Editor’s Note: We’ll be back on Monday. Have a happy and safe New Year’s!

‘The City’ premieres (and gets called out by New York media for giving Manhattan the LA treatment. Plus 50 Cent’s Brooklyn-based reality show gets cut) (New York Post) (New York Magazine) (New…

Pixie hollow disney world

New Study Shows Virtual Worlds Strong on ROI for Training and Collaboration

next week forterra wishes manumitting a immaculate paper detailing the results of a seam experiment with members of the masie center’s learning consortium on learning of virtual worlds. the two established a 3d sandbox on account of members to explore different use…

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Meditation is when you move your mind from a state of activity to a state of calm and silence, and then you are relaxed yet alert.

Meditation has been a practice of the major religions for years, this includes Ancient Hindu, Christianity, Jews and Muslims. These religious traditions may incorporate meditation but, of course, you don’t need to be religious to meditate.

One of the traditions that include this practice is the philosophy of the Kabbalah. This focuses on meditation and prayer, teaching that these can enhance health and healing and also raise one’s consciousness. The Kabbalah Center has 37 locations and a large collection of resources on their Web site: www.kabbalah.com.

Fitness world

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don king talked shoes.

Kim from the Real Housewives of Atlanta got real.

We drank the cocktails of Mad Men. Caroline Torem Craig told us About Last Night…. Peter Davis protested. Style was cornered. Celebrities guest-blogged. Kate and Pippa Middleton shut down our site. Jeffrey Kilmer showed us “Kids from My Travels.” We discovered the style force that is Julia Frakes. It was always Fashion Week somewhere in the world. We enjoyed some Beautiful Losers. Eight Items Or Less continued on. We scoped out the best art openings, chicest shops, coolest bars, buzziest restaurants and must-see plays. Cinemaniac creeped us out. We had some quick chit-chats. Mickey and Kim tore it up with Phyllis Diller. We had a bone to pick with a certain Vogue cover. Scout LaRue kept it old school. We freaked when The Hills and Gossip Girl ackn

Harpo marx

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We’re just back from Times Square where we got access to the media platform in Duffy Square. On one end: Anderson Cooper and Kathy Grffin on live for CNN. On the other end: FNC’s Megyn Kelly and Bill Hemmer anchoring UParty 2009. In between, seven or eight other live positions for local stations and affiliate feed service correspondents.

anderson cooper and kathy griffin about 20 minutes to midnight.

note hemmer and megyn kelly minutes after the ball dropped in times square.

And since we were on the platform, we didn’t hear or see any of the programs… but we’ve heard from some of you who did watch. More on that, plus more pictures tomorrow, including something not seen publicly since 1997.

The honeymooners

For now, Happy New Year from TVNewser! Especially to all you hard-working newsies working tonight and throughout the holiday weekend.

(photos: Chris Ariens)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

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and all the clouds that lour’d upon our housein the deep bosom of the mortgage have been condensed and multiplied a thousand-go broke.with apologies to the bard, for cranmer gave up upsetting to scan in iambs. but along with flute 4 he is struck by the parallels, exactly 30 years on, between the misery of this winter and the rotten fruits of last overemphasize administration.in 2009 gordon brown faces the very unappealing probable which confronted james callaghan in 1979 of having to bid a general election while wages are frozen or falling, brothel prices falling, the give someone the works falling, savings diminishing, taxes rising, unemployment rising, and clear-cut sector strikes are looming. the uk is once again the sickened man of europe; the polity is once again bankrupt, and labour has squandered all that it inherited. it is the reckless party; selfish, deluded, and the undoubted inventor of an stage of irresponsibility.cranmer wishes all of his readers and communicants as thrilled a young year as is possible second to these depressing circumstances.

Michael newdow

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i’m making an acne treatment review call in hopes that i can help people tread acne actually. i resorted to taking accutane and using topical creams allied to benzoyl peroxide and i regret it. knowing what i comprehend now about nutrition and chemical balances in the body, i believe that acne can be cured safely, and extremely firmly using a proper diet. if you want in chasm reviews of candid acne cures, go here.
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newsday has a exclusive on the record-keeping and guaranty troubles at the ny state workplace of children and family services. a report from the state inspector general offered this example: an oakdale gentleman’s gentleman, along with a teenage daughter, had been accused of abusing a younger daughter. the charges were unsubstantiated, but, according to the detonation, he contacted verizon, claiming he was a formal employee and asked to interview the log of calls to the abuse hotline. “the [verizon] employee sent the phone numbers to the man’s aol e-mail address because, she told state investigators, he told her his rejuvenated york state e-mail address was ‘broken.’” the report adds that the curb “demanded cash from state officials in return for destroying the phone records.” the man said he not ever professed to be a state employee, adding, “it wasn’t extortion. i said i’d like to be dressed some sympathetic of camp for libeling and slandering our family’s name.”

Sloane crosley

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the family that goes clubbing together, stays together? that seems to be the motto for the hiltons at the holidays. not only were paris (along with inexperienced bff brittany flickinger) and sis…

Jennifer lopez

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if you’re a saver, the fed flipped you the bird this week. they dropped interest rates and introduced “quantitative easing,” two things that will make interest rates plummet. here’s how you can protect yourself.

First, a brief monetary policy overview. When the fed lowers the target federal funds rate, the rate banks charge each other for overnight lending, they don’t just change a number on a board somewhere. They actually pump more money into the system so demand, and interest rates, for overnight lending goes down to hit their target. This worked in the past because cheaper money means more investments… but it hasn’t been working lately (the actual federal funds rate has been under 0.20% since early December according to the NY Fed). The scary part of their announcement this week wasn’t the range target of 0.00 - 0.25%, it was the part about how they’d be using “quantitative easing” to try to stimulate the economy. Quantitative easing is fancy Fed-speak for “they’re going to run the printing presses at the Mint 24/7 and start force feeding dollar bills into our hunger striking economy.” This means interest rates across the board will fall dramatically, as you may have read with mortgage rates.

If you’re a saver, this sucks because you’ll be earning less on your savings. Right now the best thing to do is to start locking in rates in certificates of deposit (CD). A CD is a product you can get at any bank, is FDIC insured, and returns a fixed rate over the term of the CD. With a CD, your principal is protected. I maintain a frequently updated list of the best CD rates of terms no greater than 18 months that currently has rates as high as 4.00% APY.

I would warn against getting a CD that is too long term (like five or ten years) because when the economy recovers, the Fed will have to deal with inflation. Whenever you start printing money, which we have been doing for the last few months, inflation is always a problem and when we have high inflation, your locked in CD will do more harm than good.

I recommend that you check with all the banks you already have accounts with first, because rates have already begun to fall so you’ll want to act quickly. Like right now. Go!

Jim writes about personal finance at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

(Photo: mundane_joy)

Gregory norman son

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travel collage by lochnessjess

As part of my Annual Review, I count up all the countries I’ve been to and look back at the visits over the year. This time, one thing was clear: I made it to a lot of places in 2008!

For those who are interested, here is the year-end roundup of my adventures, including a few statistics, misadventures, and highlights. For everyone else, enjoy the holiday week and I’ll see you on Monday.

The Country List

In rough order, here’s everywhere I went in 2008:

u.s.a., japan (x2), india, costa rica, chile (easter island), argentina, uruguay, jordan (x2), lebanon, syria, tunisia, italy (x2), germany*, canada, san marino, hong kong (x3), pakistan, singapore, brunei, iraq (kurdistan), poland, bulgaria, austria (x2), korea*, mongolia, romania*, netherlands*, latvia, estonia, finland, russia, moldova, el salvador, panama, egypt, spain*, qatar*, mexico, belize

*Transit only

I traveled by the usual methods: plane, train, bus, ferry, taxi, etc. The difficult parts were the overnight train from Moldova to Romania in the middle of the July heat, feeling confused in Russia since I know less than five words of the language, sleeping in too many airports (see below), and getting tired at a number of places along the way. These challenges were balanced with countless great experiences, as well as the chance to move much closer to my goal of all 194+ countries before 2013.

I like to change things up when I travel, so I visited a broad range of rich, poor, and in-between countries (sometimes referred to as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world). A lot of significant countries got crossed off the list, including Iraq, Pakistan, Mongolia, and Russia. Yay!

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Domestic

I don’t travel that much within the U.S. and Canada, but I was able to make it to Portland (Oregon), Vancouver, Minneapolis, Miami, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Most of those trips were fairly short stops of 24-48 hour layovers in between flights.

Mileage, Elite Status, and Airport Sleeping

Because my travel goals have evolved a few times, I haven’t kept a complete log with each trip and the overall cost so far towards the main goal of visiting every country. By popular demand, I’ll try to do this in 2009 for those who are interested. For 2008, here are a few notes based on airline alliance and other categories.

ONE WORLD - I earned more than 220,000 miles by flying with American Airlines and other OneWorld carriers this year, but a lot of those miles represent additional bonuses. The base mileage I traveled is probably somewhere around 100k, putting me in the highest status level of Executive Platinum.

STAR ALLIANCE ? Aside from a Frequent Flyer award from Seattle to Italy, I flew only about 20,000 miles with United and Star Alliance carriers this year, not enough to earn even the lowest level of elite status with them. Too bad ? but I have an idea that may fix that next year.

SKY TEAM ? Thanks to a status match, I received complimentary Northwest Platinum status for the next two years despite only flying with them once on another free ticket. I find it amusing that I have the highest level of status on an airline I have never spent money with. Hopefully the status will shift over to Delta as soon as their merger is complete, and that will help me with some Air France / KLM flights I’d like to take late in 2009.

AIRPORT SLEEPING - I slept in airports at least five times ? in Dallas once, in Singapore twice, and in Rome twice. The second time in Rome was particularly miserable. I didn’t write about it at the time because I felt truly awful and had a very bad travel day. At 5:00 a.m. I got myself off the floor and summoned up my best powers of gratefulness. Anyway, it’s over now and at least I didn’t give up.

OTHER AIRLINES ? In addition to more than 10 of the legacy carriers (Lufthansa, Cathay Pacific, etc.) in the main airline alliances, I also traveled on JetStar Asia (Malaysia), TAROM (Romania), SilkAir (Singapore), Korean Airlines, Jet (India), Kingfisher (India), and Air Moldova — with the last one winning the prize for most random airline.

Global Misadventures

I never go looking for trouble, but sometimes I do run into it. In Mongolia I was evicted from my guesthouse

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