grip of a 16-foot-long anaconda (probably Eunectes murinus),by beating the snake with rocks and a knife for half an hour, police said Thursday.

“When I saw the snake wrapped around my grandson’s neck I thought it was going to kill him,” Joaquim Pereira told the Agencia Estado news service. “It was agonizing, I pulled it from one side, but it would come back on the other.”

Pereira’s 8-year-old grandson, Mateus, was attacked by the anaconda near a creek on his grandfather’s ranch in the city of Cosmorama, about 250 miles northwest of Sao Paulo.

Says Steve Schippert. Everybody except our Pouting Spook-dominated Intelligence Community and Pacifist State Department, that is.

Some in the US Intelligence Community seem to operate in another realm and in a world with significantly different realities, dangers and potential outcomes. How else can it be explained that United States political leadership has been persuaded to withhold releasing intelligence regarding Iranian actions in Iraq, including arming, funding and training both Sunni and Shi’a groups killing US soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, let alone the mind-boggling toll upon Iraq’s civilian population?

In question is the same Iran that even Hassan Nasrallah openly ceded feeds the Hizballah terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese through its terrorist attacks, “And the help is funneled through Syria, and everybody knows it.”

“Everybody knows” a lot of things. One of them is an American fear of international and internal criticism that prevents her from doing what is necessary — or anything much beyond rhetoric, for that matter – to openly confront the Iranian regime that has been at war with the United States since its 1979 Islamic revolution…

In just two operations, one in Baghdad and one in Irbil, more than a handful of Qods Force operators from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were captured. A man described as “Chizari” was among the Iranian operators nabbed from the offices of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq and a key political figure in Iraq. “Chizari” was reported by the Washington Post as “the third-highest-ranking official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ al-Quds Brigade.”

“Chizari” and another “equally significant” Qods Force commander were quickly released by the United States because the Iranian government saw fit to provide the commanders of terror-exporting Qods Force with deceptive diplomatic papers. They are not diplomats, “…and everybody knows it.”

Iran has a history of using diplomatic cover for terrorist operations. It was an Iranian that played a key role in directing terrorist operations against Americans in Lebanon, including the bombings of the US embassy (twice) and the Marine Barracks in Beirut – which combined killed 320 in 1983 and 1984. Like “Chizari” today, that Iranian was also quite complete with diplomatic papers, for it was Iran’s ambassador to Syria from 1982 to 1985, Ali Akbar Mohtashemipour, one of the founders of Hizballah in Lebanon, “…and everybody knows it.”

The recent Karbala executions are seen by most in the Pentagon and military intelligence as a revenge strike by Iran’s Qods Force for American captures of its commanders in Iraq. It is believed that Qods Force operators abducted four US soldiers, killing another US soldier in the process, and then summarily executed the four on the side of the road after escaping from Karbala in five SUV’s. Two Iraqi generals are in custody for suspicions of collusion with the attackers, while four others arrested shortly after the executions remain in US custody.

That we know the Iraqi general’s nationalities but not those of the ‘mysterious four’ suggests that they are most likely Iranians whose interrogations may have directly lead to the arrest of the Iraqi generals in question. The Karbala executions operation was far too professional to be carried out by Iraqi militias, “…and everybody knows it.”

Chronologically, there was the capture of Iranians, the discovery of evidence illustrating the depths of their lethal warfare upon us in Iraq, the Karbala executions and then the planned public release of evidentiary intelligence damning to Iran. Yet, the Bush Administration appears now mortally fearful of disclosing any intelligence on Iran’s lethal activities not absolutely bullet-proof, “…and everybody knows it.”

The argument once was whether or not the Iranians were involved in killing American troops. That argument is now openly ceded. Iran is killing Americans now just as it has since the ‘diplomat’-directed 1983 bombings in Beirut, “…and everybody knows it.”

In place of the ceded argument of Iranian guilt in Iraq, relentless intelligence officials now pose the argument that the intelligence in question does not prove that the Iranian regime is directly responsible, suggesting openly that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Qods Force is some sort of ‘rogue’ operation, arming, funding and training terrorist organizations with the assets of the state without the knowledge or permission of that same state. Qods Force is no simple ‘rogue operation,’ “…and everybody knows it.”

While it may hold some measure of its own power, it by no means should be considered detached from the regime as Qods Force, by doctrine and order, is responsible for extra-territorial operations and part of a Guards Corps that is charged with exporting Iran’s Islamic revolution “…and everybody knows it.”

This export, whether in Iraq, Lebanon or in the Palestinian Territories, is not undertaken through diplomatic means but through arming and feeding terrorist organizations like Hizballah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and even al-Qaeda in Iraq “…and everybody knows it.”

The notion has been forwarded and the debate already shaped as one in which the Bush Administration is doing nothing more than repeating 2003 “exaggerated or false claims” in order to justify action. The cancelled intelligence releases on Iran are already criticized as ‘shades of 2003’ in the lead up to the Iraq invasion without any foreknowledge of what that intelligence might be. Canceling the intelligence exposure has proven at least as damaging as releasing incomplete information, putting the administration once again on the defensive. This avoidable and regrettable position is the cumulative result of its own poor communication with the American people regarding the threats before us. It is a foregone conclusion that any intelligence release by the current administration will be roundly criticized in certain intelligence circles and thus the media regardless of content, “…and everybody knows it.”

This administration had better get out in front of the line and generate public understanding of the situation. Such an understanding will translate into the public support the White House is constantly warned it will not see through intelligence releases on Iran, for they will be tirelessly questioned and politicized. The greatest failure of the White House since this open conflict began has been the failure to sufficiently and effectively communicate with the American public it serves, consistently ceding the initiative to its detractors, “…and everybody knows it.”

Meanwhile, the enemy benefits from such presidential timidity in reaction to internal American debate. Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah certainly has no fears of US action, nor with each passing day does Iran. “Iran assists the organization with money, weapons, and training, motivated by a religious fraternity and ethnic solidarity. And the help is funneled through Syria, and everybody knows it.”

The weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal reports that, like San Francisco and Carmel, California, Manhattan is experiencing a steep rise of absentee property ownership by the super rich, whose pieds-Ã -terre may actually wind up being inhabited for only a few days in the course of the year.

Five-Fifteen Park Avenue has everything one could want in a Manhattan home: sprawling floor-through apartments, unobstructed views, and concierge and maid services. But on most days, the limestone and beige-brick tower at the elegant Upper East Side address lacks one thing: many of its residents.

More than half of the building’s 35 units belong to absentee owners, whose main residences stretch from Tokyo to Wichita, Kan., city deeds and mortgage documents show. Some spend little more than a few weeks a year at their apartments, say other owners and building staff.

It can feel a little empty,” says Las Vegas developer and billionaire Phillip Ruffin, who stays “a day or two” a month at his $2.8 million home at 515 Park.

Wealthy jet-setters have long maintained cozy Manhattan pieds-Ã -terre, but the city’s choicest properties are increasingly being scooped up by out-of-towners. More than 10% of Manhattan apartment sales are second-home purchases, up from about 5% eight years ago, estimates Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel, one of Manhattan’s largest real-estate appraisal firms.

Donald Trump says that more than half the condo owners at his buildings on Central Park West and Park Avenue are part-timers. These people “may not even know the address” of their New York holdings, says Mr. Trump, but “they’d still rather own a place in New York than schlep to a hotel.”

The lavish part-time spreads underscore a shift among the wealthy, who increasingly split their time among three or four homes. The investment potential of the city’s blue-chip real estate also appeals to rich people looking to diversify their portfolios.

Developers are targeting these absentee owners by packing buildings with amenities such as housekeeping, limousine services and even dog walkers, making it simple to ease in and out of town. Maids at Ian Schrager’s 50 Gramercy Park North even will stock the fridge with groceries before the owners arrive.

But the occasional occupants are troubling to some full-time residents, who say their buildings are left depressingly hollow. And the popularity of the costly apartments helps boost Manhattan prices for everyone, draining away developers’ interest in erecting middle-class buildings on the city’s few available parcels and making one of the world’s most expensive real-estate markets even more forbidding to average buyers.

To have so many apartments sitting empty when there is an affordable-housing crisis in New York City raises a “political question,” says Mitchell Duneier, a professor of urban sociology at Princeton University.

The same trend has caused some of the most splendiferous neighborhoods in California to seem like ghost towns most days, and has been predicted to promise a new urbanism entirely lacking a middle-class. The theory is that, before very long, these once great cities will feature no conventional industries or businesses at all, having evolved purely into playgrounds and service centers for the stratespherically rich.

The world’s oldest surviving newspaper Sweden’s Post-och Inrikes Tidningar (Mail and Domestic Tidings, subscription required), has gone to web-only publication.

AP:

For centuries, readers thumbed through the crackling pages of Sweden’s Post-och Inrikes Tidningar newspaper. No longer. The world’s oldest paper still in circulation has dropped its paper edition and now exists only in cyberspace. The newspaper, founded in 1645 by Sweden’s Queen Kristina, became a Web-only publication on Jan. 1. It’s a fate, many ink-stained writers and readers fear, that may await many of the world’s most venerable journals.

Meanwhile, the world’s most meretricious and unpatriotic newspaper is losing staggering amounts of money, and Arthur Sulzberger sees the handwriting on the wall, too. Interviewed at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, Haaretz reports that Sulzberger said, “Our goal is to manage the transition from print to internet.”

Given the constant erosion of the printed press, do you see the New York Times still being printed in five years?

“I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either,” he says.

No printed Times? Whatever will we use to line the bottom of our canary cage?

I haven’t seen the new Eastwood film yet, but Jack Cashill has, and he think the liberal critics have got it wrong.

I had postponed seeing Clinton Eastwood’s new movie, Letters From Iwo Jima, for the simple reason that the critics liked it. By and large, they are an even more daft bunch than the people who make the movies. They gave the film the National Board of Review’s “best picture” award and helped goose it on for an Oscar nod.

Letters attracted a critical buzz primarily because it did not ask the audience to do anything as vaguely patriotic as root for America during a time of war, even if another war. The film looks instead at the battle of Iwo Jima from the Japanese perspective.

I had presumed that to be so well received the movie had to be anti-war, anti-military, anti-American, or, most likely, all of the above. I overlooked a fourth possibility, the actual one: the critics simply did not understand it.

In the way of background, the island of Iwo Jima had critical strategic significance for the United States and Japan in what proved to be the last year of the Pacific War, and both sides knew it. Only a film critic could describe the battle as “pointless.”

Iwo Jima’s airfields, if captured, would halve the distance that B-29 bombers needed to fly to reach the Japanese mainland. These airfields would also provide a base for P-51 Mustang fighters, which could then escort the bombers on their essential and lethal raids.

Given the way the Japanese had previously defended beaches, U.S. planners worked under the presumption that the island would fall in five days. As in such warlike games as chess or football, however, real war allows each side to make intelligent decisions to advance its own interests.

Liberal critics of the Iraq War have overlooked this truism. They seem to have convinced themselves that all American failures result from “blunders” or “gross mismanagement” for which someone should “apologize.” They give little credit to the opposing forces for resisting creatively and none at all to themselves for encouraging that resistance.

The struggle for Iwo Jima involved just such strategic thinking from a savvy adversary, which is why it proved so costly. Beginning on February 19, 1945 the five hellish weeks of Iwo Jima cost more than twice as many American lives as the four years of Iraq.

Read the whole thing.

Tim Cavanaugh, at Reason magazine, reviews three titles discussing Zombie cinema and the role of zombies as political metaphors.

The conservative blogger Tim Hulsey sees the undead as a Randian nightmare vision, a mobocracy in which “weak and incompetent corpses band together and achieve a dominance over the living minority that they could not otherwise attain.” For Hulsey, “when the zombies attack, their arms are outstretched toward the victim, as if they were begging for something. Which, in a manner of speaking, they are.…The idea of being overwhelmed by stinking masses, of being forced into a way of life (or death) we would not choose for ourselves, lies at the maggot-infested heart of the original Dead trilogy.”

Hat tip to Karen Myers.