FROM FOX NEWS

How FarmVille Players Raised $1.5 Million for Haiti

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/02/09/farmville-players-raised-million-haiti/#ixzz1DW3CQm4h

The online world's biggest time-waster isn’t so pointless after all.

The World Food Program (WFP) has publicly thanked the virtual farmers on the wildly popular Facebook game FarmVille after they raised well over a million in aid for distressed communities in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Over the course of a year, FarmVille developer Zynga has collected over $1.5 million to help rebuild schools destroyed in the disaster. A video released by the WFP last week showed happy children finally back in the classroom. All in all, Zynga has already helped raise in excess of $4 million in Haiti relief funds.

The $1.5 million given to the WFP will go towards rebuilding a destroyed school in Mirebalais, Haiti, as well as helping students pay for food, supplies and other necessities. Over $1 million of the donations came from actual users, while the rest came from a generous contribution from Facebook Credits as well as a corporate gift from Zynga.

Last January, Zynga began creating limited edition items in many of its popular online games including FarmVille, FishVille and Mafia Wars that were purchased by users across the world, with Zynga agreeing to donate all proceeds to charity.

It’s a testament to the power of social gaming and exemplifies the potential for real-world change through humble virtual beginnings.

Often lambasted for being a waste of time and designed to exploit naturally addictive human tendencies, the game has generally been viewed in a negative light -- in part because of its immense popularity. Critics scold the game for its drain on human capital while in turn giving little back.

That Zynga has been able to leverage FarmVille’s huge user base towards humanitarian efforts is a boost for social-media advocates whose plights have at times been met with skepticism. For example, Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink, The Tipping Point, and Outliers, questioned the actual impact of social media on activist causes in a much talked about piece in the New Yorker entitled “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted.”



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/02/09/farmville-players-raised-million-haiti/#ixzz1DW356j7i

FROM USA TODAY

Masons, other service groups fight membership declines

By Jon Ostendorff, USA TODAY


The Mount Hermon Masonic Lodge in Asheville, N.C., has used outreach programs to increase its membership.


"We're not a secret society," Bennett says. "We're a society with a few secrets."

In an effort to boost flagging membership across the USA, an increasing number of Masonic lodges, like other fraternal service groups, are abandoning secretive ways and inviting the public in to see what the organization is really all about.

There are fewer Masons today — by nearly a million — than there were in 1941 as the country came out of theGreat Depression, says Richard Fletcher, executive secretary of the Masonic Service Association of North America. There are an estimated 3 million members worldwide and 1.5 million in the USA, he says, compared with more than 4 million members in the USA in 1959.

Why? Blame the Baby Boomers, Fletcher says.

"We had what I call the '60s syndrome," he says. "That was the whole concept of the generation. You turned against anything that was mainstream."

In 2005, the association produced a report called "It's About Time," which encouraged lodges to invite the community in, Fletcher says. But most didn't start opening their doors until Masons in Massachusetts saw successes in 2009 with the policy, he says.

Since then, a growing number have opened their doors:

•In Asheville, Mount Hermon Masonic Lodge 118 allows prospective members to dine with members before official meetings to learn more about Masonry. The effort has paid off. Seven years ago, the lodge was struggling with low attendance and now has about 500 members, says John Burchfield, the local district deputy grand lecturer.

•In Ellwood City, Pa., three lodges in 37th Masonic District held open houses in August.

•In New Hampshire, Freemasons held statewide events in March and October. "It was very well received in New Hampshire," says Nashua, N.H., Rising Sun lodge member Bob Porter. The Nashua lodge got 30 new members, Porter says.

Tough timesThe Mason decline is mirrored by other fraternities.

Amos McCallum, a chairman of the past national presidents of the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, says his group has 900,000 members, down from 1.6 million in 1980.

Membership in Rotary clubs has dropped nearly 42,000 since 1995 in the USA to 360,790 last year, says Rotary spokeswoman Elizabeth Minelli.


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UFOs Help Innovative Thinkers Look to the Future
Jan 22, 2011 – 12:00 PM


Lee Speigel

Where should forward-thinkers look when they seek innovative ideas? Perhaps to someone -- or something -- that's more innovative than they are.

From Saturday to Tuesday, more than 100 of the world's leaders in business, politics, education, sports, entertainment, the environment and technology are gathering for a conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Nothing too weird about that. But among the many discussions of how to break new ground through global innovation, they'll be talking about UFOs.

That's right. Unidentified flying objects and the ongoing interest in finding life in outer space are on the roster at this unique event.

Nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman has devoted more than 50 years to pursuing the scientific truth of UFOs and is part of the UFO panel at the Saudi Arabia Global Competitiveness Forum.
"I think because they recognize that if you want to look for innovation, look for somebody who's way ahead of you," explained nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman, one of the invited panel members of the fifth annual Global Competitiveness Forum, or GCF.

"Even if UFOs and aliens weren't real, just thinking about it is a big thing, enlarging the scope of our thinking to include a larger part of the galactic neighborhood instead of the planet," Friedman told AOL News on the eve of his departure for Saudi Arabia.

Sponsored by the official Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, the vision of the GCF program is to bring together business leaders, politicians and intellectuals who share a common interest in how competitiveness can be used to find real solutions to global challenges.

And GCF organizers think UFOs might offer some inspiration.

"Using knowledge gained from research in the fields of ufology and the search for extraterrestrial life, what might we possibly learn about hindrances to innovation in other areas of inquiry?" That's one of the topics described on the official GCF website, where the UFO panel theme is listed as Contact: Learning From Outer Space.

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No one has an automatic right to marry: Pope

Pope Benedict has asked Catholic priests to do a better job preparing people for marriage, saying that no one has an automatic right to wed.

Benedict said that the church should make sure those who decide to get married will be able to make the marriage last.

He made the comments on Saturday to the Roman Rota, the Vatican's tribunal on marriage annulments.

In the case of an annulment, the church effectively declares that a marriage never took place.

Benedict said that it is difficult to identify problems that would allow a marriage to be annulled in advance, but better pre-marriage counselling could help avoid a "vicious circle" of invalid marriages.

Benedict said the right to a church wedding requires a couple intends to be authentic and truthful in their marriage.

Benedict's comments on marriage came one day after he put pressure on Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi over his dalliances with young women.

On Friday, Benedict said that public officials must set a good moral example for society, but did not mention Berlusconi by name.

His comments came on day after a bishop said the Vatican was concerned about the scandal.

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*Thanks Mr. rebel superstar, for doing sweet fuck beyond the obligatory Fox news trash talk, while suspending the feeble in your liberal shillary. Which one will they replace you with Maher? Goodman? Goldman? Assange? Sheeeeeeit.


FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST

Final Countdown: Keith Olbermann And MSNBC Announce They Are Parting Ways

Keith Olbermann and MSNBC abruptly announced Friday night that "Countdown" has ended, effective immediately.

Olbermann broke the news to his viewers during his show's final sign-off (full video below). He said that he had been "told" that Friday's show would be his last. MSNBC issued a statement with the news following Friday's episode.The statement read:

MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC's success and we wish him well in his future endeavors.
According to the New York Times, the host came to an agreement with NBC management late this week to step down. Clearly, though, that was a tightly-kept secret within MSNBC. The announcement was so unexpected that the network was still running ads featuring Olbermann an hour after he announced he was leaving.

The sudden nature of the announcement sparked a wave of speculation about the reasons for Olbermann's departure, from his suspension last November to the departure of NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker in the wake of NBC's recent acquisition by Comcast.

NBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines said the Comcast merger had nothing to do with the decision. Comcast released a statement early Saturday morning echoing those sentiments. "Comcast has not closed the transaction for NBC Universal and has no operational control at any of its properties, including MSNBC," the statement said. "We pledged from the day the deal was announced that we would not interfere with NBC Universal's news operations. We have not & we will not."

An MSNBC source told the New York Times' Brian Stelter that Olbermann's exit was "all about what he did after the suspension."

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Bigger Not Better: Porn Star Dies After Breast Enlargement
Michael McLaughlin

A German porn star went into a coma and died after undergoing her sixth breast enlargement.

Carolin Berger, who used the stage name "Cora" in adult films, underwent the cosmetic surgery in an attempt to boost her popularity, the Daily Mail reported today.

The 23-year-old blond beauty was in a medically induced coma for nine days before dying Thursday from complications following a surgery to increase her chest size from 34F to 34G.

Carolin Berger, a 23-year-old German adult film star who went by the name "Cora," died following her sixth breast enlargement surgery. The starlet, photographed here while on the 10th season of "Big Brother," died Thursday.
Berger had become well known to the public after appearing last year on the German version of the reality show "Big Brother," according to the BBC. Over several episodes her behavior became more wild, including one episode in which she stripped topless and flirted with another cast member.

Reports indicate she suffered two heart attacks after going under the knife for the cosmetic surgery in a Hamburg clinic. Her family was told she went without oxygen for 15 minutes during the procedure.

Fans started a memorial page to the tattoo-covered starlet on Facebook, and it had attracted more than 4,700 members by this afternoon.

"Only the good die young," Thurston Fuchs, a Canadian living in Germany, wrote on the tribute page. "R.I.P. Cora."

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FROM AUSTRALIANEWS

Tatooine's twin suns - coming to a planet near you just as soon as Betelgeuse explodes


IT'S the ultimate experience for Star Wars fans - staring forlornly off into the distance as twin suns sink into the horizon.

Yet it's not just a figment of George Lucas's imagination - twin suns are real. And here's the big news - they could be coming to Earth.

Yes, any day now we see a second sun light up the sky, if only for a matter of weeks.

The infamous red super-giant star in Orion’s nebula - Betelgeuse - is predicted to go gangbusters and the impending super-nova may reach Earth before 2012, and when it does, all of our wildest Star Wars dreams will come true.

The second biggest star in the universe is losing mass, a typical indication that a gravitation collapse is occurring.

When that happens, we'll get our second sun, according to Dr Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland.

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