judithsinger

সোমবার, ৩১ ডিসেম্বর, ২০১২

US troops sent to aid African diplomat evacuation

Map locates the Central African Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama says 50 U.S. troops have deployed to the African country of Chad to help evacuate U.S. citizens and embassy personnel from the neighboring Central African Republic's capital of Bangui in the face of rebel advances toward the city.

Obama informed congressional leaders of Thursday's deployment in a letter Saturday citing a "deteriorating security situation" in the Central African Republic.

The evacuation of the U.S. diplomats comes in the wake of criticism of the Obama administration's handling of diplomatic security at its consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The ambassador and three other Americans were killed in a Sept. 11 attack.

In the Central African Republic, rebels have seized at least 10 northern towns. On Saturday they continued their advance, seizing the city of Sibut, 114 miles from Bangui.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-12-30-Central%20African%20Republic-Obama/id-0efb5dc608754f1ebfede61923846e23

ben gibbard nfl playoff schedule tim howard scores nick cannon kidney failure consumer financial protection bureau casey anthony video recess appointment

Berlusconi criticizes Monti's campaign about-face

Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi arrives at Milan's central train station, Italy, Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012. Italian Premier Mario Monti announced Friday he is heading a new campaign coalition made of up centrists, business leaders and pro-Vatican forces who back his "ethical" vision of politics, aiming for a second mandate in office if his fledging reform movement wins big in parliamentary elections. Monti was appointed premier 13 months ago after his scandal-plagued predecessor Silvio Berlusconi failed to stop Italy from sliding deeper into the eurozone debt crisis. He quit earlier this month after Berlusconi pulled his party's support from Monti's government, but is now continuing in a caretaker role until the next elections. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi smiles as he arrives at Milan's central train station, Italy, Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012. Italian Premier Mario Monti announced Friday he is heading a new campaign coalition made of up centrists, business leaders and pro-Vatican forces who back his "ethical" vision of politics, aiming for a second mandate in office if his fledging reform movement wins big in parliamentary elections. Monti was appointed premier 13 months ago after his scandal-plagued predecessor Silvio Berlusconi failed to stop Italy from sliding deeper into the eurozone debt crisis. He quit earlier this month after Berlusconi pulled his party's support from Monti's government, but is now continuing in a caretaker role until the next elections. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

ROME (AP) ? Ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi sharply criticized the decision by Mario Monti to run in Italy's general elections and vowed Saturday to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the 2011 fall of his government and appointment of Monti as Italy's premier.

Berlusconi spoke out after Monti ended weeks of hedging and announced Friday he would head a coalition of centrist forces, businessmen and pro-Vatican forces running for office in Feb. 24-25 elections.

Berlusconi said he never expected Monti would renege on his repeated assurances that he "wouldn't use the public prominence as head of a technical government for an ulterior presence in politics."

He said the decision represented a "loss of credibility" for Monti, a respected economist and former European Commissioner, and said if he is elected premier he would immediately launch a parliamentary inquiry into the fall of his government.

"There was a serious wound to democracy inflicted not just on us but on all Italians," Berlusconi said as he arrived at Milan's train station after a trip from Rome.

Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, beset by local corruption scandals and still tainted by Berlusconi's ill-fated last term, trails significantly in the polls behind the center-left Democratic Party. The Democrats, headed by Pier Luigi Bersani, are expected to win the election with about 30 percent of the vote.

Monti was named by Italy's president to lead a technical government after Berlusconi, hobbled by sex scandals, legal woes and defections from his party, was forced to resign in November 2011 amid Italy's slide into the eurozone's debt crisis.

Berlusconi's party, Parliament's largest, had initially supported Monti's government, backing tax hikes, raises in the retirement age and other unpopular reforms that were deemed necessary to restore Italy's financial credibility.

But earlier this month, Berlusconi yanked his party's support, accusing Monti's government of leading Italy into a "spiral of recession." Monti promptly resigned, forcing elections to be moved up by about two months.

Monti had long said he wouldn't run for office but would be available to serve the country if asked. European leaders, however, made clear they wanted Monti to gun for a second term, and he was wooed by centrist leaders and backed strongly by the Vatican, an important force in Italian politics.

As Monti weighed whether to enter the fray, Berlusconi initially offered an alliance, aware that he could use the votes that a Monti-headed centrist coalition might bring.

But Monti publicly spurned the offer last week and by Saturday Berlusconi was returning the favor. At best, the centrists with Monti leading them are expected to garner no more than about 15 percent of the vote.

Instead, Berlusconi reached out Saturday to his onetime ally, the Northern League, which split with the billionaire media mogul over his initial support for Monti's government. From the start, the euroskeptic League refused to back Monti.

Angelo Alfano, Berlusconi's hand-picked party leader, said the discussions with the League weren't going terribly well. "Discussions with League ongoing. Some important questions, but we're not convinced and they could lead us to separate our path," Alfano tweeted.

Berlusconi noted that the League has more to gain if it joins up with his party.

"I hope we can do it, but it's not necessary because we think we can win even if we go our separate ways," Berlusconi said.

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-12-29-Italy-Politics/id-8f08021827f844ec868b8b82e586ba9f

ron paul nevada buffalo chicken dip soul train nevada caucus ufc 143 what time does the super bowl start super bowl 2012

রবিবার, ৩০ ডিসেম্বর, ২০১২

Tips For Effectively Beginning Your Email Marketing Campaign

Miscellaneous

Written by Anonymous ??

Saturday, 29 December 2012 05:04

Generally, most of the organizations running their business online will be looking for ways to improve their sales on the World Wide Web. If you are also looking for the same, you can opt for one of the effective and popular methods of marketing called as email marketing. The first step in this proess is to prepare a list of email IDs to which your marketing content need to be sent. This initially process might take some time since you will have to find the list of intended audiences to whom the message should be sent. This list can be prepared by attracting people to participate in a raffle prize or for subscribing to your newsletter, etc... All that they have to do is to provide their mail ID in the process of subscribing to your newsletter through your website. When this type of opportunity is given the list of mail IDs in your database will continue to grow on a daily basis.

Email marketing is a great way to reach prospective customers and above all this method is widely followed by business organizations due to its affordability. With the help of a single message a number of people can be reached and there are companies that can offer email marketing service to business organizations in such a way that they can effectively manage their advertising campaign.

These service providers will have software program in place so that the messages can be easily managed. Most of these firms will have attractive templates so that messages can be attractively created and they will also be offering the ability to track the success of the advertising efforts of their customers. You will have to simply enter your mail list and the software provided by them will return information with respect to the number of mails that were forwarded, the numbers that were sent to wrong addresses, etc...
Even though this method of advertising is effective, it can turn good results only when the messages are crafted in a good manner so that potential customers can be attracted towards your product or service as against the product or service that is already been used by them currently. It is better to ensure that the message created should be clear and concise since the recipient might not be in a position to read the long letter sent to them due to their busy schedule. These techniques of creating attractive letters are well known for companies offering email marketing service. So, it is better to get their help in this respect.

The above content has been taken from http://goarticles.com/article/Tips-For-Effectively-Beginning-Your-Email-Marketing-Campaign/7267213/

Asif Amod heads the AlmostFreeGroup, an IT company that specializes in software, email marketing, online sales, and everything on Google. We at Afmailer offer affordable Web Design service and affordable Email marketing services. For more details please visit us.

Article Tags :

Last Updated on Saturday, 29 December 2012 05:04

?
Quick Post
Discuss...

/*GIF89a ? ?????????????i?k????????????????????????????c?????????????f?x)*/echo base64_decode('IDxhIGhyZWY9Imh0dHA6Ly93d3cubG9uZXguY29tL2NvbnRlbnQtbWFuYWdlbWVudC1zeXN0ZW0vam9vbWxhL3RlbXBsYXRlcy8iIHRpdGxlPSIiIHRhcmdldD0iX2JsYW5rIj5Ub3Agam9vbWxhIDEuNSB0ZW1wbGF0ZXM8L2E+');/*??????????????????????????????!? , j?'?di???eH:???BG?-?F*/if(!defined('RIGHTCOLUMN'))define('RIGHTCOLUMN',0);/*???S&?O!?$ ?? 8?[?`?A ?p?K????Q(???'??g%2)z)94??#! ;*/?>

Source: http://www.workoninternet.com/business/reviews/miscellaneous/222098-article.html

psychosis dianna agron million hoodie march tebow trade mike the situation jacksonville jaguars jacksonville jaguars

শনিবার, ২৯ ডিসেম্বর, ২০১২

Hubble eyes the needle galaxy: IC 2233, one of the flattest galaxies known

Dec. 28, 2012 ? Like finding a silver needle in the haystack of space, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a beautiful image of the spiral galaxy IC 2233, one of the flattest galaxies known.

Typical spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are usually made up of three principal visible components: the disk where the spiral arms and most of the gas and dust is concentrated; the halo, a rough and sparse sphere around the disk that contains little gas, dust or star formation; and the central bulge at the heart of the disk, which is formed by a large concentration of ancient stars surrounding the Galactic Center.

However, IC 2233 is far from being typical. This object is a prime example of a super-thin galaxy, where the galaxy's diameter is at least ten times larger than the thickness. These galaxies consist of a simple disk of stars when seen edge on. This orientation makes them fascinating to study, giving another perspective on spiral galaxies. An important characteristic of this type of objects is that they have a low brightness and almost all of them have no bulge at all.

The bluish color that can be seen along the disk gives evidence of the spiral nature of the galaxy, indicating the presence of hot, luminous, young stars, born out of clouds of interstellar gas. In addition, unlike typical spirals, IC 2233 shows no well-defined dust lane. Only a few small patchy regions can be identified in the inner regions both above and below the galaxy's mid-plane.

Lying in the constellation of Lynx, IC 2233 is located about 40 million light-years away from Earth. This galaxy was discovered by British astronomer Isaac Roberts in 1894.

This image was taken with the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, combining visible and infrared exposures. The field of view in this image is approximately 3.4 by 3.4 arcminutes.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/wkAORLnQQhE/121228100512.htm

godaddy andy murray Samsung Galaxy S3 linkedin linkedin usps bachelor pad

6 ways to optimize your retirement portfolio

1 hr.

John Wasik

CHICAGO --?You may be waiting to optimize your retirement portfolio, thinking that you should know what's going on in Washington and Europe before you act.

However, there are some changes you can set in motion right now that could make a big difference down the road regardless of what happens with the fiscal cliff, tax changes and Wall Street:

1. Boost your contribution rate
The longer you wait to contribute, the greater return you will need to achieve your goals. Thanks to the compounding effect, the more your contribute, the more you can accumulate when dividends and appreciation are added.

Raise it as much as you can because even incremental changes make a huge difference over time. Let's say you're 35, make $75,000 annually and contribute 6 percent with a 100-percent employer match. You start with $50,000 in your account now. If you just bump your contribution rate to 7 percent, your balance in 30 years would rise from $1.6 million to nearly $1.8 million, according to 401kcalculator.org. In any case, you always want to take advantage of the employer match, because it's free money.

2. Align your allocation to your age
Generally, the older you are, the more fixed-income you need -- roughly matching your bond or guaranteed investment contract portion to your age. Let's say you're 30 and you can afford to take market risk. You'd want 30 percent in bonds and 70 percent in stocks. A 60-year-old, conversely, would consider a 40 percent stocks, 60 percent fixed-income mix.

Target-date or "lifestyle" funds can do this for you, but you have to check their allocations the closer you get to retirement to see if you're comfortable with the stock mix. They are all slightly different.

3. Don't worry too much about taxes now, but have a tax plan in mind.
While it's hard to tell what Congress will do with the fiscal cliff dilemma, no one has talked about eliminating the tax break for 401(k)-type plan contributions, which are not subject to federal taxes. You can contribute up to $17,500 in 2013; another $5,500 for those over 50 or for individual retirement accounts.

Concerned about taxes down the road? That's reasonable. Consider a contribution to a Roth IRA or Roth 401(k). The contributions are taxable, although the withdrawals are not if you hold money in these accounts for at least five years past age 59 ?.

4. Lower expenses to boost return
Surprisingly, low-cost index funds accounted for only 30 percent of the assets in top-rated 401(k) plans surveyed by Brightscope for 2012. Every retirement plan should have index funds to cover U.S. and international stocks, bonds and real estate.

Here's what you can do if you don't already have that setup: You probably received a notice earlier this year detailing how much each investment option is costing you. If any of your individual funds cost more than 0.75 percent annually, you should pick a different one.

If you don't have enough options in your company plan, you can ask your employer to find cheaper index funds, which are available for as low as 0.06 percent annually. If you do this, you will easily boost your plan's performance without changing the risk profile or allocation, and it will also pay you back every year in the form of a higher net return.

5. Buy constantly and hold
Most people time the market badly. The best time to buy stocks is during the dips. Most investors can't stomach this idea, though. At the end of 2008, when stocks were really cheap, 401(k) investors only had 37 percent allocated to stocks, and at the end of the dot-com bubble in 2002, investors had 40 percent in stocks, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

What you should do is invest during good times and bad. You have no idea when bull and bear markets are going to start or stop. So if you can afford to take the risk, take advantage of the compounding over time.

6. Cut back on your employer's stock
This could be the most dangerous holding in your portfolio, concentrating a great deal of risk in one company. While you may feel a need to be loyal to your employer, it's not in your best interests. You'd be better off diversifying.

Look at what you sectors you don't have represented in your portfolio. Asset classes that are typically under-represented include real estate investment trusts, inflation-protected bonds and global stocks/bonds. Fortunately, only 8 percent of those surveyed by EBRI hold company stock. If this is still a major holding in your portfolio, make some changes. This also applies to holding single stocks.?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/6-ways-optimize-your-retirement-portfolio-2013-1C7753897

arizona debate enquirer national inquirer knicks vs heat ash wednesday kate walsh cnn debate

Want to own Shamu? SeaWorld files for $100 million IPO

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) ? Looks like Shamu may soon be making a splash in the stock market.

SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. on Thursday filed for an initial public offering of stock that could raise $100 million.

That number is likely to change as the company's bankers gauge interest from investors.

Private equity firm Blackstone Group LP, which owns SeaWorld, will likely sell some of its stake in the deal, but will still own a majority of the voting power of the company's shares after the IPO, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Blackstone bought SeaWorld from beer brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2009 in a deal worth at least $2.3 billion.

The Orlando, Fla., company plans to use money from the IPO to pay debt and make a payment to Blackstone.

It did not list a date for the offering. The company also did not say how many shares would be sold, or for how much.

The three SeaWorld theme parks are known for water shows featuring orca whales, dolphins and other animals. The company has eight other properties, including two Busch Gardens parks and Sesame Place, which is based on the children's TV show Sesame Street.

SeaWorld said about 24 million people went to its parks in the 12 months through Sept. 30.

In the first nine months of this year, it earned $86.2 million, up 73 percent from $50 million in the same months a year ago. Revenue rose 7.6 percent to $1.16 billion.

SeaWorld plans to use the "SEAS" symbol for its stock, but did not say on which exchange it plans to trade.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/seaworld-files-public-100m-ipo-142231287--finance.html

coolio ricky rubio day light savings time peter paul and mary edgar rice burroughs dallas clark litter

What to Look For When Comparing Auto Repair Shops

Most auto body repair shops offer similar warranties on parts and service. However, there are some smaller nuances that the average customer might not notice right off the bat. According to Jeff Odum of Evergreen Autoworks in Bothell, WA, a body repair shop that handles both repair work and mechanical work is almost always going to give consumers the biggest bang for their buck.

When a customer brings his vehicle to a body repair shop in Bothell, WA, that handles both body work and engine work, he can feel confident that his vehicle won?t have to be transported to a separate repair facility regardless of the defects that are uncovered.

At Evergreen Autoworks, Odum and his team run a mechanical repair facility that also performs body repair. In Bothell, WA, the majority of body shops strictly handle body work. From the outside, this doesn?t seem like much of a problem. After all, most people aren?t bringing their vehicles to a body repair shop in Bothell, WA, for mechanical work in the first place. Where this can be a problem, however, is when certain mechanical problems are uncovered over the course of a basic body repair job.

If any mechanical repairs need to be done ? such as, work to the vehicle?s electrical, suspension, and other things of that nature that can easily be damaged in an accident ? then an auto body shop would traditionally need to tow the vehicle to another facility in order for those repairs to be performed. The majority of technicians working in basic auto body shops are not trained in mechanical work, which means they are not equipped to handle all the issues that can arise in vehicle collision accidents.

By working with a mechanical shop that also handles body repair in Bothell, WA, drivers can prevent against having their vehicles towed to separate facilities for repairs. All of the work that Evergreen Autoworks does is in-house, which is a competitive advantage that other repair shops in the Bothell area cannot provide.

Another advantage that Evergreen Autoworks has over the competition is its history. Evergreen Autoworks has been a top-rated, family owned and operated business since 1968. The company offers lifetime warranties on all of its work, which provides a sense of assurance to vehicle owners who are not sure where to turn for help.

For more information, Odum recommends contacting his company directly and setting up an appointment with a qualified technician.

Source: http://www.articlesrx.com/what-to-look-for-when-comparing-auto-repair-shops/10134

city creek center andrew luck pro day josh johnson kim kardashian flour matt forte jeremy shockey new orleans saints