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Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tragedy in Rwanda inspires new Fray song (AP)
[unable to retrieve full-text content]AP - The Fray's new song "Heartbeat" seems to be about reviving a broken relationship, with lyrics like "I wanna kiss your scars tonight, and baby, you gotta try, you gotta let me in."
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Are Santorum's comments on higher ed out of step? (AP)
[unable to retrieve full-text content]AP - When Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum calls President Barack Obama "a snob" for wanting all Americans to attend college, he may be out of step with the public's overall view of higher education.
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Monday, February 27, 2012
Army IDs remains of last missing soldier in Iraq
FILE - This Oct. 30, 2006, file photo, provided by the al-Taie family, shows Ahmed Kousay al-Taie, shows Staff Sgt. Ahmed Kousay al-Taie, who was an Army interpreter born in Iraq and lived in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Army issued a statement Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012, saying that the military's mortuary in Dover, Del., had positively identified a set of remains as belonging to al-Taie, the last American service member unaccounted for in Iraq. (AP Photo/Family Photo)
FILE - This Oct. 30, 2006, file photo, provided by the al-Taie family, shows Ahmed Kousay al-Taie, shows Staff Sgt. Ahmed Kousay al-Taie, who was an Army interpreter born in Iraq and lived in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Army issued a statement Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012, saying that the military's mortuary in Dover, Del., had positively identified a set of remains as belonging to al-Taie, the last American service member unaccounted for in Iraq. (AP Photo/Family Photo)
FILE - This undated file family photo shows Staff Sgt. Ahmed Kousay al-Taie, who was an Army interpreter born in Iraq and lived in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Army issued a statement Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012, saying that the military's mortuary in Dover, Del., had positively identified a set of remains as belonging to al-Taie, the last American service member unaccounted for in Iraq. (AP Photo/Family Photo)
BAGHDAD (AP) ? The U.S military announced Sunday that it has recovered the remains of the last American service member who was unaccounted for in Iraq, an Army interpreter seized by gunmen after sneaking off base to visit his Iraqi wife in Baghdad during the height of the insurgency.
The remains of Staff Sgt. Ahmed al-Taie, who was 41 when militiamen seized him on Oct. 23, 2006, were positively identified at the military's mortuary in Dover, Del., the Army said in a statement released Sunday. Army officials said they had no further details about the circumstances surrounding his death or the discovery of his remains.
Al-Taie's brother, Hathal Al-Taie, told The Associated Press the military officer who visited the family's home to inform them about the remains said they are still in Dover, but that he didn't know the circumstances surrounding his brother's death.
"We have no information right now, not even how the body looks like or when they're going to release him," Hathal Al-Taie said by phone from Ann Arbor, Mich., where the family settled after leaving Iraq for the U.S. when his brother was still a teenager.
Their uncle, Entifadh Qanbar, said he was told by the Army major who informed the family in Ann Arbor that the remains were received at Dover on Feb. 22.
"I asked if it was an accident or if he was killed, and he said they didn't know, that they are investigating," Qanbar said by phone from Beirut, where he lives. "He said he had the same questions that I have."
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad did not respond to a request for comment late Sunday.
Family members say that like many Iraqi exiles, Ahmed al-Taie was eager to help his native land rebuild after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and ouster of Saddam Hussein.
He met his wife during a trip to Iraq shortly after Saddam fell, while he was still a civilian, and in December 2004 he joined an Army reserve program for native speakers of Arabic and other strategic languages. He was deployed to Iraq in November 2005 and was assigned to a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Baghdad until he was kidnapped the following year.
At the time he was seized, kidnappings for ransom or political motives, mostly of Iraqis but also many foreigners, were common. The February 2006 bombing of a Shiite mosque by Sunni insurgents caused retaliatory bloodshed to spiral, and death squads roamed the streets.
Al-Taie's in-laws say he often met secretly with his wife at her family's home despite warnings that he was in danger of being kidnapped.
It was during one of those visits that al-Taie disappeared. Masked gunmen hiding in an abandoned Saddam-era army building seized him as he went to find his wife at her uncle's house, less than two blocks away in the Karradah.
"A neighbor saw the gunmen and went to my family and informed them. My parents, brothers and sisters all came at once and pleaded with them to let him go," al-Taie's sister-in-law Shaimaa Abdul-Sattar, who witnessed the abduction, told the AP during an interview in 2010 at her Baghdad apartment.
Al-Taie remained calm as he was led into a waiting car and whisked away.
As an American soldier and a Sunni Muslim, al-Taie faced a double risk when he left the protection of his base inside the Green Zone, a well-guarded area that houses the U.S. Embassy, Iraqi government offices and the parliament.
American commanders immediately launched a massive manhunt, locking down Karradah and Sadr City, a Shiite enclave in eastern Baghdad.
Within days, the military arrested four of the kidnappers. But by then, al-Taie had already been handed off to another group and transported to the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq, according to people familiar with the case.
About a week after his abduction, a family member received a ransom demand, the U.S. military previously told the AP.
The relative then met with members of the group behind the kidnapping. They showed him a grainy video on a handheld device of a man they claimed was al-Taie but he demanded solid evidence that al-Taie, who was 41 at the time, was alive and well.
Qanbar, al-Taie's uncle, denied during a previous interview that any ransom demand had been made, but he described for the AP a web of negotiations with a number of intermediaries as he continued to pursue leads through the years. Al-Taie was last seen four months after his abduction in a video posted on the Internet by a Shiite militant faction called Ahl al-Bayt Brigades.
Al-Taie was the last American service member unaccounted for, but several civilians, including Americans who were participating in the efforts to rebuild Iraq, are still missing.
___
Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and David N. Goodman in Detroit contributed to this report.
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Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Online Home-based business: five Ideas To generate Your Internet ...
Your website will help you do well along with your work at home businesses, or it might bring about you to fail if it?s not optimally create. If you want to your online home business to be prosperous, your web site have to very well set up to make sure that it draws in the targeted visitors you need, and making sure that the site visitors who?ll come on your web site will make you some money. What hints need to you heed as a way to ensure that your web site will effectively market your products or providers and promote customers to actually acquire from you?
A tidy and professional searching web site is really vital if you want your internet home based business to thrive. Your website is your retail outlet front, therefore you must make superb first impressions, or else you lose potential clients.
No matter what your net home-based business, you may have plenty of opponents; you will find a huge number of other tarot online companies and web-sites from which consumers can choose from. Site surfers and consumers assume an successful and simple to navigate internet site where by they?re able to effortlessly get what these are seeking. It?s as a result vital that you have a web site which is easy navigate. This implies that your internet site ought to plainly display what you are advertising; facts and pictures with the goods you will be offering have to be easy to come across in your searching area of the web-site; and so they must be extremely very clear to see. It?s also critical that your pages load quickly. A variety of buyers want numerous choices for completing an purchase type and paying for the solutions or products and services; so it?s crucial that you just present these alternatives of one?s website for your shoppers, in any other case you will get rid of buyers and possible sales.
Your internet site is there to generate you income, so use several techniques that inspire website visitors to get. It truly is hence significant you current your web site in these kinds of a means that every visitor or customer is offered with an possibility to search your site and also to get additional. Far more product sales implies your world-wide-web home business will thrive.
One strategy to entice readers to order is usually to include product assessments or pleased customers feedback with your best diet tips merchandise, which tends to persuade website visitors to purchase. Additionally it is significant which you draw particular attention into the products critical positive aspects. If you market a wide collection of products, subsequent to any primary product or service, contain various other complementary items which the buyer may well need. This can persuade your visitors to obtain extra that one products out of your web-site, which suggests your net home-based business will make your extra funds.
Clients ought to feel safe while they do internet business transactions or purchases. It is as a result critical to have your communicate with information on your own web site if you?d like your net home-based business to realize success. After-purchase provider is quite critical, especially for online transactions. It really is thus important that prospects know who you happen to be and ways in which to make contact with you following they?ve created a acquire, or when they need to have additionally specifics of your products or services just before they come to a decision to obtain. Your get in touch with info should be evidently observable with your web site. The achievement of one?s world-wide-web home-based business depends in your credibility ? as well as the first move in developing your credibility is always to be very easily offered on your prospects.
It is also vital that you simply test your websites emails regularly in the event there exists a purchaser needing some support. You need to be available as essential to ensure you hold your company managing smoothly along with your shoppers content, which likely creates repeat business available for you.
To your net home-based business to be effective, it?s essential which you regularly develop your site or products/services, therefore you can obtain this by having a suggestions form with your web page. For ones web home-based business to succeed within the long phrase, you should be constantly enhancing your provider and goods, and remain in tune together with your customers demands. By making sure that your internet site has the five functions outlined higher than, your internet home-based business might be thriving and profitable.
written and posted on Friday by Dennis L.
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Greece secures bailout to avoid debt default (AP)
[unable to retrieve full-text content]
AP - The countries that use the euro pulled Greece back from an imminent and potentially catastrophic default on Tuesday, when they finally stitched together a euro130 billion ($170 billion) rescue they hope will also provide a lifeline to their common currency.
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Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Chinese leader visits Turkey, Syria to top agenda (AP)
[unable to retrieve full-text content]
AP - Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping was in Turkey on Tuesday, where he was sure to hear from Turkish leaders about their growing concerns over the raging violence in neighboring Syria.
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Cheap travel insurance is available with your travel agency online
Published by Richardson
This helps them plan things in a way to enjoy a safe and fun filled trip. A travel agent can easily provide you with a comprehensive assortment of trip services. Apart from providing you with details and information various tour packages, booking hotels for you, getting car rentals, booking flights and winning exciting discounts, travel agent will recommend you to get the best cheap travel insurance available on the market.
They will make you realize the significance of getting an insurance policy for your trip. This will make your trip safe, fun filled and memorable. So what is the need to buy policy onlinefor a well-planned tour? There are numerous reasons to support this. One of the major reasons is that it will protect you from all kinds of perils that you might face during a trip. It will also offer you, assistance during emergency situations such as accidents, trip cancellations, loss of baggage, loss of passport, illness and a lot more. You must have to buy policy online for your trip and the insurance company will take care of everything.
It will pay for your medical bills, losses and other inconveniences that you face during a trip. Depending on the cover you want, your insurance premium will get costlier. However, there are numerous ways in which you can save money on your travel insurance premium. Listed below are some tips to get cheap travel insurance: Research well The key to reach out to an affordable trip planis to research well for trips online. Understand that there are hundreds of companies offering insurance policies these days. In order to make the most out of what they offer, you must know exactly the policies they offer and at what price. The internet will assist you in this regard. Quotes Do not underestimate the power of quotes when it comes to getting the most affordable trip plan.
These quotes are a power house of detailed info related to what exactly the leading players in the industry offer, rates quoted by them and special offers. The best part is that the info is available at a single page and it gets easier for you to compare and decide on a policy that suits your budget and specific requirements. Get what you need Most people tend to purchase an insurance policy without knowing what they are exactly wanted. This makes them pay for features that are not required. The key to get cheap travel insurance is to ask your insurance provider to eliminate all unnecessaryfeatures and the prices will automatically go down. Make a list of your travel insurance requirements clearly and tally it with what is provided by your provider. Ask him to remove unnecessary features from the policy to benefit from discounts.
A travel agency will let you learn the importance of getting a travel insurance policy for your trip. You must buy policy online to keep your tour secure and have great fun all through the trip.
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Monday, February 20, 2012
Honesty in Customer Service | Builds Trust and LoyaltyQuality ...
It?s easy to think that every business owner understands that ?Honesty is the best policy.?? Unfortunately at times business owners, large and small, may be tempted to be less than completely honest with their customers, often to save face. It never works! Even if it appears that you will get away with it, it?s not a good foundation on which to build trust and loyalty with your customers.
If you offer a service and you know that it?s beyond your ability to meet the deadline the customer is giving you, do not go down the path of ?it will work out.? You will be setting up yourself for failure and a bad reputation.
Earlier today I typed in ?dishonesty in customer service? in Google and there were 495,000 results.? While many of the stories were about large companies, there were stories involving incidents with smaller type businesses as well.
If you sell products, avoid making claims of what the product can do in an effort to garner sales. Openly tell your customers what they need to know and give them the facts. It?s much better to understate claims and allow the product to surpass or exceed your customer?s expectations rather than to make exaggerated claims that are unfounded and unsupported.
Once you have raised someone?s expectations, if you or your products fail to live up to those expectations, you?ve essentially lost your customer as well as any measure of credibility you may have had in their eyes.
Always keep in mind that studies indicate that a satisfied customer will tell one friend, but a dissatisfied one tells nine friends. In fact, Pete Blackshaw expands this further in his book, ?Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000.?? Social media makes it possible to share your dissatisfaction with a lot more than 3,000 with just a few clicks of the mouse.
Even if your customers are not active on social media, reaching large numbers of people is not hard to do when you consider that your friends all have friends with whom they share things and each of those have friends with whom they?ll gladly share bad experiences.? This may be in an attempt to protect their friends from any type of dishonesty that was experienced.
Once your customer suspects or confirms that you are dishonest, the trust is broken and you will lose him or her in a heartbeat.? Any short-term gain will be lost and rebuilding trust and loyalty is a long, uphill battle that every business owner, large or small, wants to avoid. Honesty in customer service is the best way and it builds trust and loyalty.
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Yvonne A Jones is passionate about Superior Customer Service and she combines this passion with Social Media Marketing and Reputation Management services for businesses and solo-professionals.? Learn more at http://localmarketingonlineportstlucie.com
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Fight Rising Texas Health Insurance Costs
Article Directory :: Finance & Investment Articles
In a statement made by Texas State Representative John Smittee, "You look at the cost of health care in general and it's increasing faster than the cost of living." According to a Commonwealth Fund report, we have seen individual Texas health insurance premiums increase by almost 50 percent in the past eight years. The rise in family and group Texas health insurance plan premiums was even greater. A 2011 survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the cost of giving health benefits to employees increased by 118 percent for large firms and 103 percent for small firms in the past 10 years.
Health Savings Accounts Made Available To Texans
Under the "IRC Section 223" or state "Qualifying High Deductible Health Plan," certain high-deductible Texas health insurance plans are allowed to pair with a Health Savings Account or HSA. Health Savings Accounts started back in 2004. Since then, there had been an influx in people enrolling in HSA plans. Health Savings Accounts are available to Texans who buy their own TX health insurance plan, who are self-employed or who have employer-provided HSA plans.
In a study by United Benefit Advisors it showed that HSA-qualified plans have fewer and lower rate hikes as well as lower premiums compared to traditional health care plans. The rate of HSA premium increases is one third to one half that of what traditional plans has been. Results showed that the cost of HSA plans had only risen by an average of 3.4 percent while premiums for all plans combined increased an average of 9.6 percent in 2005 alone.
Between 2004 and 2005, Health Savings Account plan premiums increased by an average of 2.8 percent while the combined cost of Texas health insurance plans rose by 7.3 percent as affirmed by a survey released by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.
Employers And Employees Can Both Benefit From A Health Savings Account
Since Health Savings Accounts started, many employers have realized that switching from group coverage to Health Savings Account plans offered in the individual market increases their savings that permit them to fund an HSA for every employee. Thanks to the new health care reform law, HSA plans now cover preventive health care from in-network providers with no out-of-pocket costs. This is even before the policyholder meets their deductible. If the medical expenses are not covered by their health insurance plan, employees can withdraw HSA money tax-free to pay for qualified medical expenses.
How Can Health Reimbursement Arrangements Help?
Health Savings Accounts and Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRA) can be used together. However, their use must not overlap each other. For example, you are not allowed to reimburse medical expenses that are meant to go toward the deductible of the HSA-qualified Texas health insurance. The main purpose of HRA plans is to reimburse workers for health care costs not covered by health insurance as well as health insurance premiums. HRAs offer flexibility to employers because they can control the healthcare benefits of their workers without compromising the health care they receive.
By Wiley Long - President, eTXHealthinsurance.com - Texas's leading online health insurance agency specializing in individual and family Texas Health Insurance. Offering personal advisors to help you with all your Texas Health Insurance needs. Get an online Texas Health Insurance quote, compare plans, and Save! 
EasyPublish? this article - publishers click here
More articles by Wiley Long
Source: http://articles.submityourarticle.com/Wiley-Long-1659/Texas-health-insurance-253414.php
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Sunday, February 19, 2012
Mark Drapeau: Social Networks for Scientists Won't Work
A "Facebook for Scientists"? It may sound silly, or redundant, but it's becoming more of a reality. Maybe.
A new startup based in Germany named ResearchGate has already convinced roughly 1.4 million researchers to become members and begin sharing. On it, you can search your email accounts to find people you know, read PDF documents of research papers, and chat with others about why a particular lab technique isn't working for you. Reportedly, the service is appealing to young researchers in their 20's.
None of this is particularly original. There have long been scientists on Facebook and LinkedIn and connecting via other websites like Scienceblogs. There have long been stores of PDF documents online, and searchable databases of them (particularly if you work at a university). There have long been job boards where you might find your next gig. And there have long been discussion boards or similar places where you could ask questions about lab techniques or which conference to attend this year.
The Economist writes about ResearchGate as if it's the only social network for scientists out there, but that's far from the case. Others have come before, and some are already gone. One that sounds somewhat similar was called Labmeeting; here, it's highlighted in a June 2008 post in TechCrunch, with a vast vision (co-founder Mark Kaganovich: "What we are trying to do is change the way information in biomedical research and the medical community is distributed and retrieved.") and a $500,000 seed round of funding from Peter Thiel and others. But Labmeeting.com no longer directs anywhere, and Crunchbase lists the fledgling company as in the "deadpool" as of 1/1/11.
It's not really clear what ResearchGate is doing that's fundamentally different than Labmeeting.
But the ecosystem seems even worse, because many others have tried and failed, or tried and not necessarily caught on, or tried and are much more like "science publication management software" than a social network where people openly share. They have names like Academia.edu, Laboratree, Mendeley, myExperiment, and Epernicus. Scitable.com was launched by the Nature Publishing Group in 2009 as "a social network for scientists and scholars" but it currently looks like... a very nice website, or extremely fancy blog -- which is fine in itself, but it's not a social network, not really. The National Institutes of Health was reportedly funding yet another social network for scientists; I'm not sure if it ever happened.
It's easy to measure total users or total PDF's uploaded or other metrics and claim some success. And we're not really picking on any particular social network effort here. But why haven't any of these platforms truly caught on in the scientific community? Fundamentally, it's because they are add-ons to "the way things get done" and not replacements for the way scientists work day-to-day or how their careers are judged (i.e., you don't get promoted for great science tweeting).
This story about Science 2.0 reminds me of a slightly older debate about Intelligence 2.0, whereby the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) built Intellipedia and other social tools with which analysts could collaborate in real time around information, data, breaking news across agencies and job descriptions. It sounds great, and there were users, mainly younger ones passionate about innovative tools and approaches. Here's a great video about "Living Intelligence," also known as Purple Intelligence (i.e., mixing red and blue) -- It's a great video, a vision of how intelligence analysis could be.
But at the end of the day, living intelligence is not the vision by which the IC operates, for the most part. The way that analysts are measured is not by how many edits they made on the wiki page for a town in Iraq, but rather by writing old-fashioned reports for their agency or other traditional tasks. The problem is that Intellipedia was an add-on to what their job was; not the way they did their primary job. That negative feedback loop is enough to ensure that the innovation of Intellipedia never really makes it past the "chasm of death."
The same is true of science, which I have some firsthand experience with (I have a Ph.D. in animal behavior genetics and did academic biology research for about a decade). The scientific community fundamentally operates under the notion that a peer-reviewed research paper published in a traditional research journal is the discrete end-product of a series of experiments aimed at testing one or more hypotheses. Anyone who has actually been a laboratory scientist knows that this is a complete farse; I need not even elaborate on why. Nevertheless, publishing such papers is the primary yardstick by which you are judged as a grad student, postdoctoral fellow, and professor, even at the more senior levels. On top of that, the same exact research published in a "good" journal vs. an "okay" journal is somehow emotionally different to the reader. The only reason why is perceived prestige of some publications vs. others regardless of actual long-term value of the research.
Social networks for scientists will face precisely the same challenges as those within the IC. These are two-fold. One, a culture of secrecy whereby the more "secret" information (vs. community / shared information) is perceived as more valuable. Two, a culture of discrete publications (vs. living knowledge and data sets) whereby people are primarily judged by traditional processes dating back, in the case of science, a couple hundred years. And while there are some well-intentioned, smart people discussing Science 2.0 and what it would take for that to happen, it is in my opinion extremely unlikely that the entire system of how academic science operates in the U.S. will change within the venture capital-backed funding cycle of one of the science social networking companies like ResearchGate.
From what people tell me, the IC is slowly changing. Certain individuals over a period of years have fought the good fight to change the workflow of intelligence analysts, leveraging new social technologies and making the work and the products more agile and indeed, "living." The full story is for another time, but the point is that it can happen. I know some of the individuals involved in the IC story, and their road has not been easy. The roadblocks thrown in their path have been significant. They traveled a very long, complicated path because they believed in a vision, a better way of doing things. But most importantly, they didn't just talk amongst themselves, but rather took the fight to the middle management of intelligence agencies, and to the senior leadership.
There are some voices like this in science, to some degree or another. Will they persevere against the system?
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Follow Mark Drapeau on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cheeky_geeky
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-drapeau/social-networks-for-scientists_b_1282692.html
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Outsource Telemarketing Call Center or Develop Competence In ...
Telemarketing is one of the most potent tools in the hands of business executives. Selecting the most effective process in taking it from planning to execution is critical to its success. Telesales works to make a brand more visible and has a very positive impact on the growth of new businesses in particular. It also leads to more sale conversions and supports market surveys that collect data to help businesses improve customers experience and relationship with them.
Businesses can take advantage of telemarketing by eliminating associated issues that take away from its effectiveness. To do that, executives should weigh the pros and cons of developing an in-house telemarketing call center versus outsourcing to an external service provider. Studies indicate that contracting out telesales is cheaper and more efficient as compared to developing expertise within the company.
Internal or third party telemarketing pros and cons
Every company that is looking to add a new capability to its business is faced with the choice of developing skills within the company or outsourcing. When it comes to telemarketing, the answer can be gleaned from this question Will it help you reach your business goals by supporting your core competencies or not? If yes, you should build an internal team. For all other reasons, outsourcing is the way to go.
Developing telemarketing skills is not a trivial undertaking. It demands time and money, employing and preparing personnel, installing equipment, and keeping current with laws and news. Instead of spending money, time and effort on areas that are not part of your core business goals you can use a ready-made solution from external telesales companies. They work as well as in-house services (or better) and promise faster returns on investment.
Telemarketing services outsourcing boosts growth
Telemarketing services can turbo charge the growth of businesses and the adoption of their goods and services by:
Cutting down the time to market: The time to market is a crucial aspect in taking advantage of up-and-coming market opportunities. Be it a new business or product, outsourced telemarketing services gets the message to the market without losing any time in recruiting and training staff. Lowering time to market leads to better sales and more clients for the business.
Scaling up or down as per demand: Many businesses see fluctuations in sales and demand. Instead of constantly having to increasing and cutting down in-house telesales employees to match requirements, you can contract out telemarketing services. As external services work for more than one client, surplus personnel are moved to other projects till required again.
Allowing organization to focus on core business goals: Product releases involve issues that need managements instant consideration. By delegating telemarketing to an external agency, management is free to troubleshoot issues without distractions.
Providing skills and hardware support: Outsourced telemarketing services are expert organizations. They hire expert staff and use latest technology and equipment to deliver results for your business. Leveraging their resources is more economical than taking on the expenses of acquiring tools and training employees on procedures and skills.
Maximizing ROI: With outsourced telemarketing services, businesses can keep a cap on fixed costs and maximize returns.
Limiting legal liability: The telemarketing industry is governed by state and federal laws that are often changed and vary across states. Service companies keep staff abreast with relevant changes in rules and regulations and protect your business from possible litigation. For an in-house service, this is an arduous job that not only wastes an employees productive time but is also unrelated to the goals of the business.
Outsourcing or in-house development is a difficult decision that confronts business executives many times for a lot of reasons cost cutting, rapid business growth, expansion, etc. In the case of telemarketing, outsourcing clearly has great benefits.?
Source:
Comparing and contrasting an in-house and outsourced telemarketing call centre is one of the best ways to know which is better from the other one. But this time, the author has a strong conviction that outsourcing a reliable contact centre produces more beneficial results than operating on-site for Australian companies. And I could not agree more. The lists of rewards enumerated above are proof that companies can earn more by paying less.
We do not undermine doing b2b lead generation and b2b appointment setting on your own. If you have the resources and the capacity, then greenlight the project. But, reality check states that expenses are greatly reduced and volumes of profits can be harvested with outsourcing. Try one now by choosing a reputable outbound call centre.
business, business executives, call, centre, Equipment, outsourced telemarketing, Staff, Telemarketing call center, telemarketing services
This entry was posted on Saturday, February 18th, 2012 at 10:49 pm and is filed under Web Resources. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback.Source: http://www.acec2006.info/outsource-telemarketing-call-center-or-develop-competence-in-house/
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Saturday, February 18, 2012
The significance of Dental Care To Overall Body Health and fitness ...
Dental care includes taking fine care of your tooth, gum area and the related structures of the mouth area. Grove Street dental care involves avoidance and management of diseases of the gum and the teeth, and also the substitute or repair of faulty teeth. Oftentimes individuals may suffer from dental diseases due to sheer idleness and lack of education towards proper dental treatments, with mostly the children and at times grownups that often don?t pay enough focus to teeth care. They do not realize that healthy teeth and gum is very important for keeping you healthy and sound.
Proper oral health isn?t only vital to our healthy body appearance; it is important to the wellness of the human body.
Sustaining good dental health can at times prove to be expensive. Therefore it is important that you go for Grove Street Dental that cover the expense of your dental treatment is it a routine check-up or an emergency. Buying dental insurance from a good dental insurance company relieves you of the problems and worries of the otherwise costly cost of keeping your mouth area healthy. With Grove Street Dental plans you can select a specific dental plan that?s best for you. However, before selecting a dental plan from any dental insurance organization you must observe the following points:-
* You should ask the dental insurance organization for its real office address and not just its P.O. Box address. This method should offer you peace of mind in understanding that you?re buying dental insurance from a real dental insurance plans. Ask for its office telephone number so that you can contact the office any time to understand more about its dental plans.
* Ask the dental insurance company if it handles specific procedures done by your dentist. If you?re looking for a dental plan that covers tooth fillings and teeth cleanings, that dental plan shouldn?t cost you much. Alternatively, if you?d like to have x-rays and fluoride paid by your dental plan, then this form of plan most likely should cost a little more.
* Ask the dental insurance company regarding your personal dentist?s role in its dental plan. If your dentist isn?t on its list, then it?s rather useless choosing such type of plan. Since your dentist is the one most acquainted with your dental health, it is best to ask your dentist which dental insurance plans he takes part in.
* You can do a thorough study on dental insurance companies on the internet. Oral health is a new and fast growing business and is getting very aggressive. You can find a wide array of dental plans including $15.00 per month to $100 per month.
Source: http://articlegoes.com/the-significance-of-dental-care-to-overall-body-health-and-fitness.html
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Increase your Self confidence, A STARTER Secrets a | Again Dallas
What?s stay calm, made up and maintain data entry jobs self assurance in a very challenging atmosphere? Follow this advice chances are you?ll to take into consideration as being a nice guide to personal development.
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Source: http://homeagaindallas.com/self-help/increase-your-self-confidence-a-starter-secrets-a/
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Whitney Houston's funeral: What to expect (The Week)
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Week - 1. The ceremony will be packed with gospel and R&B starsThe funeral at New Hope Baptist Church will underline Houston's status as R&B royalty. The ceremony is being planned by her family, including mother Cissy Houston and cousin Dionne Warwick, both Grammy-winning singers. Houston's godmother, Aretha Franklin, will perform at the service, as will Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys. Her eulogy is being given by gospel singer Marvin Winans, the Detroit pastor who officiated Whitney's ill-fated 1992 marriage to Bobby Brown. Also speaking: Record producer Clive Davis, Houston's mentor and the man who guided her to fame.
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iaffe-europe.org: New Kitchen Cabinets Are A Good Way To Improve ...
Pig grill basket in the summer; Peggy D. Humphrey
The simplest and maybe the best way to modify the look of your kitchen is to redesign your cabinets. You could find yourself feeling discouraged at times when you walk into your kitchen and see your cabinets. This is especially a fact if the cabinets were there when the house was built and it?s no longer in style. If you happen to pay a visit to someone?s new house and see how modern their kitchen looks, you might hoping that it your kitchen can look like that as well. pig rotisserie is a great alternative to traditional BBQ.its worth your time to know how to pick the best rotisserie kit.
If you set up the ideal cabinets, you will not only enhance the look of the kitchen, but also the mood of everyone in your family. Even though the ideal could very well be to renovate the whole kitchen, if you are limited on budget, then changing the cabinets is just as good and can be done in less time. The most difficult part of getting new cabinets is choosing the ones you like, which will go best with your house. The right style and the best color tends to make all of the difference. The search can either start at any nearby home improvement center or on the internet. What makes going online so useful is the range of options you have, without even leaving the comfort of your chair. You need best grill basket with detachable handle.
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It doesn?t matter which cabinets you end up picking, whether the ready made ones or the made to order ones, you are making a wise investment. Any upgrading of your home with the help of quality kitchen cabinets will raise the value of your home.
Source: http://www.iaffe-europe.org/new-kitchen-cabinets-are-a-good-way-to-improve-the-value-of-your-home/
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Friday, February 17, 2012
How To Write A Video Game Blog ? Kitty Kitty Boom Boom
My gaming is adrift right now. I?ve considered writing a ?blog on hiatus? post. In the last several months, I?ve spent a lot of time leveling multiple characters to cap in Rift and to L80 in WoW. I?ve spent time in LotRO and DDO. I played the SWTOR beta and the KoA:R demo.
I?m playing Dragon Age 2 right now. The best things I can say about DA2 so far are that it looks good, it allows me to roll with a group of fierce NPC adventuresses and go girl-wild with a few of them, and it makes its predecessor, DA:Origins, seem like one of the greatest single-player RPGs in history. Maybe it is. I?m also waiting right now for the Great River zone for LotRO, which I hope will be great.
Since no one wants to read about DA2, I?m writing about game blogging, including a bit about how to do it, how to get your name out there, and different styles of writing you might try. I?ll give examples from specific game bloggers that I enjoy reading.
I?ve found blogging to be a fun and rewarding activity, but when I started, I wasn?t even thinking about blogging. I just wanted a space online to share my contributions to the LotRO community?namely my guide to dual boxing, some graphical extensions to a mouse pointer plugin, my Elven Adventuress interface, some news digests, and a collection of LotRO links.
I mainly wanted to help people out with information, which is what I still try to do here. I like collecting information and making it readable. Most MMOs nowadays make Google and Youtube into requirements to learn what they?re supposed to be doing in a game. This is unfortunate, but on the positive side, it?s great that game communities have the tools to come together and contribute to a good entertainment experience.
As far as technical aspects, at first I started with a plain HTML document and hosted it as a web page on my personal site, but I noticed game bloggers were using WordPress. When I looked into WordPress and saw that it was gloriously free, I knew that I had to use it immediately. WordPress just happens to be a ?blogging? platform, so I started blogging.
You can sign up for a free blog on WordPress.com with an email address. You can also install it on your own website or on your desktop via WordPress.org. If you want the freedoms that come with your own site, GoDaddy will auto-install WP for you with no hassle, along with the necessary database, if you purchase web hosting with them. You can also use tools to write offline on your desktop for WP.
Once you?re running, click the appearance tab and find a look that suits you, learn the interface and how things work, and you?re good to go. Incorporation of graphics is trickier, and there are limitations for the free usage. I ended up hosting my own graphics so I wouldn?t have to deal with how WP handles them, which I found clunky and constricting. Maybe they will work better for you.
You might want to learn some inline CSS to handle the graphics. The free WP platform supports the ?margin-right:8px;? etc, and the ?float:left;? etc. commands in an inline STYLE tag. Most other custom HTML and CSS things that I know of are stripped out of the free WordPress.com platform because they are paid features.
Every game blogger has their own style and approach. It will take you some time to find yours. If you?re going to try MMO design criticism and commentary, the best bloggers pull it off with a really broad and deep knowledge of games (i.e. Ancient Gaming Noob and Keen), and/or they have industry credentials of some kind (i.e. Eric Heimburg at Elder Game).
I?ve observed that some bloggers like to talk nuts and bolts because they want it on their resume, and they would like a real job in the gaming industry. This actually works if you?ve got a gift for it. It didn?t work for me. No one was reading what I wrote. I don?t have deep, fascinating MMO experience that goes back decades, and I?m not truly that passionate about game design.
I persisted for months with my blog with no real traffic until I wrote a guide for Rift last spring that got picked up officially by Trion, and then I wrote another Rift guide, and those two guides have brought a ton of traffic to my blog?many thousands of readers. Several hundred people looked at my review of the Kingdoms of Amalur demo as well. This works fine for me. I like this kind of informational writing.
If you?re a funny, good-natured person who can fling some witty metaphors and similes, you might try more of a Biobreak style. I would personally like to see more blogs like that?where you?re writing to entertain and share some earthy gamer comraderie as much as to inform, reflect, review, or criticize.
This type of writing requires some real skill of the kind that can get you hired at a paying publication, which actually happened in the case of Biobreak. Justin Olivetti was hired last year to a job at Massively, and he?s been solid gold for them ever since.
Writing lots of criticism will interest readers, but I think you need to temper that. If you?re outgoing, ambitious, doing videos, etc. like MMO Troll, you don?t want to hate too much on a company that feeds you and could give you a job someday. No one wants to read a Debbie Downer, either. I?m not necessarily saying MMO Troll is too critical. I?m just saying.
Pure cheerleading isn?t the best approach either. MMO Gamer Chick gives us solid, entertaining writing, and she?s heavy on the graphics, which I like, but in my opinion the best parts of her blog posts are where she puts some close-to-the-bone criticism in there like with her last SWTOR post.
I do feel the good vibrations when I read a blog that?s an unceasing essay of love and admiration for a game, complete with liberal exclamation points?but that can get a little boring. Maybe sometimes that?s just another tactic for sucking up. I wouldn?t know.
It?s good to find your niche, be persistent, and do what you enjoy. If you?re enthusiastic and you have a long-term love affair with video games, that will get you far, assuming you also have some writing ability. Advertising and linking your blog socially in guilds, commenting in other peoples? blogs (your name should have a website link), and linking in your game forum sigs will help get some recognition.
If you enable trackbacks in WordPress and link to other peoples? blogs in discussion, you can also get some attention that way, especially if they allow the trackbacks to show up in their comments. Maybe they will link you back on their Blogroll in a best case scenario. Tag every post you write.
I can offer a few writing 101 tips aside from the usual grammar considerations like subject-verb agreement. I?ve studied writing, so I do know a little bit about it. I?ve written seven novel manuscripts over the last two years. I?ve published some short stories for money, and I actively participate in an online writers? critique group. I?ve spent a lot of time editing.
Try to lead a blog article with a ?hook??something interesting or uplifting that grabs the reader?s attention. Hooks are an art and a science. Think back to your English class and consider tips for writing persuasive essays. Avoid fluff. People who read online don?t want to waste time.
Re-arrange sentences for the least amount of words. For example, in a paragraph above I changed ?graphics are a little more tricky? to ?graphics are trickier.? Try to cut unnecessary adjectives and adverbs that add nothing except your personal spin on things. Gamers can seriously, totally, and egregiously abuse adverbs and adjectives to an epic, overblown extent.
It?s also advisable to avoid weak statements like: tend to, kind of, sort of, maybe, I personally believe in my ever so humble opinion but not really, etc. Your opinion is your opinion. This is implicit, in my opinion. An exception might be where you?re criticizing a game really harshly, and you want no mistake that your opinion is just an opinion and not a fact.
IANAL, but I know that stating inaccurate negative things about a business, products, or people can potentially be bad. To some extent, we game critics can choose appreciate the ability to state our opinions as freely as we do in public venues. Games are about having fun, right? So good luck with your blogging, have fun, and happy gaming.
p.s. Thanks to Mike, who sent me an email asking about this. I?m not in the least a game blogging deity, but I did my best to sum up what I?ve learned during the last year or so.
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Source: http://kittykittyboomboom.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/how-to-write-a-video-game-blog/
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Huff TV: Arianna, Lawrence O'Donnell Discuss The GOP's Self-Destructive Contraception Campaign (VIDEO)
Arianna appeared on MSNBC's "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" on Thursday to discuss the GOP's sudden fixation on contraception over the past few weeks, and how it could hurt the party in the November elections.
"Ultimately it is about contraception, and debating contraception in 2012, including the idea that somehow aspirin between your legs is the trick -- you and I should have mentioned that to our daughters, we forgot it -- is not working for them. You can see in their faces, you can see through their equivocations, that they know it is not working for them, and they don't quite know how to get out of it."
She also pointed out that while the economy might still prove to be fertile ground for Republican attacks on Obama, the GOP can't seem to quit its self-destructive social platform.
"They're missing the point. Even though the job numbers may be a little better, people don't feel better. We still have over 20 percent of young people unemployed, we're still above 8 percent unemployment, we still have 4 million people's homes foreclosed. Why are they not playing on that terrain -- which is really where their advantage is?"
WATCH VIDEO BELOW (via MSNBC):
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-tv/arianna-contraception-lawrence-odonnell_b_1283715.html
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Ingrown Hairs and Razor Bumps Can Be ... - New Health and Fitness
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Is there anything you would change about your complexion? Has your face changed since you started shaving? Are sharp razor blades cutting your face and leaving your skin inflamed? Are ingrown hairs and shavers bumps now a part of your life? Why not do something aggressive and treat razor bumps and ingrown hairs while improving your skins strength and elasticity?
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Thursday, February 16, 2012
FOTProgram: Congrats man RT @KegsnEggs: Excited to announce that Ill be joining Bleacher Report as the College Football Lead Writer http://t.co/eOGt7ap2
Congrats man RT @: Excited to announce that Ill be joining Bleacher Report as the College Football Lead Writer Source: http://twitter.com/FOTProgram/statuses/169792183740796928
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Jon M. Sweeney: Would Pope Benedict XVI Ever Quit?
Popes don't just quit, do they? They are elected for life.
In fact, there is only one precedent in history of a pontiff who willingly walked away from his job. In 1294, Pope Celestine V was elected by the College of Cardinals, ruled for 15 disastrous weeks, and then abdicated before Christmas. No pope has quit, since and none has taken the name Celestine, perhaps because quitting was such a shameful thing to do. I tell the story of Celestine V in my new book, "The Pope Who Quit: A True Medieval Tale of Mystery, Death, and Salvation," published by Image Books on Feb. 14.
But for now, back to the present.
You may remember that Benedict XVI's predecessor, the incredibly popular Pope John Paul II suffered famously and publicly from Parkinson's disease during his papacy. The Italian press periodically reported that his health was hanging by a thread, or that he was enduring near suffocation, or couldn't breathe fully on his own. On one occasion, the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, responded to a reporter's question about whether or not John Paul II would ever consider resigning. Cardinal Sodano made headlines around the world on Feb. 8, 2005 when he responded: "We must have faith in the Pope. He knows what to do." He seemed to be leaving the door open to the possibility.
Millions were calling JPII a saint before his death. They were calling Celestine V a saint, too, back in 1294. In our day, saintly qualities are expected of a pontiff, but similar traits did not fit the job description of a late medieval pope. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus praises virtues such as meekness, compassion, love. To be a saint as head of the Holy See in 1294 exhibiting these in abundance was the ipso facto equivalent of being a fool.
Celestine V spent most of his time in private prayer instead of engaging with his responsibilities as a world leader, commander of armies, and keeper of the keys to vast treasuries. JPII was also accused of spending too little time focusing on administrative issues. There were many in the curia of both pontiffs who thought these men were dangerously negligent leaders. Looking back, JPII's biographer, George Weigel, characterized what happened during his papacy by saying, "[H]e was reinventing the papacy as an office of evangelical witness rather than bureaucratic management."
There are many differences between the two papacies and the successes of JPII are as numerous as the failures of Celestine V. But the most profound difference of all is that Celestine V lived and ruled long before the digital and television age. There was no positive effect of a profound personal, spiritual witness in a pope in 1294 that could compare to the effect today when millions of faithful are able to witness the images of piety in their Holy Father every day, live, streaming on the Internet or broadcast on television. An angelic pope had no hope of saving the world through piety alone 700 years ago.
Would our current Pope Benedict XVI ever resign? People have wondered for years. Incidents such as the 2006 Regensburg University speech, when he referred to Islam as "evil and inhuman," and in 2010 as he failed to manage another growing sexual abuse scandal, have led some to say that a lack of administrative and diplomatic skills -- the same sort of ineptitude shown by Celestine V and JPII -- might prompt it. Two years ago, on a Sunday in April 2010, a parish priest in Massachusetts became the first within the Catholic Church to suggest that Benedict XVI should quit. The story ran on the front page of The Boston Globe, with Rev. James J. Scahill of East Longmeadow, Massachusetts telling how he received a standing ovation at mass that day when he suggested it.
In more recent months, it has become clear that Pope Benedict is willing to engage with the problems the Church faces. Yet, I wonder if he still considers walking away. He has never been, and will never be, a leader like Celestine V. Yet, would it surprise you to know that Benedict XVI has chosen to align his papacy with the memory of this singular pope from the past? While visiting L'Aquila, Italy after the major earthquake in spring 2009, Pope Benedict quixotically removed the pallium from around his shoulders and laid it on Celestine V's tomb. He never explained what he meant by this to the puzzled media nearby.
The next time that trouble rocks the Vatican, and it will, I wonder if Pope Benedict will think back to that singular example in history that would offer him the precedent to step down.
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Follow Jon M. Sweeney on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jonmsweeney
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-m-sweeney/would-pope-benedict-xvi-quit_b_1252060.html
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Officials: Honduras prison fire kills 357
Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images
Anxious relatives of inmates wait outside the National Prison of Comayagua, after a fire killed scores of inmates.
By msnbc.com staff and news services
Updated at 11:05 a.m. ET: TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- Trapped inmates screamed from their cells as a fire swept through a Honduran prison, killing at least 300 inmates in the world's deadliest prison fire in at least a century, authorities said Wednesday.
Some 475 people escaped from the prison in the town of Comayagua and 356 were missing and presumed dead, Hector Ivan Mejia, a spokesman for the Honduras Security Ministry, told The Associated Press.?
Dozens were trapped behind bars as prison authorities tried to find the keys, according to the AP.? Honduran authorities said the fire had been started by a prisoner who set his mattress ablaze in his cell.
Reuters earlier reported that the attorney general's office said at least 357 people died in the blaze that began late on Tuesday night at the prison some 45 miles north of the capital Tegucigalpa.
'Want to see the body'
On Wednesday, soldiers, police and anxious relatives surrounded the Comayagua prison, which housed more than 800 inmates -- well above its capacity.
Over 300 inmates are missing and presumed dead after a large fire strikes a prison in Comayagua, Honduras. NBC's Frances Kuo reports.
Outraged relatives of dead inmates tried to storm the gates of the prison to recover the remains of their loves ones, witnesses told The Associated Press. The crowds were driven back by police officers firing tear gas.
Channel 5 television showed dozens of inmates' relatives hurling rocks at officers.
"We want to see the body," said Juan Martinez, whose son was reported dead. "We'll be here until we get to do that."
Survivors told prisoners that an inmate had lit fire to his bedding, Danilo Orellana, director of the national prison system, told The Associated Press.
"Some of his cellmates said that he screamed: 'We will all die here!' And in five minutes everything burned," Orellana said. He did not identify the man or speculate about his motivation. Leonel Silva, fire chief in Comayagua confirmed Orellana's account to reporters on the scene.
"I am looking for my brother, we don't know what's happened to him and they won't let us in," Arlen Gomez told local radio, according to Reuters.
It was one of the worst prison fires ever in Latin America, and local radio reports said many of the inmates were burned to death inside their cells.
While local firemen said they were prevented from entering the prison due to gunshots, Daniel Orellana, head of the prison system, said there was no riot.
Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images
Firefighters enter the prison after the fire broke out late Tuesday.
"We have two hypotheses, one is that a prisoner set fire to a mattress and the other one is that there was a short circuit in the electrical system," he said.
Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world, according to the United Nations, and there are frequent riots and clashes between members of rival street gangs in its overcrowded prisons.?
The country is plagued by violent gangs known as "maras," which started in the United States and then spread down into Central America, with members covered in distinctive tattoos.
The U.S. State Department has criticized Honduras for "harsh prison conditions" and violence against detainees.
Bodies 'piled up'
Comayagua fire department spokesman Josue Garcia said he saw "horrific" scenes while trying to put out the fire, saying inmates rioted in attempts to escape. He said "some 100 prisoners were burned to death or suffocated in their cells."
"We couldn't get them out because we didn't have the keys and couldn't find the guards who had them," Garcia said.
Rescuers carried shirtless, semi-conscious prisoners from the facility by their arms and legs. One hauled a victim away from the fire by piggyback.
The fire broke out at 10:55 p.m. local time (11:55 p.m. ET) in the prison, called Granja Penal, Josue Garcia, a spokesman for the Comayagua fire department said, according to EFE news agency.
A nurse at the Santa Teresa Hospital in Comayagua earlier told journalists that about 30 prisoners, many with third- or fourth-degree burns, had been treated at the hospital, according to EFE. Other wounded people were sent to hospitals in Tegucigalpa, EFE said.
Some of the prisoners managed to get out by breaking through the prison's roof and jumping off the building, EFE said.?
Msnbc.com staff, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/15/10413015-officials-honduras-prison-fire-kills-357
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Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Casablanca: The Best Love Movie Ever—And Possibly the Best Movie, Period [Movie Night]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/SukIJIOPNys/casablanca-the-best-love-movie-ever
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