Saturday, November 2, 2013
manessmorrison2@yahoo.com

News Of The Day


Michigan man claims he told US where bin Laden was – NBC

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was holed up in this compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, when he was killed by U.S. forces on May 1, 2011. The compound has since been torn down.
By Jeff Karoub, The Associated Press
DETROIT -- A Michigan man claims he tipped federal investigators to the location of Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan eight years before his killing and has hired attorneys to help him collect the $25 million reward.
The al-Qaida leader was killed in May 2011 during a Navy SEAL raid on the three-story compound. U.S. officials have said the house wasn't built until 2005, and Pakistani officials have said they believe he moved there in the summer of that year.
A letter obtained Friday by The Associated Press from a Chicago-based law firm representing Grand Rapids resident Tom Lee says the 63-year-old gem merchant reported the location of bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad in 2003. The letter sent by the Loevy & Loevy law firm to FBI Director James Comey in August says a Pakistani intelligence agent told Lee that he escorted bin Laden and his family from Peshawar to Abbottabad


The AP made a request to speak with Lee and Michael Kanovitz, the attorney who signed the letter, through the Loevy & Loevy law firm. The FBI didn't immediately comment.
According to the letter, Lee, a U.S. citizen of Egyptian heritage, shared the information with customs and FBI agents. Lee reported that the Pakistani agent "was a member of a family that Mr. Lee had done business with for decades," the letter said, and the agent and his family opposed bin Laden.
There was a $25 million reward for Osama bin Laden.
The letter said Lee, who lives in Grand Rapids, made "numerous attempts" to claim his reward but received no responses.
"Mr. Lee precisely identified the whereabouts of the most notorious terrorist of our era, a man responsible for the World Trade Center attacks, the most devastating act of terror committed on American soil, and numerous other assaults on Americans," the letter said.
Lee told The Grand Rapids Press in an email Friday that he couldn't understand why the government waited to act.
"It disturbs me, and it should disturb every American, that I told them exactly where bin Laden was in 2003, and they let him live another eight years," he said in the email.
Bin Laden had slipped away from U.S. forces in the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora in 2001, and the CIA believed he had taken shelter in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. The U.S. was eventually able to find bin Laden by tracing his courier, Ibrahim al-Kuwaiti.
One of bin Laden's wives told Pakistani investigators that she moved to the Abbottabad home in 2006 and never left the top floors. 
There was a $25 million reward for Osama bin Laden.
The letter said Lee, who lives in Grand Rapids, made "numerous attempts" to claim his reward but received no responses.
"Mr. Lee precisely identified the whereabouts of the most notorious terrorist of our era, a man responsible for the World Trade Center attacks, the most devastating act of terror committed on American soil, and numerous other assaults on Americans," the letter said.
Lee told The Grand Rapids Press in an email Friday that he couldn't understand why the government waited to act.
"It disturbs me, and it should disturb every American, that I told them exactly where bin Laden was in 2003, and they let him live another eight years," he said in the email.
Bin Laden had slipped away from U.S. forces in the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora in 2001, and the CIA believed he had taken shelter in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. The U.S. was eventually able to find bin Laden by tracing his courier, Ibrahim al-Kuwaiti.
One of bin Laden's wives told Pakistani investigators that she moved to the Abbottabad home in 2006 and never left the top floors. 


It will be interesting to see how this man fares with getting the $25,000,000. I wonder if that has been figured into the budget?



'Geek' lands book, movie living by 1950s 'popularity guide' – NBC
Benjamin Solomon TODAY contributor
High schooler Maya Van Wagenen wanted to know what it took to be popular. What she found got her a six-figure book deal and a ticket to Hollywood.
After discovering her father's forgotten copy of Betty Cornell's 1958 etiquette manual "Teen-Age Popularity Guide" the summer before she started eighth grade, the self-described "geek" launched an experiment in applying its lessons to her life as a 21st century outsider.
This week, Dreamworks announced that her story — which will already be the basis for her forthcoming memoir — will be turned into a movie . The title is Popular A Memoir Vintage Wisdom For A Modern Geek.
“It’s mindboggling,” the now-15-year-old told TODAY.com. “Every day it’s something new that I wasn’t expecting.”
Being the center of attention is an unexpected turn for the Statesboro, Georgia tenth grader, who says she always struggled with making friends and finding self confidence.
“I had the braces and the glasses. I got extremely good grades. I didn’t have any social life,” she says of her middle school self.
The idea for her project was born when she found the book during the family's move to Brownsville, Texas.
“My mom said I should follow the advice and see how it applied to my life and write about what happened,” she explains. “At first I was really against the idea because I didn’t want to be made fun of more than I already was. I knew this would mean putting myself out there and getting noticed, which is a little dangerous in middle school. But there was a part of me that wanted to give it a try. And after I finished the first month, I knew I was going to finish [the whole book].”
The "Teen-age Popularity Guide" was just one of several etiquette books written in the 1950s by Cornell, a former teen model from Teaneck, New Jersey. Organized around themes like dieting, makeup, hosting a party, and going to a dance, the guide includes advice on the importance of wearing pearls and the proper way to shave your legs.
Van Wagenen followed one of the book's rules each month, and kept a detailed record of the experience in her journal. She didn't tell anyone outside of her family about the experiment — not even her closest friends.
“They thought I was going crazy,” she recalls. “I had people ask me if I changed religions, if I’d suddenly got a boyfriend, if I just wanted to dress like an old lady!”
In one of her more extreme tasks, she wore a girdle for an entire month. “Actually they’re not too terribly difficult to find,” she jokes. “But they’re not the most comfortable things.”
She hoped the experience would give her confidence and make her feel liked by her peers, and through Cornell's writing, she says she began to see the author as the friend she had always wanted, one who could give her advice and tell her how to act.
“It gave me an excuse, in some ways to act braver than I felt,” Van Wagenen admits. “Mostly what I faked was the confidence. And once you fake it long enough it starts to feel real, and before you know you are more confident.”
Her newfound confidence made the project a success, but that was nothing compared to what Van Wagenen was about to experience next.
The summer after she finished her experiment, she began to revisit and edit her journal. Eventually she shared the work with her family , who helped get it in the hands of an agent, Daniel Lazar of Writers House.
“Dan didn’t even read the entire thing before calling me and saying he wanted to work with me,” explains Van Wagenen. In June, he helped net her a $300,000 two-book deal with Dutton Children's Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group.
“From the first page, it was instantly clear that 'Popular' was something special,” Julie Strauss-Gabel, President and Publisher of Dutton Children’s Books, said in a statement. “Celebrating self-confidence and kindness, Maya’s bold and brilliant story has something to say to readers of all ages.”
And the film version of Van Wagenen's story is already in motion: Amy B. Harris, showrunner of the popular CW drama "The Carrie Diaries," is currently attached to pen the script. As for who would play her in a movie? “I’d want an unknown,” Van Wagenen says. “I just feel like that would be more accurate in some ways.”
The teen, who cites Charles Dickens, Louise Rennison and Tina Fey as some of her favorite authors, is already thinking about her second book, which she hopes will be a novel. Until then, she will do her best to be a normal high schooler, even if normal means editing her first book in the room she shares with her younger brother.
“The message of the book itself is to be kind to others and to reach out to people,” she says, adding that the whole experience has taught her about what is really important in life. “Create what you love. That’s more rewarding than having people to tell you it’s phenomenal. Knowing that what you create makes you happy—that’s the best reward.”
Look for Maya Van Wagenen’s first interview on TODAY following the book’s release in April.


Being a “geek” has really paid off for this girl, as she needs her good grades to be a good writer. She is years ahead of her time in self-development, and instead of slavishly following the crowd to avoid getting picked on, she has boldly made her own way. The thing is, it has worked. Who knew pearls and politeness could win out over short skirts and gang banging. It's good to read this story. It makes me happy to know that school isn't inevitably a no man's land, as it sometimes appears when I read the news.




Nursing Home Resident Arraigned in Roommate Killing – NBC

A witness saw Thomas Yarnavick holding a bloodied metal leg of a wheelchair while standing over the dead body of his roommate, Jailall Singh

A Queens nursing home resident has been arraigned on murder and weapon possession charges in the beating death of his 71-year-old roommate.
  Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Friday a witness saw Thomas Yarnavick holding a bloodied metal leg of a wheelchair while standing over the dead body of his roommate, Jailall Singh.
 
Prosecutors said the 66-year-old Yarnavick then put the metal leg in a hamper where it was later recovered. They said Yarnavick later admitted killing Singh.
 
Police said the two roommates had argued over a curtain separating the beds before the Wednesday beating.
 
Yarnavick faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted. He was held without bail and ordered to return to court on Dec. 4. His lawyer declined to comment.
 

This is depressing. It looks like another case of a nursing home failing to catch Yarnavick's symptoms of mental illness and medicate him for it. No rational person would kill someone over where a curtain is placed. Maybe the nursing home was unclean or otherwise poorly run, too, adding to his mental condition. It doesn't look like he has any other court defense. Some elderly people who get Alzheimers have psychiatric symptoms as a part of the illness, and can get very agitated. This was a very violent crime. I hope there is a followup to this story to tell what happens to him.



­ In A Church Built On Tradition, The Pope Likes Spontaneity – NPR
­ In the seven months since he was elected, Pope Francis has shaken up the Catholic world and beyond with off-the-cuff homilies, phone calls to ordinary folk and unscripted interviews. His Twitter followers now exceed 10 million. Described by the Vatican as "conversational," the new papal style is drawing praise from large numbers of Catholics and nonbelievers alike.
But it's also making some conservative Catholics deeply uncomfortable.
Greg Burke, the Vatican's communications strategist, says that with Francis' election — after a papacy plagued by crises — attitudes toward the Roman Catholic Church changed overnight.
"I don't know of any other institution in the world where things could have changed so much and so quickly in terms of communications and public relations and moral authority," Burke says.
Surprising Spontaneity
Francis stunned the world in July with an impromptu airborne press conference, where he said, "Who am I to judge gays?"
That was followed by a long interview with a Jesuit journal in which he said Catholics should stop being obsessed with abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Then came an interview with an atheist journalist.
Eugenio Scalfari, founder of the left-leaning daily La Repubblica, describes how their encounter came about.
"I was stunned when all of a sudden my phone rang and Pope Francis was on the line. He was answering my open letter asking him to join in a conversation," Scalfari recalls. "I could hear him leafing through his calendar as he set the time for us to meet."
The journalist met the pope in the small hotel on Vatican grounds that Francis has chosen as his modest residence, forsaking the palatial papal apartment. And Francis made some sensational statements, including: "Proselytism is solemn nonsense" and "The world's most serious afflictions today are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old."
He also complained about a "Vatican-centric" view that "neglects the world around us."
If that were not enough, Francis has also emerged as the "cold-call pope," often picking up the phone and chatting with ordinary people.
This poses challenges for his handlers, who don't learn about some conversations until after the fact. And in an organization where papal pronouncements had always been prepared ahead of time and carefully vetted, the press staff now has to keep up with a pope who constantly goes off script.
"We are dealing with the unexpected, with spontaneity," says the Rev. Tom Rosica, who often pitches in as Vatican spokesman. "The pope is teaching us the art of communicating."
"The most vivid example of the new evangelization is not a book, not an apostolic exhortation, it's Pope Francis," Rosica says. "The pope is becoming the message."
For Developed World, 'A Lot Of Tough Love'
But not everybody is comfortable with that message. In Italy, several articles have appeared that reflect the growing unease of unnamed sources within the Vatican bureaucracy over the direction of the new papacy.
And in the U.S., many conservative Catholics feel like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son, as Pope Francis preaches the message of mercy, reaching out to gays, women, nonbelievers and the secular world. That leaves more traditionalist Catholics feeling left out, says Robert Mickens, Vatican correspondent for The Tablet, a British Catholic weekly.
"People who live in a black-and-white kind of world are not satisfied at all with this kind of more elastic or pastoral path that the pope has taken, by giving these interviews and using the type of language that he does," he says.
Mickens describes the pope's language as both easily understandable and enticing. But he adds that Francis' message is also deeply challenging.
"His strong admonitions against greed, not to be greedy, not to hurt the environment ... these are not just nice things people want to hear; they are strong gospel, prophetic means of talking to people but in a language that is contemporary," Mickens says.
Burke, the Vatican communications strategist, acknowledges that for some Catholics living in the U.S. and other parts of the developed world, the pope's emphasis on a church for the poor and his sharp criticism of globalization and laissez-faire capitalism could be very disturbing.
"Mercy is the main message," Burke says. "But in the wealthy comfortable world, there's going to be a lot of tough love."


This pope is definitely a leader and a liberated thinker, and in a community of thought where suicide is a deadly sin, abortion is murder, and using birth control is against God's will, it is possible that there will be a rebellion of some sort against him from within the church. I hope that isn't the case, because I think the church should be moving forward. If it were to champion environmental issues, for instance, as Pope Francis has suggested, perhaps the world would make some progress on the carbon dioxide problem, and the elephants and tigers wouldn't become extinct. The Bible said that Adam and Eve were supposed to dress the garden of Eden, not destroy it.




Wanted: Volunteers for yearlong mock Mars mission in Canadian Arctic – CBS
If you're ready to take a timeout from your life and spend a year living in the Arctic on a simulated Mars mission, the Mars Society wants to hear from you.
The non-profit group, which advocates for manned exploration of the Red Planet, has released its requirements for the six volunteers who will be expected to spend 12 months at the society's Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station on Canada's Devon Island, which is about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) from the North Pole, beginning in July 2014.
Just like astronauts, crewmembers will spend most of their time doing science, studying things such as carbon release from the permafrost and human performance in extreme conditions. If they want to go outside their base, they'll have to wear a spacesuit. If something breaks, they're the ones who are going to have to fix it.
"Dedication to the cause of human Mars exploration is an absolute must, as conditions are likely to be very difficult and the job will be very trying," Mars Society officials said in a description of the simulated mission, which is called Mars Arctic 365.
Human Mars exploration generated a lot of headlines last year when the Netherlands-based non-profit Mars One proposed a one-way trip to the Red Planet that would land in 2023. Mars One's global call for astronaut applicants received more than 200,000 responses.
NASA, for its part, aims to get humans to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s. The space agency is also sending an astronaut on a one-year mission to the International Space Stationin 2015 to help prepare for longer space missions.
Applicants for the Mars Society's Arctic mission must be between 22 and 60 years old with a four-year college degree or equivalent experience. While the group does not stipulate what sort of experience is needed, they note that skills including science, engineering, first aid and mechanical aptitude would all enhance an application.
The selected volunteers will "act under crew discipline and strict mission protocols during the Arctic simulation," and are expected to undergo training beforehand, including at the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station in Utah.
Applications are due Nov. 30. More information is available from the Mars Society.

I notice it doesn't say that women are excluded from the team, and you can be up to 60 years old, so it may require more intestinal fortitude than physical strength. I can imagine that people might become deranged from being enclosed so long. Of course, they can go out if they wear a space suit. A good amount of life experience will probably be preferred, and patient attention to detail for the science experiments would be needed. There's no pay, but when you get out you can hopefully write a book about your experiences. This is really very interesting. I hope someone does write about it – I'd like to read that.