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A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus. Experts say the historian may be reading too much into the markings, and they stand by carbon-dating that points to the shroud being a medieval forgery.

Barbara Frale, a researcher at the Vatican archives, says in a new book that she used computer-enhanced images of the shroud to decipher faintly written words in Greek, Latin and Aramaic scattered across the cloth.

History professor and Alaskan David Noon corrects Palin for repeating the myth of "Seward's Folly" - the purchase of Alaska in 1867 by Secretary of State William Seward. From Going Rogue:

Critics ridiculed Seward for spending so much on a remote chunk of
earth that some thought of as just a frozen, inhospitable wilderness
that was dark half the year. The $7.2 million purchase became known as
“Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’ Icebox.” Seward withstood the mocking and
disdain because of his vision for Alaska. He knew her potential to help
secure the nation with her resources and strategic position on the
globe. . . . [D]ecades later, he was posthumously vindicated, as
purveyors of unpopular common sense often are.

From the historian:

So far as public opinion was concerned, most newspapers actually supported the purchase. The major exception was the New York Tribune,
which was owned by Horace Greeley, a Republican who was nevertheless
one of William Seward’s avowed enemies. 

28 years ago, Israel launched an airstrike
against the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad, terrified by the prospect of
an Iraq with nuclear weapons. 19 year ago, the U.N. imposed comprehensive
economic sanctions
against Iraq, declaring the country's nuclear program needed oversight. Seven years
ago, former president Bush announced
that an Iraq with access to weapons of mass destruction, potentially including
nuclear technology, demanded a U.S. military response.

And six years after that invasion, Iraq is lobbying
to rebuild nuclear reactors. Just one more entry for FP's list
of states looking to go nuclear to lose sleep over.

Mohsen Mirdamadi had been applauded as a hero by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for helping to lead the takeover of the United States Embassy in Iran 30 years ago Wednesday.

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Associated Press

Demonstrators burned an American flag on Nov. 9, 1979, at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Related

Iran’s Leader Faults U.S. ‘Arrogance’ in Nuclear Talks

(November 4, 2009)

Today, he is in prison, accused as an enemy of the state.

That new political elite is often at odds with the founding fathers, like former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; the government’s most outspoken critic, Mehdi Karroubi, who is a former presidential candidate and two-term speaker of Parliament. Mehrzad Boroujerdi, a political science professor at Syracuse University and an expert on Iran, said, “Mirdamadi is now sitting in jail, and of course this again, more than anything, testifies to how that initial consensus in Iran of 1979 and 1980 has broken and has dissipated.”

Mr. Abdi has kept a low profile lately, offering little publicly except some support for the Green Movement of the other main reform leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

Like other hostage-takers he did not apologize for the embassy takeover. He said he thought it was necessary — at the time.

But he filled with remorse for what came of it.

Evangelical minister Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind series, is the latest. In his book about the founding father's faith, LaHaye wrote that the fact that Washington "was a devout believer in Jesus Christ and had accepted Him as His Lord and Saviour is easily demonstrated by a reading of his personal prayer book, written in his own handwriting."

Except that's not true. Washington scholar Rupert Hughes wrote in 1926 that no evidence connects Washington to this prayer book, which was found nearly a century after his death in a old trunk. Hughes consulted a penmanship expert who proved it wasn't even in Washington's handwriting.

"We are very confident that this prayer book is not Washington's prayer book," Chase said.