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BEIJING — Much like in the rest of the world, the coming "doomsday" supposedly preordained by the Mayans to strike earth Friday at the end of a 5,125-year calendar has been something of a running joke in China.
The subject this week has been easily a top-10 trending topic on China's Twitter-like service, Weibo, with users sharing hundreds of thousands of jokes, cartoons and other comments about the end of days.
One popular doomsday cartoon shared by Taiwanese alternative rock singer Ashin, showing a mock weather report predicting fire and brimstone for Friday, was forwarded more than 109,000 times and drew almost 25,000 comments.
Not everybody thinks the end of the world is funny, though. A poll conducted by Ipsos-Reuters in 21 countries earlier this year claimed that as much as 20 percent of China's population believed that the Mayan calendar correctly predicted this month as the end of the world. That percentage was markedly higher than in the second country on the list, Turkey (at 13 percent), or in the United States (12 percent).
A farmer in China has created survival capsules equipped with power generators and food supplies. NBCNews.com's Jay Gray reports.
The government is taking one aspect of the doomsday talk seriously; it has reportedly rounded-up members of a religious group calling for the toppling of the Communist Party.
The group, known as the "Almighty God," has called for a "decisive battle" to slay the "big red dragon," a reference to the Book of Revelation and the organization's name for the Chinese Communist Party.
Nearly 1,000 members of the sect have been arrested, The New York Times reported. NBC News could not independently verify the number of detentions, but Chinese state media also reported that authorities had detained around 1,000 members over some seven provinces, Reuters reported.
This is not the first time that China has dealt with a fast-moving Christian cult it deems a risk to party rule. In fact, according to the newspaper, "Almighty God" has its roots in a sect that claimed it had 300,000 adherents called "Lightning from the East," according to Time Magazine in 2001.
Lightning from the East propagated the belief that Jesus had returned to earth in the form of a 30-year old Chinese woman who had written a third testament of the Bible and promised salvation from the coming apocalypse for all who joined her.
AFP - Getty Images, file
Lu Zhenghai of Xinjiang said he wasn't necessarily worried about "doomsday," but he thought "something" bad would happen today. So he built this ark.
Money from fear
Many Chinese, meanwhile, have seen opportunities to cash in on the apocalyptic mania.
After watching the Hollywood disaster film "2012," in which China leads the way in building arks to save the rest of the world, Liu Qiyuan, a former furniture maker living just outside Beijing, began conceptualizing scaled-down arks that could be marketed to consumers equally concerned about the end of days.
With the help of 10 workers, Liu designed and built metal spheres covered in fiberglass and fitted with an on-board engine. Supposedly strong enough to handle a battering from a catastrophic tsunami or earthquake, the capsules are designed to house 14 survivors and enough food and water for five months at sea.
The cost of such peace of mind is $50,000 each. Even if the end of the world does not come Friday, Liu is optimistic that he will recoup his reported $288,000 investment by marketing his life capsules to China's navy.
One man who has gone all-in on his disaster convictions is Lu Zhenghai from China's far western province of Xinjiang. For the past two years, Lu has been working to build an ark measuring 65 feet and weighing around 80 tons that could comfortably hold 50 people and a two-year stock of food and medicine.
"I don't believe in the doomsday, but I do believe something is going to happen on December 21st," Lu told NBC News, "I don't know what could happen and where, but I want to be ready just in case."
Having left his job, cashed-in his savings and sold his apartment to help pay for this family refuge, Lu has been living at his parents' home with his wife and daughter as he makes final preparations on the ark. The vessel has already cost over $240,000 to build.
Though Lu talks happily about progress on the ship, he seems far more excited to talk about the media attention and visitors his ark has been attracting.
"Hundreds of people have come to see my ark," Lu said, adding that a Hong Kong television station was planning to film the ark, presumably mere moments before disaster strikes the earth.
NBC News' Yanzhou Liu contributed to this report.
More world stories from NBC News:
- Russian deep freeze: dozens die, temps dip to 50 below
- Sending 'sympathy and love': Newtown's agony echoes in Scottish town
- Richard Engel, NBC News team freed from captors in Syria
- 'We must restore the bond': Japan's new PM vows closer ties with US
- Gift fit for a queen? UK monarch gets 60 place mats
- Conn. massacre: Lessons from Israel, where guns are a way of life
- 'I can only rely on myself': Insurance is expensive, unfamiliar in China
- No more 'bunga bunga'? Italy's Berlusconi, 76, unveils girlfriend, 27
Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook


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Faster than the speed of stupid
My winter fantasy is to find a well-paying job that I could perform whilst staying in my pjs all day, huddled under a blanket on the couch. If such a position existed, I'd have my resume submitted before you could say "hot chocolate". Ah, back to reality...
Quite apart from the chilly weather, over recent weeks it's been a bit of a struggle for me to maintain focus on training. My injuries restrict what I can do, I've been quite time-poor, and it's cold and DARK outside when I'm not at work. All of those things make it more difficult to fit some exercise into my day, but they don't make it impossible ...so what's the story? Hmm.
I've been stomping around in a bad mood for weeks, cross at myself for not making more of an effort to live up to my own standards. I knew what I needed to do, but just couldn't seem to put that knowledge into action. Bah! Then a few days ago, I came across this guest post by Shauna and BAM! Lightbulb moment. (Yes, I know lightbulbs don't actually go "bam!" Or if they DO, that's probably not a good thing...)
I loved Shauna's list of reasons why she needs her "exercise oxygen" - I wholeheartedly relate to them all, but especially to these three:
… it takes me out of my head and back into my body
… I'm miles more productive afterwards
… the stronger I feel, the more wholeheartedly and generously I give to others
Sometimes you just need someone to point out the bleeding obvious to get you moving in the right direction once more.
On Monday, I got "out of my head" by just going for a nice long walk, camera in hand. Sure, it wasn't exactly strenuous cardio, but I was: a) moving; and b) not sitting around feeling miserable. Turns out, that was exactly what I needed. Yesterday I missed my morning cardio opportunity, but I chose not to let that be an obstacle and I did the promised spin session when I got home from work.
This morning, I hauled my complaining butt out of my warm bed at 5:45 and headed to the gym for a short but effective cardio session (20 minutes of incline walking with a 5-minute burst of sprint intervals tacked onto the end), followed by some foam roller work and stretching. In spite of feeling a minor attack of the can't be arseds coming on last night, I made myself set out gym bag, keys and phone on the hall table and pile my workout clothes in the bathroom before I went to bed, so getting organised this morning was about a three-minute job. An early night helped too. Duh!
My plan for the rest of the week is to just do something each day. Tomorrow will probably be some kind of weird modified weights session plus the dreaded yoga, Friday a rest day, Saturday more cardio and some Pilates, Sunday RPM. I'm kind of winging it, which I'm strangely OK with. Normally I'm such a freak about planning my training. At this point though, the focus is on retraining my mind, so I'm not setting any great expectations in the exercise department - as long as something gets done, I'll be content.
Thanks, lovely Shauna - your blood's worth bottling! I owe you a coffee next time you're in town.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Illinois House impeachment committee could wrap up its work in early January, depending in part on how far it can probe into federal corruption charges against Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
The Illinois House impeachment committee could wrap up its work in early January, depending in part on how far it can probe into federal corruption charges against Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
The committee, established last week, met for about three hours Monday, taking testimony on pay-to-play politics and the difficulty federal investigators have in getting permission to wire tap.
But the panel recessed for a week without getting a response from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald about whether it can delve into the governor's alleged criminal activity without jeopardizing the ongoing federal investigation.
Rep. John Fritchey, D-Chicago, doesn't expect the committee to get the prosecutor's permission, which could bring a quick end to the legislators' work.
"It's safe to say that we're in the homestretch right now," Fritchey said. "Barring an unexpected response from the U.S. attorney, I think that we are looking at a couple of days of hearings left, tops."
Committee chair Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, said the panel could be ready by the first week in January to prepare a report for the full House that may or may not recommend impeachment.
"We are not prepared to drag our feet," Currie said. "I think there is a sense we should move expeditiously, but deliberatively, in order to get the job done."
The committee won't meet again until Monday, when Blagojevich attorney Ed Genson hopes to call witnesses in support of the governor. Genson said Monday he has nine people in mind to call. He would not identify them, saying he doesn't know how many of them will be willing or able to speak to the committee next week.
Currie said the committee wants to screen Genson's witnesses before they can testify.
"The issue is the relevance of the testimony to our work," she said. "If (Genson) plans to trot forward a large number of character witnesses — who say Rod Blagojevich is and always has been an upstanding chap — that's not relevant to our work. We're not talking about if he is a nice guy."
Genson said the evidence presented to the impeachment committee so far is weak.
"I don't think the evidence in this case should call for impeachment," he said. "On the other hand, this is a political process. I understand there's a good segment of the public and a good segment of the political world that isn't happy about the situation in Illinois."
Genson added that the committee should not be swayed by opinion polls, because the state's reputation isn't going to be helped "by giving in to the lynch mob, so to speak."
Currie said she hasn't made up her mind, but the evidence presented so far shows "the governor and his people have clearly skirted the rules."
That includes testimony that Blagojevich expanded health-care programs in defiance of the General Assembly, and testimony Monday from the Procurement Policy Board that the administration has stymied the board's responsibility to oversee state leases and other contracts. Board executive director Matt Brown characterized the administration's actions as trying to sidestep or simply ignore the board.
Cynthia Canary, head of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, testified about pay-to-play politics in which contributors to Blagojevich's campaign fund received state contracts or appointments to state boards and commissions.
Currie, though, said Canary's testimony did not document a quid pro quo in which Blagojevich specifically traded contracts and appointments for contributions.
While testimony from the policy board and Canary covered familiar ground, John Scully offered new information to the impeachment committee. Scully, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago, testified about the difficulty investigators have in obtaining permission to gather information through wire taps.
The criminal complaint filed against Blagojevich relies heavily on information obtained through electronic eavesdropping. Genson has gone so far as to call the taps illegal and said evidence obtained by them is worthless.
Scully outlined the multiple hurdles investigators must clear, both with superiors in Chicago and in Washington, D.C., before they can install wire taps.
"I think the idea that these are a dime a dozen. My sense was Mr. Scully pretty well laid that to rest," Currie said.
The Illinois Constitution does not spell out what constitutes an impeachable offense.
"Individual lawmakers are going to make up their own minds about what is required in order to meet the cause for removal from office," Currie said. "Some people might find the appearance of impropriety might be enough. Others may think that may not be enough at this point."
Doug Finke can be reached at (217) 788-1527.
Impeachment Watch
What happened Monday:
The House special committee investigating impeachment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich met for about three hours. It discussed how authorization is given for the federal wiretaps that caught Blagojevich allegedly plotting several criminal activities. And it went over questions raised of the connections between campaign donations and state leases and contracts under this administration.
Quote of the Day:
"I am here to protect Rod Blagojevich. I'm here to protect his position, I'm here to protect his place as governor, I'm here to protect him personally."
Blagojevich lawyer Ed Genson to reporters after Monday's hearing.
What happens today:
Nothing, because the committee went home until next Monday to wait for an answer on cooperation by the U.S. attorney's office investigating Blagojevich and to give Blagojevich's lawyer more time to prepare his arguments.
Follow along:
The committee reconvenes next Monday, Dec. 29, at 11 a.m. in Room 114 of the Capitol building. Audio and video of the proceedings can be found at the General Assembly's Web site, http://www.ilga.gov/.
Going home breakout
A week after promising to work every day but holiday times, the House special committee investigating the impeachment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich decided Monday to go home for a week.
The committee is still waiting to hear from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office on what cooperation it will provide in the legislative probe. Lawmakers don't expect Fitzgerald, who is pursuing serious criminal corruption allegations against the governor, to be of much help — which would shorten their remaining workload.
Also, Blagojevich lawyer Ed Genson asked the committee for a week to prepare his arguments, including calling in witnesses. Both Democrat and Republican committee members dismissed possible complaints about dragging their feet by taking more time off.
"It is equally important for this process to be fair as it is quick. I don't think anybody would rather have a shorter hearing at the expense of fair treatment to all interested parties," said Rep. John Fritchey, D-Chicago.


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August 9th, 1918
Dear sister Madaline:
After resting all day yesterday I am now ready to do my day's work. The work isn't half bad that is it isn't hard nor do we have long hours. The weather in the past few days are great and well is it appreciated by us boys. In order that I might get my mail sooner we have been advised to add to our old address A.P.O. 748. So here after if you will dear sister just add same to my old address. Isn't it great the way the Yankee boys are treating the Huns. Well its the Yankee blood and spirit. Guess I have said about all I know so I will close. Will write again tomorrow. Lots of love and kisses to you all.
I am
Your Brother
My address is:
Corporal Joseph Maus
Co. A. 105 U.S. Inf.
American E.F.
© Copyright 2011 by Lanny & Patti Brown, All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without permission.


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Glenn Greenwald Overview ‧ read
A respected writer and lawyer, Greenwald has written many works on privacy and US politics. He also appeared in the Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour. In February 2014 he helped launch The Intercept, as one of the news site's founding editors.
Greenwald's early entry into politics
After high school, Greenwald studied philosophy at George Washington University, before earning his law degree at New York University School of Law, in 1994.
A trailblazing law career
Greenwald later told Rolling Stone : "To me, it's a heroic attribute to be so committed to a principle that you apply it not when it's easy." Greenwald Christoph PC operated for ten years, before closing in 2005.
Journalism at Salon.com and The Guardian
Greenwald's writing was so well received, he landed a job at Salon.com . His Salon.com columns were highly critical of how the CIA and other US intelligence agencies were attacking individual privacy and other civil liberties. This made him an obvious choice for Snowden to share the NSA files with.
In 2012, Greenwald joined the US arm of British newspaper The Guardian , where he would break the story of the NSA's global surveillance programs.
Greenwald exposes NSA surveillance
Edward Snowden, with regards sensitive to documents he wished to share. The documents turned out to be an enormous cache of around 1.7 million files , which Snowden had secretly copied from the National Security Agency. The files detailed the extent of the NSA's global surveillance of individuals in the US and overseas.
"Communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing," wrote Greenwald in his first report on the topic.
Kicking off the great privacy debate
The reports polarized opinion on whether Snowden and Greenwald were heroes or traitors. While a US federal judge found the NSA's activities unconstitutional, one Republican congressman thought Greenwald should be arrested for his reporting. Greenwald won the 2013 Polk Award for his NSA journalism, along with several other awards.
No place to hide: Greenwald's books and film
He also featured in Citizenfour,
Laura Poitras's Oscar-winning documentary about Edward Snowden and the NSA revelations.
Founding editor of The Intercept
In 2014, First Look Media launched The Intercept, a "fearless, adversarial" news site of which Greenwald was a founding editor. The Intercept has continued to report on the NSA spying revelations and other attacks on our
online privacy.
Ushering a new era of whistleblower journalism
If not for his fearless journalism, Edward Snowden's NSA revelations might not have made the global impact they did, and we might still not know how much governments are spying on us.
With The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald continues to fight for our online privacy and other rights. Long may he continue to do so.
Feature image: David dos Dantos / Mynewsdesk


text:
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text:
Story highlights
- Supreme Court is taking up affirmative action in Fisher v. University of Texas
- Richard Sander, Stuart Taylor: Large racial preferences can hurt minority students
- They say the court will probably not abolish affirmative action in the case
- Writers: Reforming affirmative action policies can improve diversity goals
Affirmative action -- which is coming up before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in Fisher v. University of Texas -- has long been one of America's most divisive social policies. But it doesn't need to be.
Universities engage in many forms of affirmative action that are uncontroversial, such as efforts to reach out and encourage minority applicants, or initiatives to make sure that admissions officers are going beyond test scores to find the strongest candidates.
The battle is really about the use of racial preferences in admissions, especially the large preferences often used by selective schools that, in effect, add a full point to the high school grade-point average of every black applicant, and half a point to every Hispanic applicant, or otherwise adjust the academic qualifications of black and Hispanic applicants so as to make them appear, for purposes of comparison with white and Asian applicants, much more academically prepared than they actually are. These policies are often justified as ways of ensuring fair minority representation -- which, in turn, is supposed to foster a better learning environment for everyone.
But a growing stack of carefully vetted research is finding that these large preferences often undermine the very goals they are intended to promote, because they do a poor job of matching students to the college environments in which they are most likely to thrive. A student who would do extremely well at Wake Forest ends up at struggling at Duke; a student who would thrive at a strong state university gets recruited away to the Ivy League and becomes a marginal student.
For example, students who aspire to careers in science or engineering (STEM fields), and who get into a school where they are surrounded by academically stronger students, have low odds of actually getting a STEM degree. Yet these students have what it takes to have a successful career in STEM -- if they go to the right school. A careful study led by University of Virginia psychologist Fred Smyth found that the well-matched minority students were nearly 80% more likely to achieve their STEM aspirations. Three other studies have confirmed Smyth's findings.
In Fisher -- the case before the Supreme Court -- the University of Texas reintroduced racial preferences in 2004 because, it said, it wanted to achieve racial balancing of minority students in its classes. But it has pursued this goal with very large preferences, and since these students are likely to retreat from the most competitive and rigorous classes to softer fields, the use of racial preferences can easily have little or no effect at all upon classroom integration.
The mismatch problem undermines diversity goals in other ways, too. Undisputed research has found that students are more likely (holding other things, such as race, constant) to make friendships with other students who have comparable levels of academic preparation. When colleges use large preferences, they interfere with social assimilation, and the minorities who are the "beneficiaries" of these preferences often feel socially isolated and self-segregate. Indeed, preferences that are so large that they produce disparities in academic performance across racial lines are likely to foster negative stereotypes -- just the opposite of what diversity programs are supposed to achieve.
In short, large racial preferences, and indeed large preferences of any other kind (e.g., for children of alumni, for athletes, etc.) are often counterproductive. Yet universities continue to use them, partly because they may not understand the consequences of mismatch, but mainly because they are under tremendous pressure to achieve a particular racial balance -- at whatever cost -- in their student bodies. These are exactly the situations where government regulation has a helpful role to play, and the Supreme Court is poised to play it.
Many observers are predicting that the court, with five conservative votes, will simply abolish racial preferences. That strikes us as unlikely; Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote, is more likely to put teeth in the court's earlier holdings and simply create some tougher tests that universities must satisfy if they use racial preferences.
Two reforms seem to us particularly important: Find a way to limit the overall size of racial preferences, and mandate a thorough transparency at any university that wants to use them.
Limiting the size of racial preferences means making smaller, race-based adjustments to applicant qualifications -- or, to put it differently, not ignoring very wide differences in academic preparation across racial lines. And by transparency we mean three things: Disclose to applicants the way that admissions decisions are made, provide information about how students such as the applicant have fared at that university, and make some form of all this information available to the public and to watchdog groups. In other words, students need to have all available information about whether they are jeopardizing their success in college by accepting a large preference into a more elite school.
These sorts of reforms would represent a radical departure from past practices; they would create a level of accountability that simply does not exist in colleges today. And they would almost certainly moderate the use of a controversial and often ineffective tool of social policy -- racial preferences -- without the heavy hand of a complete ban.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.
Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.


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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former Wells Fargo banker and eight others were indicted on Wednesday for their roles in an alleged $11 million insider-trading conspiracy, the U.S. Justice Department announced.
The indictment, which was unsealed on Thursday, said the lead defendant, John Femenia, has been charged with bank fraud, conspiracy to commit insider-trading, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud and money-laundering. The Justice Department said he was arrested in New York earlier on Thursday.
Two other defendants facing many of the same charges - Shawn Hegedus and Danielle Laurenti - are currently fugitives, the Justice Department said. The remaining six defendants all agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit insider-trading.
The criminal charges against Femenia come roughly one week after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed related civil charges.
Reporting By Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Leslie Adler


text: There are at least as many products on which to decorate as there are different techniques to use for decorating. How would you feel about, for example, decoupaging an entire zoo made from papier-mâché? Or trying it out as a royal porcelain painter on glass, porcelain, terracotta, plastic and acrylic? How about making a simple wooden box with beautiful mosaic patterns for storing charms? Or finishing metal with your own personal touch? You will find a wide selection of products for decorating here. You will find low priced products for decorating in our outlet.View category


text:
Email Marketing Packages
Email Marketing – Yes You Can!
Research recently provided proof positive that time-poor executives are no longer just workaholics - they're also addicted to their email. The figures speak for themselves:
- 70% of business users check their emails six or more times a day
- 50% of business users check their email while on holiday
Far be it from us to suggest that they might like to take a time management course, or check out the local culture while on holiday, because these figures reveal just why email marketing works.
Well, let's qualify that: properly executed, relevant, targeted, consumer and business to business email marketing, which applies sound marketing principles and adheres to data protection legislation and guidelines around spam, works. But that's not quite so snappy.
Sticking with the fact that email marketing works, Impact Web Solutions' email marketing packages make it easy for you to take advantage of this powerful, effective and economic marketing tool.
To talk to Impact Web Solutions about how email marketing could help grow your business, call 0116 275 8456 today.
We understand that not everyone needs the most sophisticated email marketing tools and that some businesses will see fantastic benefits simply from implementing good, basic campaigns for the first time. That's why we've designed a range of email marketing packages to suit your business and your budget.
All of our email marketing packages:
- include a unique template for your business, so you can maintain a consistent brand look and feel
- allow you to create eye-catching HTML emails, including your own images, without any prior HTML experience.
- automatically clean your data to comply with legislation and avoid spam blacklists
- include analysis tools to compare past and refine future campaigns for better response rates
- offer online help and advice to help you really get the most from your email marketing communications
Our enhanced Silver and Gold Email Marketing packages include a variety of additional tools and techniques, to further increase the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. To help you choose the perfect package, decide which of the following best describes your business:
|ideal if you making your first foray into email marketing. Simple to use and requires minimal resource to deliver increased sales or enquiries.
|ideal if you'd like the facility to monitor and refine ongoing email campaigns to increase response rates and you want to serve targeted information, in addition to what is already available on your website, in response to click-throughs, to increase conversion rates.
|for experienced email marketers or those with resource to manage sophisticated campaigns. Greater facilities for segmentation, and for creating dynamic, personalised content, real time behaviour monitoring and analytics, insight building and split testing for the most effective, multi-stage campaigns.
For more information on which email marketing package might suit your business best, and how to exploit the power of email marketing to grow your business, call Impact Web Solutions on 0116 275 8456
Here are the different email marketing packages in detail. And if you have precise requirements which aren't covered below, do get in touch and we'll be happy to explore how we can help you to achieve your objectives.
Bronze Email Marketing Package
|Email Template
|Allows you to maintain a consistent brand look and feel.The template is designed to deliver your key message in the preview pane.We have incorporated features to achieve a low spam score to help more of your emails reach their destination.
|WYSIWIG and HTML Editor
|Allows you to easily produce attractive, impactful emails, without prior HTML experience.
|Upload images
|Easily add visual impact to your message with images from your image library.Using images as links is proven to improve click-through rates.
|Automatically removes opt-out recipients from your data and fulfil EU guidelines, keep your data clean and prevent you being blacklisted as a spammer.
|Refer to a friend
|Encourages recipients to forward emails. Provides viral marketing opportunities for additional opt-in contact email addresses.
|Data category lists
|Create separate lists for different types of data for complete control over who receives which of your emails.
|Upload data files
|Quickly add contact data in csv format to update your email lists and increase market penetration.
|Bounce management
|Identifies individual hard and soft bounces of undeliverable emails and automatically excludes them from all campaigns.
|Campaign Analytics
|Allows you to easily compare results for two or more campaigns to refine future emails and feed into campaign planning.
|Online help guide
|Immediate and comprehensive online guides are just a click away, 24 hours a day.
Silver Email Marketing Package
Includes all of the features of the Bronze package, plus the following additional features:
|Spam Checker
|Scores your emails against spam filter software to identify problem areas before you send them helping to improve delivery rates by up to 85%
|Landing Zones and Template
|Additional pages of specific content provide traceable and measurable responses from click-through calls to action.
|Campaign Dashboard
|Allows you to easily monitor the progress of all your email campaigns and make changes to improve effectiveness.
|Blacklist Warning
|Allows you to take prompt action to have yourself removed from email blacklists.
Gold Email Marketing
Includes all of the features of the Bronze & Silver packages, plus the following additional features:
|Dynamic content
|Gives you the ability to increase the responsiveness of your emails by matching relevant content to individual recipients
|Add your own surveys to your emails to obtain insight, measure customer satisfaction and improve your profiling of customers and prospects.
|Group List Builder
|Build profiled segmented lists based on real behaviour to improve response rates for future campaigns.
|Triggered emails
|Helps build relationship by automating response to recipients' actions, request for further information etc.
|Click-through tracking
|Build groups and identify individual preferences based on what recipients do and what interests them as they visit landing zones, web pages or other links.
|Web capture tab
|Enables you to clearly see what interests recipients when they click through to your website.
|Content rating
|Helps you identify subjects that are of most interest by asking recipients to score to the content of your emails.
|Split testing
|Allows you to test two options of email content and subject line for your campaigns.
|Create group lists for hot subjects or products based on iscore behavioural criteria set when creating content.


text:
Addressing noise disturbances
There are laws around noise pollution and the City of Sydney has policies and procedures in place to help you deal with any particular issues that are cause for concern.
This section provides advice and the steps you can take to reduce noise from:
- construction sites
- dogs barking
- garbage and bottle collections
- fireworks
- licensed venues and commercial premises
- cars and other vehicles
- neighbourhood noise including power tools, sound systems and air-conditioners
- major works, public transport and large events.
Exhaust fans and air-conditioners can also cause intrusive noise and are not allowed to be used in residential premises if they can be heard within a neighbour's living areas between 10pm to 7am on weekdays and 10pm to 8am on weekends and public holidays.
Complaints about your neighbours
Before taking formal steps to complain about noise you should attempt to contact your neighbour to discuss the problem and try to work out an appropriate solution. Be tactful when bringing the complaint to their notice as they might not realise there is a problem or they may be sensitive about issues such as crying babies.
If your neighbour won't discuss the issue, you can contact Community Justice Centres for help with free mediation. An independent mediator will help you and your neighbour discuss the matter.
If you're still unable to resolve the matter, contact the City of Sydney's 24-hour customer service line on 02 9265 9333. Before you contact us it is important that you complete the noise diary log, available for download below, for a period of 10 days. The information you provide within the diary log will help us to give you the appropriate advice, which may also be used as evidence should we need to take any formal action on your behalf. Noise complaints made after hours are referred to City rangers who aim to follow them up as soon as possible. If the situation is complex and difficult to fix, rangers will refer the complaint on for a more thorough investigation.
NSW Environment Protection Authority also has a range of resources available for dealing with noise, whether your complaint relates to your neighbours, alarms or motor vehicles.
|Noise nuisance form
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|Fact sheet: neighbourhood noise
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Last updated: Monday, 20 January 2020


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Enter Week 2 of Our GE Appliances Give-Away Today!
Today is the start of WEEK 2 in our four-week GE Appliances Home Improvement Give-Away. If you weren't lucky enough to win last week's prize—the GE® Hybrid Stainless Steel Interior Dishwasher (MSRP $699)—perhaps this will be your week!
ENTER TODAY and every day (through midnight EST Friday, September 14) to be eligible to win a new GE Profile™ Slide-In Double Oven Electric Range, valued at $2,799 MSRP.
Designed to offer high performance with a built-in look, this GE double oven is the only slide-in electric model that offers a custom look without the custom installation cost. The stainless steel oven, with black glass ceramic and patterned graphite range, fits flush in the common 30-inch kitchen cutout and requires no backsplash to create a clean, finished look.
Among its many features, the new GE Profile™ Slide-In Double Oven Electric Range includes self-cleaning top and bottom ovens and five electric cooktop burners, including a powerful 3,000-watt Tri-ring, a warming zone to keep foods fresh and ready to serve, and a dual heat element for power boiling and precise low-temperature cooking.
If you've ever dreamed of cooking like a pro, this is the oven to have. The top oven preheats faster and uses less energy, making it more efficient and convenient for cooking small, frequent meals, baking cakes and cookies, or reheating leftovers.
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For official rules and entry, click here. Be sure to enter Bob Vila's GE Appliances Home Improvement Give-Away daily to increase your odds of winning—and come back next week when one lucky winner will have the chance to win one of the following prizes: a GE GeoSpring Hybrid Water Heater (MSRP $1,299), or a GE Profile Front-Load Washer with Steam and SmartDispense™ technology (MSRP $1,299) and companion dryer (MSRP $1,099).
To learn more about the new GE Profile™ Slide-In Double Oven Electric Range and other innovative products, visit GE Appliances.
The "Bob Vila GE Appliances Home Improvement Give-Away" sweepstakes is open only to permanent legal U.S. residents of the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia; residents of Alaska and Hawaii are not eligible. Void in all other geographic locations. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Contest Period runs from 12:00 a.m. (EST) Saturday, September 1, 2012 through midnight (EST) Friday, September 28, 2012. One entry per household per day on BobVila.com. Alternative means of entry for Drawing is available by faxing your name and address to 508-437-8486 during the applicable Entry Period. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. See Official Rules.


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Prop Zero is following all of California's races. Stay with us for real time results, commentary and analysis of key races and propositions.
Some highlights from today's coverage:
Gallery: Election Day in Photos
CA Politics Blog (News and Analysis): Prop Zero
Article: Governor Casts Ballot, Machine Rejects Ballot
Article: What Meg Didn't Do Today
Article: Who Are These People?
Complete Coverage and Real-Time Results: Which candidates and props are in the lead?


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In the
A sophisticated manufacturing process is not out of the ordinary in the
The character of each customer is unique. And so also their respective wishes. What does that mean for us? A variety of options to offer. That is why we can look proudly at over a hundred leather and yarn colours. When processing them, one claim always applies to us: perfection to one hundredth of a millimetre.
Precision and personal design belong to our distinguishing features. This is particularly true of our trademark: the
© 2020


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Go to Advanced Search
The Photonics Institute is the culmination of intense preparatory work spanning several years between NTU and the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton, along with support from various institutions such as A*STAR, DSO and EDB, in order to establish in Singapore a world-leading centre in photonics technology research.
Representing the next phase of the trend for globalisation of research, the newly-established institute will be led by a triumvirate of world-class directors, namely Professor Sir David Payne, Professor Tjin Swee Chuan and Professor Nikolay Zheludev, consolidating fragmented centres of excellence at NTU in relation to research under photonics. At present, 5 key centres come under the umbrella of this institute:
At TPI, we aim to establish a cradle of scholarship, research and innovation - making the transition from fundamental science to applied science.
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If you're a corporate executive, this may be one of the last sentences you want to hear: "Erich Spangenberg is on the line." Invariably, Mr. Spangenberg, the 53-year-old owner of IPNav, is calling to discuss a patent held by one of his clients, which he says your company is infringing — and what are you going to do about it?
Mr. Spangenberg is likely to open the conversation on a diplomatic note, but if you put up enough resistance, or try to shrug him off, he can also, as he put it, "go thug."
He demonstrated what that sounds like in a brief bit of role-play recently, sitting in the apartment he is renting for the summer in Paris near the Arc de Triomphe. His voice dropped, the curse words flowed, and he spoke with carefully modulated menace.
"Once you go thug, though, you can't unthug," he explained, returning to his warm and normal tone. "Actually, you can unthug, but if you do that, you can't rethug. Then you just seem crazy."
Mr. Spangenberg's company, based in Dallas, helps "turn idle patents into cash cows," as it says on its Web site. A typical client is an inventor or corporation, with a batch of patents, demanding a license fee from what it contends is an infringer, usually a titan in the tech realm. His weapon of choice in this business — the brass knuckles of his trade, so to speak — is the lawsuit.
In the last five years, IPNav has sued 1,638 companies, according to a recent report by RPX, a patent risk management provider, more than any other entity in the patent field. "To get companies to pay attention, in some percent of the market, you need to whack them over the head," Mr. Spangenberg said. "In our system, you can't duel, you can't offer to fight in the street, which would be fine with me."
This combat readiness has made Mr. Spangenberg, a high-school dropout raised in Buffalo, very rich. He earns about $25 million a year, he says, which is at least a couple of million more than the country's top bank executives. Until recently, he lived in a 14,000-square-foot home in Dallas; it is now on the market for $19.5 million. He often flies on a company jet, and at one point he owned 16 cars, six of them Lamborghinis.
His clients, who pay IPNav a percentage of any recovery, contend that he earns every dollar and praise him as a hero.
"Erich saved our bacon," said Steve Dodd, a patent holder with a client company called Parallel Iron. "We were more than $1 million in debt and I was getting ready to file for bankruptcy."
Mr. Spangenberg's opponents use less flattering terms to describe his work. Like shakedown artist. Or patent troll.
There is debate about the definition of patent trolls, but the term broadly refers to people who sue companies for infringement, often using patents of dubious value or questionable relevance, and then hold on like a terrier until they get license fees. In recent years, patent trolls — they prefer "patent assertion entities," or P.A.E.'s — have gone from low-profile corporate migraine to mainstream scourge.
This is partly because the number of patent infringement suits has more than doubled in recent years, to 4,731 cases in 2012 from 2,304 in 2009, according to that RPX report. The cost to businesses, which pass along the expense to consumers, is immense. One study found that United States companies — most of them small or medium-sized — spent $29 billion in 2011 on patent assertion cases.
"And only about $6 billion of that money wound up in the hands of inventors," said James Bessen, a co-author of the study and a professor at the Boston University School of Law. "As for the other $23 billion, most of it goes to legal expenses, both for defendants and patent troll companies, with the rest going to operating expenses of the trolls — overhead and marketing — and finally, patent troll company profits. That's why we call this type of litigation a tax on innovation. It discourages innovation much more than it encourages it."
The notoriety of trolls also arises from legal claims that, at minimum, sound absurd. Like the P.A.E. that last year mailed letters to companies contending it had a patent on e-mailing scanned documents and asking for a license fee of $1,000 per employee. Or the company that has sued for license fees from podcasters through a patent originally filed in 1996, long before podcasts were conceived.
The inevitable counterattack on patent asserters has begun. In June, President Obama announced a handful of executive orders "to protect innovators from frivolous litigation." Companies, large and small, are starting to vent and fight back, and figures as varied as Judge Richard A. Posner, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and Marc Maron, the stand-up comedian and podcast host, have denounced trolling. Mark Cuban recently gave the Electronic Frontier Foundation $250,000 to help finance "The Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents."
Mr. Spangenberg has been called "a costly nuisance," "one of the most notorious patent trolls in America" and many unprintable names in the comments sections of Web sites like Techdirt. He has achieved a certain infamy.
In his telling, he is protecting put-upon inventors. But he may simply be profiteering from a flawed and creaky legal system.
Mr. Spangenberg speaks in rapid-fire clumps of words, usually while looking down and grimacing slightly, as though trying to lift a barbell. When we met, he was wearing what he calls "my uniform": a pair of jeans and one of his 40 identical black, short-sleeve, mock-turtleneck Nike T-shirts.
He doesn't mind his public reputation as an ogre, and by all means, he says, call him a troll — though he thinks the name is a bogus effort to taint his profession.
When it comes to work, he is focused to the point of being obsessive. As an associate at a corporate law firm — after taking the ACT test, he attended the University of Delaware and eventually earned a law degree from Case Western University — he once worked four days straight without sleep, and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
"I had a mild seizure," he said. "There's only so much coffee and caffeine tablets you can take."
He stands about 5-foot-6 and was bullied as a child because of his height. He always fought back, he says, and he usually lost; his nose has been broken by an assortment of fists. This has given him a lifelong hatred of bullies, which explains, he says, why he wound up in a job where he often stands with a small company assailing a larger one.
But IPNav doesn't exactly fight using the Marquess of Queensberry rules. In a 2008 ruling, Judge Barbara B. Crabb of Federal District Court in Wisconsin, concluded that Mr. Spangenberg was involved in witness tampering — specifically, inducing a lawyer to "intimidate a witness on the eve of trial." The eviscerating 62-page ruling was in a case brought by DaimlerChrysler against a company owned by Mr. Spangenberg called Taurus IP. The carmaker accused Mr. Spangenberg of breaking a 2006 we-won't-sue-you-again agreement over certain tech patents.
It was a complex case, but here's a quick summary: one company controlled by Mr. Spangenberg (Orion IP) was accused of having signed a settlement with DaimlerChrysler. Later, a different Spangenberg-owned company (Taurus IP) sued DaimlerChrysler with related patents. Mr. Spangenberg seemed to be trying a double dip — angling for two settlements from the same defendant. Tsk, tsk, said Judge Crabb, though she used tougher language and painstakingly enumerated the maze of companies in the Spangenberg empire. She ordered Taurus IP to pay DaimlerChrysler $3.8 million to cover its legal fees and succinctly described Mr. Spangenberg's business model this way: "to license patents through litigation: first file a lawsuit, then negotiate a licensing agreement as part of a settlement."
"It was a mauling," Mr. Spangenberg said of Judge Crabb's takedown, now under appeal. But weirdly enough, the ruling turned out to be terrific public relations.
Soon after Judge Crabb's decision, IPNav's phone was ringing with new business. RadioShack, Bridgestone and other companies wanted to strike a variety of deals to monetize their patents. The mauling had laid bare Mr. Spangenberg's aggressive business techniques. IPNav soon grew from five employees to 80, most of whom are patent specialists; it currently manages about 10,000 patents. (One of its many relationships, as it turns out, is as licensing agent for a company suing The New York Times Company for patent infringement.) It has offices in Shanghai, Tel Aviv, Dallas and Dublin.
He calls the apartment he now rents "the Paris office" and says he spends summers there because the time zone is convenient for conversations with employees around the world. Mostly, though, he just loves Paris, as does his wife, Audrey, and their son, Christian, 20. Mr. Spangenberg is particularly fond of the architecture, the food and the Impressionist art, which he and his wife collect. He doesn't speak much to the locals, because he can't.
"I tried learning French with a tutor," he said, "but after a few lessons she told me my accent made me sound retarded and that was the end of that."
In the patent world, Mr. Spangenberg says he has cultivated a reputation as a bit of carnivorous monster, but even his opponents say he can be perfectly reasonable. One, a lawyer named David Tsai, says IPNav's lawyers dropped a case against his clients — Hulu, Amazon and Twitter — after he demonstrated that they were not infringing.
"They agreed they had no standing," Mr. Tsai recalled.
But such comity may be the exception among companies in Mr. Spangenberg's sights. Not long ago, Rackspace, a cloud storage company based in San Antonio, became an IPNav target, and Alan Schoenbaum, Rackspace's general counsel, became Mr. Spangenberg's most vocal critic.
Mr. Spangenberg contends that Rackspace is infringing a patent held by his client Parallel Iron. Steve Dodd started Parallel Iron in 2001 with three friends in the tech and telecom world. Together, they began to draft patent applications for a data storage and retrieval system.
"I worked on this in my basement for two years," Mr. Dodd said. "We didn't get into this to enforce patent rights. We got into it to build a storage system. But this was the end of the tech bubble. We couldn't have timed it worse."
Mr. Dodd and his group were $1.3 million in debt when a consultant introduced him to Mr. Spangenberg. After sizing up the patents, IPNav agreed to pay Parallel Iron $250,000 for exclusive rights to monetize the patents for a fixed time, and to finance any litigation. Parallel Iron would keep 42.5 percent of any settlement revenue and verdicts, with the rest split between IPNav and the lawyers it hired.
As usual, Mr. Spangenberg would handle overtures to companies and negotiations. He considers this one of his specialties.
"Love, fear or greed," he says, citing the key human motivations that are his leverage when he approaches any company. "I always start with love."
That usually means an assertion letter, which may not sound very loving to recipients. In 2011, a judge in Wisconsin — not the one who mauled him — quoted from an IPNav assertion letter that included this sentence: "We are focused on addressing these issues without the need for costly and protracted litigation."
"The implied 'or else!' oozes from this letter like lye from lutefisk," wrote Judge Stephen L. Crocker of Federal District Court, referring to a gelatinous dish popular in Nordic countries. And Wisconsin, apparently.
Neither love nor fear worked on Rackspace, and the two companies were soon filing suits against each other. Going to court will cost Rackspace somewhere between $1 million and $5 million, Mr. Schoenbaum estimated. A license would have probably been a bargain by comparison, and he said Rackspace might have acquired one if it were infringing Parallel Iron's patents. But the company's lawyers decided it was not, and Rackspace became one of a handful trying to turn the tables on patent asserters.
"The game is to extort license fees out of companies for less than defense costs," Mr. Schoenbaum said in a recent phone interview, referring to IPNav. "We don't want to encourage that behavior. We'll just continue to be sued until we demonstrate that we can't be pushed into a settlement."
The dispute in this instance revolves around Rackspace's use of open-source software called the Hadoop Distributed File System. It stores, processes and analyzes vast amounts of data. Facebook and LinkedIn — both sued by Parallel Iron — are among its many users.
So, the key question: Does the Hadoop Distributed File System infringe Parallel Iron's patents?
David Pratt, the president of a company called M-CAM, agreed to weigh in. M-CAM is based in Charlottesville, Va., and performs what it calls "stress tests" on patents on behalf of banks that are making loans to companies with intellectual property. Mr. Pratt described himself as "patent-agnostic," which is to say he came to this task without any particular bias.
His conclusion was that Parallel Iron has a very weak case.
"The problem is, these patents are severely challenged by what we call precedent innovation," he said, using a fancy term for ideas that are in the public domain before a patent is granted. "What's described in Patent No. 7197662," referring to Parallel Iron's patent, "has been done a thousand times. I.B.M. has been doing it since the beginning of computers."
Mr. Pratt followed up by e-mailing a patent that predates Parallel Iron's and which, he suggested, was quite similar. As Mr. Pratt put it, "There's virtually no chance that '662 and its family could survive a full-scale re-examination by the Patent Office, because there are a lot of things that could disable or destroy it."
Mr. Spangenberg was unimpressed by this analysis. Before he signs up clients, he spends $100,000 to $250,000 on experts who take a month or more to study both the validity of a patent and whether anyone is infringing it. The findings of these experts, he said, were highly encouraging.
"Steve and his partners patented a very specific and very effective way to store and retrieve data," he said. "It's not the only way to do it. It just so happens that if you look at Hadoop and you look at Parallel Iron's patents, they're practically identical."
It's hard to say whether Mr. Spangenberg in this case is sticking up for outgunned inventors or wheedling a settlement that he and those inventors don't deserve. And it's the fuzziness of such issues that leads to the sort of knotty legal morass that companies pay to avoid. If nothing else, here, as with many other cases, Mr. Spangenberg has found the opening he needs.
Given the time and money it takes to sort out patent claims, there is something a little insane about the American way of resolving these disputes. Germany has a specialized patent court, which streamlines the process. In the United States, there is talk of setting up patent markets, so that start-up companies could quickly find out what patents they need and whom to pay, rather than putting out their product and waiting to be sued.
Mr. Spangenberg agrees that the United States system is deeply flawed. "We're using the courts as a marketplace, and the courts are horribly inefficient and horribly expensive as a market," he said.
But as long as the system exists, Mr. Spangenberg is going to exploit its ambiguities and pokiness for all it's worth.
Ambiguity is written into many patents. In the 1990s, court decisions pushed the Patent and Trademark Office to become more lenient about filings, according to legal experts. Soon, software concepts were being patented, and you didn't need to build an example of the concept in question. A broad draft and description would suffice.
"If you're an inventor, you want patents that are flexible and broad," said Daniel Ravicher, president and executive director of the Public Patent Foundation, a nonprofit group that monitors abuses in the patent system. "You want language like 'systems to do things with processes with widgets.' "
Moreover, patent holders in recent years have become more brazen about asserting claims on inventions that haven't yet been conceived, according to Professor Bessen at Boston University. A patent granted in 1985, for example, and titled a "system for reproducing information in material objects at a point of sale location" was originally intended for retail kiosks to sell cassettes. But a company called E-Data acquired the patent and argued that "point of sale" could include a buyer with an Internet connection. Which meant that E-Data could sue companies selling products online, which it did.
"E-Data collected about $100 million," Professor Bessen said. "And that's only a modestly successful troll."
Mr. Spangenberg learned just how potent such patents could be the hard way. In 1996, he was chief executive of a telecom company, SmarTalk, that was accused of patent infringement.
"This guy sues us," he recalled. "I brought in a law firm and they do a presentation about how we'd litigate, which will cost us something like $3 million to $5 million. I know it'll be way more than that."
So he called his adversary, who invited him to his office on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.
"It's like walking into Versailles," Mr. Spangenberg recalled. "This enormous space, and these puffy chairs you sit in and your feet don't touch the floor. I said: 'I get it. I love the setup. I took a psychology course. What do you want?' "
In minutes, they shook hands on a deal in which SmarTalk would pay $500,000 for a license.
The experience provoked an epiphany: Patents, which are often considered a cost for companies, can also be a hugely valuable asset.
Mr. Spangenberg started IPNav in 2003. He and his wife subsequently acquired a portfolio of 14 patents from a company called Firepond. As money poured in, he went through an acquisitive phase that he characterized as a combination of "nouveau riche on steroids" and midlife crisis, which is how he ended up with 16 cars and a mansion with a gold leaf ceiling and a Baccarat chandelier. He snapped out of it a few years ago, after he bought so much wine at a Christie's auction that it was delivered in an 18-wheel truck. His son said he'd need to live to 200 to consume all of it.
He and his wife have since moved into an apartment, a 2,000-square-foot two-bedroom in Dallas, and he sold off all but one of his cars, a Ferrari. But he's hardly depriving himself; he's currently in the market for a Monet.
The constant in his life has been incessant work, and you need a few spreadsheets to chart the 50 or so companies that he either owns or co-owns as a patent asserter. One of those spreadsheets is for Parallel Iron, which, with an assist from IPNav, has won just under $10 million in settlements, according to Mr. Dodd, the inventor. Whether these companies believed that they were infringing, or were merely avoiding a drawn-out and costly lawsuit, is hard to say. The settlements all come with confidentiality agreements.
Still in progress for Parallel Iron are suits against Google, EMC, Hitachi, Adobe and others. Which is just a sliver of Mr. Spangenberg's work. Some 100 other patent campaigns on behalf of other patent-holding companies partnered with IPNav are under way.
That means a lot of phone calls from a guy who might go thug, and enough litigation to keep a battalion of lawyers busy for years.


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Analytics separates traffic that arrives at your site through a search engine result from traffic that arrives through other referring channels, like paid advertisement or another site that links to yours. In your reports, this traffic segment is called organic search traffic. For information on traffic types, read about traffic sources.
Analytics automatically recognizes the most popular search engines, and attributes traffic to these sources. Traffic that finds your site through any of the default search engines appears as organic search traffic in your reports. Traffic that finds your site through any search engine not included in this list is considered referral traffic, (not as organic search traffic), in your reports.
You can add, delete, and reorder the list of recognized search engines to modify how organic search traffic is attributed in your account and how the data appears in your reports.In this article:
How the list of search engines affects your data
Analytics attributes incoming traffic to one source. Organic search traffic is assigned to the first search engine on your list that matches the domain name and query parameter of the incoming user.
For example, if you list google.com first and images.google.com second (and both sites use the same query parameter, like q), all searches that happen on images.google.com are attributed to google.com. To change this attribution, you can reorder these search engines in the list to prioritize how sessions are attributed. In this example, you could list images.google.com before google.com so searches are properly attributed.
You can also remove search engines from this list. Traffic arriving from any search engine you remove appear as referral traffic instead of as organic search traffic.
If you control a search engine that overlaps with another in this list, and if they use the same query parameter, you could also avoid this situation by changing your search parameter to something unique.
Change your organic search traffic settings
This setting is managed in the Admin settings of each property in your account. To add, edit, reorder, or remove search engines:
- Navigate to a property. If you're not in the settings menu, click Admin. Select the account and property you want to edit.
- From the PROPERTY column, click Tracking Info > Organic Search Sources.
- Click +Add Search Engine.
- In the form, specify what the Domain Name Contains and the Query Parameter. You can also specify a Search Engine Name and what the Path Contains.
- Click Create.
Click edit or delete to change or remove a search engine you've already added. To reorder the list, drag and drop the order of each row by using the mouse to grab the dots left of the search engine name.
Default-search-engine list
How to request inclusion in the default-search-engine list
If you would like us to add your search engine to the default-search-engine list, contact us at email@example.com. Google Analytics reviews these requests at least once per year and often more frequently. Inclusion is based on Google's assessment of a number of factors including but not limited to whether a significant volume of traffic is sourced from a given search engine.


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Earthquake overview : Moderate earthquake with epicenter in the southern part of the island. The earthquake has been felt all over the island (including in Haiti)
"I have Felt it" Reports --> see below + Let us know "how you have felt this earthquake"
To read the full story as it happened, we advise our readers to start at the lower part of the page (earthquake data).
Keep this page open or return regularly as we will be back with more details when they become available
Update 08/01
- A man died Thursday of a heart attack because of the fear caused the the earthquake. The dead man is Max Ramirez Rodriguez, 47, who according to relatives, at the time of the quake was sitting in bed watching TV. The shock killed him.
- In the southwest, three schools, three hospitals and more than 10 houses were damaged to varying degrees.
06:02:40 PM at epicenter
M 4.6 2012/01/05 22:02 Depth 60.7 km DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Moderate aftershock
65 km (40 miles) W of SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic
Satellite map of the greater epicenter area
16:47 UTC : At 11:00 AM local time, the local seismological agency had already registered 15 aftershocks
11:28 UTC : The Dominican Republic Civil Defense has alerted all of his services minutes after the quake occurred but at the time of writing this update, NO damage or injuries have been reported. Authorities in the direct epicenter area are currently inspecting buildings and public works to assess the situation.
11:04 UTC - Rock slides have been reported along the road from Azua to San Juan. Drivers are warned to be careful in driving this road.
11:02 UTC - The epicenter has been located 17 km South-East of Ocoa. Following the local media who are referring the the Dominican seismological agency UASD, the depth of the hypocenter was at 33 km and the magnitude was measures as 5.2. Both USGS and EMSC have reported a magnitude of 5.3 at a depth of 10 km. 33 km or 10 km makes a world of difference towards damaging capability.
- As early stated in this report, the earthquake has been felt almost all over the country but will have been felt also in neighboring Haiti !
- A lot of people are downloading our QuakeSOS iPhone application, but so far people are only testing and sending SAFE alerts.
- reports from the Dominican Republic are talking about people leaving their houses in panic (normal with such a magnitude)
- Maximum recorded (reported) MMI seems to be V = moderate shaking. Moderate shaking damage can be cracks in walls at max., but we will have to wait for a few more hours to be certain that no additional damage has been inflicted.
- The area has a lot of hills (see image)
- Closest villages to the epicenter (errors are possible within a radius of 16 km) : La Palma, Calderon, Hatillo, Agua, Galeon and Bani
- EMSC reports the same values than USGS (5.3 @ 10 km)
- The earthquake occurred during the early morning hours 05:35 AM !, when almost everybody was still sleeping
- the shallow hypocenter (focal depth) makes this earthquake moderately dangerous within a radius of 20 km.
Earthquake-Report.com GOOGLE+ / Earthquake-Report.com FACEBOOK
"I Have Felt It" reports as received by Earthquake-Report.com
???? : Se movió la puerta, las ventanas y la cama y fue mas o menos a las 5:34 AM
???? : yo, estaba acostada, eran las 5 y 37 de la mañana y yo sentí que se movió la cama era como si me estuvieran meneando la cama y yo me sentí en ese momento pues alterada,aterrada,confundida,sola,y triste fue horrible y terrible y no sabia que hacer.
Santo Domingo, Los Alcarrizos : yo cuando centi que yo estaba en la cama yo pensaba que alguien estaba moviendo mi casa mire yo tuve un susto terrible
"I Have Felt It" reports as received by EMSC
50 km from the epicenter : Wake up very scared
Santo Domingo : Hubo un estruendo considerable en el edificio.
Santo Domingo : Strong Shaking, with No sound, Not too long in duration but very strong lateral movement
Santo Domingo : I wake up very scared from a 6 floor near the sea.
45 km from epicenter : It was felt hard, like something hit the house but I realized it was a earthquake and it woke my wife out here sleep.
Santo Domingo : lived in SoCal 70 years. This was typical of many. not severe, but strong and frightening on top of a tower.
Santo Domingo : SEEMED TO ME AS IF IT LASTED ABOUT 8 TO 10 SECONDS
Santo Domingo : described as 5.3, tsunami alert for coastline, lifted about half an hour later, by the seismological institute in Miami, Fl. USA
Santo Domingo : El movimiento telurico se sintio fuerte en toda la ciudad de santo Domingo. Las personas residentes en edificios altos abandonaron los mismos en espera de replicas q no ocurrieron. Hasta el momento no se han rrportado derrumbes ni muertes por el sismo
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 5.3
UTC Time : Thursday, January 05, 2012 at 09:35:29 UTC
Local time at epicenter : Thursday, January 05, 2012 at 05:35:29 AM at epicenter
Depth (Hypocenter) : 10 km
Geo-location(s) :
17 km (10 miles) SSE (149°) from Ocoa, Peravia, Dominican Republic
33 km (20 miles) W (270°) from San Cristóbal, San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic
50 km (31 miles) W (260°) from SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic
Links to important maps
USGS Did You Feel It Map
Google satellite map showing the epicenter and the surrounding area
Historic earthquakes map
Seismic hazard map
QuakeSOS+ and QuakeSOS free are iPhone applications developed by Armand Vervaeck, the founder of Earthquake Report. The Application simplifies immediate group communication to friends and family members (with your exact GPS location) and is feeding the users with Earthquake Report news. The 0.99 US$ QuakeSOS+ version will support the activities of SOS Earthquakes.
Earthquake-Report.com headlines on twitter
@OnlyQuakeNews : Get all the headlines of our earthquake-report.com articles + regular updates on ongoing events
@QuakeSOS : earthquake-report.com news + automatic earthquake notifications of USGS earthquakes of M 4.0 or higher with emphasis to earthquakes in the America's and the Pacific Ocean sphere (4 and up) and a lot of the rest of the world (5 and up). This account was created for our QuakeSOS and QuakeSOS+ iPhone applications
@ShakingEarth : earthquake-report.com news + automatic earthquake notifications of EMSC earthquakes of M 4.0 or higher with emphasis to earthquakes in European and Asian / Middle East sphere (4 and up) and a lot of the rest of the world (5 and up). This account was originally created to stimulate our Facebook account
@QuakeMaps : earthquake-report.com news with mapping notifications of ALL earthquakes M 3.0 and higher from all over the world via EMSC and USGS. This account was created for our http://www.quake-maps.com website
I did feel it – Ik heb het gevoeld – Το έκανα αισθάνεται –Yo lo he sentido – 我的确感到了 – 私はそれを感じていました- Ich habe es gefühlt – Bunu hissediyorum yaptı – لم أشعر أنه
A man died Thursday of a heart attack because of the fear caused the the earthquake. The dead man is Max Ramirez Rodriguez, 47, who according to relatives, at the time of the quake was sitting in bed watching TV. The shock killed him.


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Living out of a hotel for 2 months has meant I have gone out and explored different places and foods. I have some pictures for some of the foods and places I have been. The most amazing thing about my trip food wise is that the Msa7ab sandwich (de-boned chicken) of my childhood is still to be found from the same place and with the same amazing taste 22 years later!
This is the place of the famous sandwich full of garlic and amazingly cooked chicken. PURRRRRR.
And this cocktail is the perfect accompaniment to the said sandwhich. And by the way, this hasn't changed either – mango, strawberry, and banana!
But this Cocktail from a shop in Salmiya is amazing as you can see 🙂
A cool menu that kuwaitifies its offerings. Really cute.
Tea is served on a metal saj to keep it warm with some hot coals
Tea with spices, milk and sugar (shakar) cubes. Yum!
In the Middle of the Mubarkieh Souq is an alleyway filled with tables and hungry people enjoying fresh fish, fresh bread and other yummy things.
Pomegranate Salad
Freshly grilled fresh fish picked by my dinner mate!
In another part of town in a place that is slightly more upscale we get to see the menu in pictures on an ipad! This is a very common thing to see in Kuwait. Is this happening in other places, digital pictures instead of paper?
Not the same burger but it's sister did arrive. This one was called the ninja burger and came with a date sauce.
This was a fusion of two of my favorite things pumpkin and cheesecake. I have noticed that in Kuwait sweets are not to be taken lightly. So many places making cakes and cupcakes and there is a lot of cheesecake to be had too.
A breakfast feast, Homus, Ful, falafel, fateh, ash, fresh bread, and so much more. And some of the bread was made with dates mixed into the dough. It wasnt sweet as one would think… it was amazing.
I did not manage to get a picture of all the amazing food before we devoured it! This was an Indian feast not to be missed.
Kuwait is a place that has a lot of western franchises, but if you look hard enough there are a lot of amazing local places and foods that are worth exploring.


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Just like an outfit doesn't need to show a ton of skin to be sexy, a pair of thoughtfully styled boyfriend jeans can look just as hot as skinny jeans do. In other words: you can opt for comfort, and still look like a total babe. To illustrate the point, here are some ensembles that show just how easy it is to make your boyfriend jeans look sexy!
Perfect Companion
Style Tip: Go for a Miranda Kerr-inspired look, and wear your boyfriend jeans with a cropped sleeveless sweater, animal-print bag, and Birkenstocks.
Wearing: Zara top; Frame Denim Le Garcon Slim Cuffed Jeans ($229); A.L.C. bag; Birkenstock Suede Sandals ($130).
Draped Jacket
Style Tip: The love for draped jackets is going strong, and this crop top, draped jacket, and boyfriend jeans combo is a perfect example why.
Sheer Genius
Style Tip: Model Constance Jablonski balanced her ultra-sexy sheer shirt with a pair of slouchy jeans.
Wearing: Equipment shirt; Rag & Bone jeans; Saint Laurent bag and shoes.
Sporty Separates
Style Tip: Punch up your denim with sporty separates, like a beanie and high-top sneakers.
Style Tip: If your boyfriend jeans are extra slouchy, take a page from Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's playbook, and experiment with a high-low top for a fashionable, flattering look.
Wearing: Citizens of Humanity jeans; Chloe heels.
Sky-High Stilettos
Style Tip: For an instant uplift, style your boyfriend jeans as Chrissy Teigen does with a pair of stilettos.
Wearing: One Teaspoon Awesome Baggie Jeans ($148); Valentino bag; Stuart Weitzman heels.
Savvy Accessorizing
Style Tip: Take a tip from blogger Elin Kling, and accessorize your boyfriend jeans ensemble with a fedora, structured tote, and pointy-toe pumps.
Biker Babe
Style Tip: Toughen up your boyfriend jeans with a leather jacket and cool cut-out boots.
Now that you know how to make them sexy, get the look with these boyfriend jeans:
Acne Studios Pop Vintage Boyfriend Jeans ($270), True Religion Audrey Mid-Rise Boyfriends ($198), Goldsign His Jeans ($258), Madewell The Boyjean ($115), Rag & Bone/Jean The Boyfriend Jeans ($242),
How do you make your Jeans Sexy?
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When a low-cholesterol diet and exercise alone are not enough1
A prescription medication used along with a
You may save up to $25
on a
of TriCor*
What is cholesterol?
What do your cholesterol numbers mean?
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Eligible patients may SAVE UP TO $25 on a
For more information, talk with your healthcare provider.
Reference: 1. TriCor [package insert]. North Chicago, IL: AbbVie Inc.
Please see the full Prescribing Information for TriCor and discuss it with your doctor.
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
If you cannot afford your medication, contact www.pparx.org for assistance.
*Eligibility: Available to patients with commercial prescription insurance coverage for TriCor who meet eligibility criteria. Copay assistance program is not available to patients receiving prescription reimbursement under any federal, state, or government-funded insurance programs (for example, Medicare [including Part D], Medicare Advantage, Medigap, Medicaid, TRICARE, Department of Defense, or Veterans Affairs programs) or where prohibited by law or by the patient's health insurance provider. If at any time a patient begins receiving prescription drug coverage under any such federal, state, or government-funded healthcare program, patient will no longer be able to use the TriCor Savings Card and patient must call Customer Service at 844.415.0681 to stop participation. Patients residing in or receiving treatment in certain states may not be eligible. Patients may not seek reimbursement for value received from the TriCor Savings Card from any third-party payers. Offer subject to change or discontinuance without notice. Restrictions, including monthly maximums, may apply. This is not health insurance. Please see full Terms and Conditions.
If you have any questions about AbbVie's TriCorTablets.com website that have not been answered, click here. This website and the information contained herein is intended for use by U.S. residents only, is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended to replace a discussion with a healthcare provider. All decisions regarding patient care must be made with a healthcare provider and take into consideration the unique characteristics of each patient.


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Saigon Freestyle On Toca Tuesdays! Verse About The Video Model "Bitch Try To Say Id Tried To Beg Her For Her Number. When She Was Giving Me Mad Head In The Hummer" (No Writtens. Straight Off The Top) + Freestyle For DTF Radio Show Going In!
Shout out to Mr. Excluive
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Back in 2010, Joe was only a virtual relative of mine.
He sent me this picture via e-mail he had of Marguerite Alexandre. She was Henriette Alexandre's sister.
Marguerite Alexandre 1836-1897
Marguerite Alexandre is part of Joe's very long list of ancestors.
That picture is as close as I can get to have a picture of Henriette Alexandre who is my great-grandmother married to Dennis Lagasse II, our superstar ancestor on this blog.
Stanislas Lagacé 1842-1927
This is Henriette's file on my Ancestry family tree.
I am very lucky photo wise because I have pictures of all my 8 great-grandparents. All except Henriette's photograph.
I am still waiting…, but I am very patient. We have to be when we look for our ancestors.
I know all about Henriette Alexandre: she had 13 children.
Six were still living in 1900. That's what the 1900 U.S. census said.
Thank God for Censuses.
I knew when she was born thanks to the image of her baptisimal act found on Family Search.
Thank God for Family Search.
I did not know when she died until I found out Joe had found out a way back then and thought I knew.
I didn't…
Henriette's sister, Marguerite Alexandre, is Joe's great-great-grandmother which makes us bonafide third cousins.
Joe told me back in 2010 he could use all the living cousins he could get.
I think I could also…
I have visited Joe twice since 2010.
Together we visited cemeteries to find the resting place of Dennis and Henriette. First in September 2011. I wrote about these little outings here and here.
In 2011, we visited again the same cemeteries bringing another cousin of ours who was also looking for his ancestors' graves. We had our share of senior moments.
Just couldn't find the headstones…
Last Sunday, while visiting Joe's family tree on Ancestry, I found out he had put these images he had found on the Internet.
Emmanuel Therien, Joe's great-great-great-grandfather…
Emmanuel Therien 1800-1886
Gilbert Therien, Joe's great-great-grandfather…
And Marguerite Alexandre Therien, Joe's great-great-grandmother…
Thank God for finding our ancestors' headstones even though sometimes the inscriptions are a bit off. Marguerite was born on August 11, 1836 and Gilbert was born on May 7, 1837.
May they rest in peace from now on. I know they will always be with us as long as we live.
Happy New Year Dear Descendants…


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RUSTIC ATMOSPHERE: While Southern California boasts some famous said-to-be-haunted spots, those venues tend to be located near or in our bigger cities (Whaley House, Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Hotel del Coronado -- we're looking at you). But there is a quintessential ghost town a few hours north of Los Angeles that fits the bill, in looks and spirit, of Old West Atmosphere. Emphasis, of course, on "spirit" in that last sentence; Silver City Ghost Town is said to possess a few of 'em. And while people regularly visit the Bodfish-based Kern County outpost to snap photos of the picturesque wooden buildings, many visitors are there due to its paranormal reputation. That will be on full display on Wednesday, Oct. 31, as well as a few nights on the weekend prior to Halloween, when town curator J. Paul Corlew goes searching for things that go bump, or at least make you shiver, in the night.
GHOST TOWN TOURS: The nights are Friday, Oct. 26, Saturday, Oct. 27, and, as mentioned, Halloween. Ghost sightings will be discussed, as well as legends surrounding the long-toothed town. A few paranormal groups will join Mr. Corlew at the head of the tour on various nights, so the stories are sure to be colorful and varied. (There was a local Silver City character called Wormie Annie, so bet she'll make a cameo, at least in the tales told.) Cost is twelve bucks, and if the idea of walking around a ghost town by lantern light tempts you, know that these are the last after-dark tours for the next six months. Yep, you'll need to get to Kern County, but we like the idea that the scares of SoCal are not simply centered around the cities. There's a charm to the Golden State's rugged, wicked past and the towns that remain.


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Now, doesn't this lunch look WAY better than McDonald's? I had my Rock Island Stuffed Tilapia leftovers from our dinner at Red Lobster last night, a salad of romaine lettuce and grape tomatoes dressed with olive oil and vinegar, two cracked pepper Triscuits (I got full and didn't eat all 4), 1/2 c. cottage cheese for some dairy, and a glass of water.
For dinner: A bowl of Two Color Broccoli, Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Soup with a cheesy crouton, 1/2 c. cottage cheese with a pineapple ring, 4 sticks of celery spread thinly with cream cheese, and about 1/2 glass of wine that had gone past it's prime sitting on our counter. Everything ROCKED except the wine past it's prime.


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Se avete qualcosa da vendere, inserite un annuncio qui. If you got something to sell, try to advertise here.If you got also auction online somewhere you can advertise here.
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Wow I've been a very bad blogger lately! Maybe once school is over I will be better.
I can't believe this school year is over in 6 school days. I am going to miss this class so much. They are so nice to each other! I love them. I am so lucky to have a job that I adore.
Things have been busy for us lately. Jon and I decided we love Saratoga Springs and want to stay forever. We are building a house here! We just signed all the papers and should be breaking ground by the middle of June! We got lucky and snagged a lot in our same ward which is awesome since we have loved it!
Which brings me to the other busy news...I was called to be the Relief Society president in our ward. I'm completely humbled to know that Heavenly Father trusts me to take care of the sisters in my ward. I'm not kidding when I immediately felt my heart expand to make room for the women I am going to serve. That all happened after Jon and I laughed about it for a solid hour. It's been a crazy couple of weeks but I will figure it out! Just keep me in your prayers...I need them!
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Wow I've been a very bad blogger lately! Maybe once school is over I will be better.
Posted by Meghan at 12:11 AM


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Record-Breaking Thread
- Updated
Don't have just citrus here, we've also got a few nectarines, plums and cherries for our own use. Was out in the grove and noticed we've got ripe nectarines right now. They sure don't taste like what they sell in the stores. Delicious! Working out in the grove takes the mind off all that's going on in our world lately. Must say it's quite therapeutic. Weather is great here right now too...
Some lawn company must have got the wrong address. They put some kind of fertilizer on my lawn and a sign of the company on the front.3 Replies
Have you received an invoice? Maybe in a week they'll come mow it for you too.
My dad knew a guy who came home from work to find roofers had ripped all the shingles off his house and were working on putting them back on. His neighbor had ordered new shingles.
No invoice. Pretty sure they went to the wrong house. The same company came this morning and did my neighbours.
Lego wrote:
No invoice. Pretty sure they went to the wrong house. The same company came this morning and did my neighbours.
3 Replies
Temps in the 60's F today with sun, so stowed the propane tank warming blankets back in the basement, took the covers off the outside water spigots, re-charged both lines and hooked up the hoses for watering plants.
Looking out two weeks weather-wise don't see any temps dropping below freezing but even if they did there wouldn't be a hard freeze. Lots of things beginning to sprout so even though it still looks winter barren outside things are about to pop.
Mowed the lawn for the first time yesterday. Glad, too, as the rest of the week is supposed to be rainy on and off. Outdoor work will cease for a bit. Did break protocol yesterday and went to Lowe's to order a new entry door for the side of the house. The current portal isn't a very good one. And, whoever installed it (I like to call them Half-A$$ Construction CO.) didn't do a proper job either. Gaps everywhere. I'll be happy to have it hung correctly when the new one arrives.4 Replies
At our Lowes there are strict policies for shoppers per square foot so we'd have to wait in line for shoppers to leave.
John Albrecht wrote:
At our Lowes there are strict policies for shoppers per square foot so we'd have to wait in line for shoppers to leave.
They have done that at the Walmarts around here. Lowe's just has tape and other signs on the floor directing folks where to wait and where to stand for assistance. They also have plexiglass shields in place at all the counters. I do hope this all passes sooner than later.
Lockheed Martin in Salina has contracts, is currently busy, and is hiring. The work that they do on radar, electronic warfare systems, warship defense systems, etc., seem to have good future.
JRT wrote:
Lockheed Martin in Salina has contracts, is currently busy, and is hiring. The work that they do on radar, electronic warfare systems, warship defense systems, etc., seem to have good future.
My great uncle started out at General Dynamics and retired at Lockheed. He will never discuss what he did (I do know that he has a master in mathematics and master in electrical engineering) but he used to have to provide a very detailed itinerary of his vacations to his employers (# of nights, address and phone number). The post-retirement package (especially medical plans), I am told is phenomenal.
Wednesday - We had a pretty strong front come through last night. Lots of thunderboomers, plenty of rain, and pretty high winds, though no tornadoes here, at least. It's calm this morning, though more rain is supposed to be on the way.
Rainy today with a high only about 50ºF. They are actually predicting snow for later today and tomorrow. Perhaps as much as three inches! I hope they are wrong. At least I got the lawn mowed earlier in the week.
The lockdown is going okay. Plus, I got my first unemployment payment deposited overnight. I was eligible to make my first claim yesterday. I did so early in the morning so as to avoid the website bogging down as more folks tried to access it later in the day. I wasn't expecting it to take less than 24 hours to get the money, but I'm definitely not complaining.
Thursday - Woke up to snow on the ground and mid-30s temperatures, though the snow has zero chance of surviving. Yesterday it was booze-buying and car-fueling. Today it's puddy-cat food for starving puddy-cats, plus whatever else might need to happen.
Got first time Instacart order from Big Y today. Re-stocking bananas, apples, bread, seltzer, diet coke etc, with the big treat a salmon avacado sushi roll. Grateful for fresh fruit, veggies and the occasional sushi I took for granted until Covid showed up. Starting to pull chicken and meat out of the downstairs freezer/fridge as we've stayed in the house now for a couple of weeks.
As this thing peaks we're doing our best to lay low. Wiped down or rinsed groceries before putting them away. Today almost 800 died in NYC and 200 in Connecticut but the numbers arriving into hospital are dropping which is a good sign.
Hard part is continuing isolation as the numbers begin to fall and other hot spots play out. Would prefer not to have a second wave.
About three months ago got a Peloton spinning bike. (Happy accident timing wise) Since the pandemic it has saved my life as all fitness centers are closed. Haven't missed a day on the bike since March 14th. Raising the heart rate every day lowers hunger for alcohol and sugar. Still enjoy them but need less. :-) Lost 7 pounds while resting heart rate is 50 during the day and touches 40 briefly most nights (thanks fitbit)
If I ever get a simulator I might never leave the house by choice. :-)1 Reply
Friday - Finished off the first season of ST: Picard ... wow. Among many other things, it really was a HOMECOMING, and those of you who have seen it know what I mean. Borrowed a bit from the first Avengers movie, too, and I'm not sure I'm wild for that, but overall, I thought it was pretty darn good.
Not sure what's up for today, but we'll find out soon enough.1 Reply
It had just enough fan service for you to stay at the "Hey! He/She is back! Cool!" level and not descend into "If I wanted to see this I can just watch ST:TNG instead".
Have you watched Star Trek Discovery yet? I've got like three episodes left in the second season and for the life of me I can't figure out why "fans" hated it. The worst thing I can say about it is the hull numbers make things confusing, as the much more advanced Discovery has an much earlier hull number (NCC 1031) than the Enterprise's famous NCC 1701.
But of all of it, Black Alert is the coolest part of the show...


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Tom Bosley, who played the kindly patriarch of the Cunningham family on "Happy Days," has died.
The 83-year-old actor died at his home in Palm Springs, Calif., after a long battle against lung cancer, according to his manager
Henry Winkler, who played Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli during the show's decade-long run, said Bosley had a positive impact on the entire cast.
U.S. & World
"Since day one of Happy Days, we as a cast have remained so wonderfully connected," Winkler said. "He was our TV dad and a real life father-figure for the past 33 years. He will be sorely missed. And our most positive thoughts go out to the family."
"I'm so saddened by the loss of our wonderful Tom Bosley. Remarkable on so many levels, Tom's insight, talent, strength of character and comic timing made him a vital central figure in the Happy Days experience," said director Ron Howard, who starred as Bosley's son in "Happy Days."
"A great father and husband, and a wonderful artist, Tom lead by example, and made us all laugh while he was doing it. My last conversations with Tom reflected the love of life and peace of mind that he always maintained throughout his full and rewarding life. I miss him already," Howard said in a statement.
Bosley's death comes just days after the death of another famous television parent, Barbara Billingsley, who played June Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver."
A sought-after pitch man, Bosley's trustworthy warmth helped sell Glad trash bags, D-Con and Sonic fast food.
Born in Chicago, Bosley served in the Navy during World War II. After his hitch, he attended DePaul University, where he took up acting. In 1947, he debuted on stage in "Our Town" with the Canterbury Players at the Fine Arts Theatre. Two years later, Bosley performed at the Woodstock Opera House in Woodstock, Illinois, alongside Paul Newman.
Bosley was an outspoken advocate for people who suffer from depression, and affliction he fought much of his life.
"I want to help people with depression understand that there is hope, so that they can get the help they need to live rich, fulfilling lives," he said.
Most recently, Bosley appeared in the film "The Backup Plan," which starred Jennifer Lopez.


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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A suspect in a hit-and-run that seriously injured a pedestrian in the Regency area Wednesday night was followed by man who witnessed the accident and held the driver at gunpoint until police arrived.
"I seen that he hit a pedestrian and felt he was not going to stop," John Avery told Channel 4 on Thursday morning. "He was trying to leave the scene, and I felt that something needed to be done. If it were one of my children, I would want something to be done."
State troopers said 26-year-old Tracy Isbell, of Covington, Ga., was driving a white pickup truck and hit 30-year-old Joseph Bastian (pictured, below), of Jacksonville, at the intersection of Southside and Atlantic boulevards just before 8 p.m.
Investigators said witnesses told them Isbell was driving erratically down Southside before hitting a curb, a yield sign, and then the pedestrian.
IMAGES: The victim | Hit-and-run scene
After realizing he had two flat tires, Isbell pulled into a Chick-fil-A restaurant on the corner of Southside and Atlantic, police said. According to authorities, he tried to leave, but was stopped by Avery, who police say detained Isbell at gunpoint until police arrived.
"He wanted to get up and leave," Avery (pictured, below) said. "He said he did not do anything wrong and he wanted to leave."
Police said Isbell resisted arrest when officers arrived. According to officers, Isbell appeared "extremely intoxicated," and drugs and a weapon were found in his truck.
Police told Channel 4 Isbell likely faces charges of felony hit-and-run, possession and resisting arrest. He is due in court Thursday afternoon.
The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating whether alcohol was a factor in the crash. At his first appearance in court Thursday afternoon, Isbell (pictured, left) told a judge he was only smoking a little bit of marijuana and having a good time.
Bastian remains at Shands Jacksonville Medical Center with serious injuries.
Michael McDill, a registered nurse, stopped to help him at the scene on his way home from work.
"He was just arms out, legs twisted over. I knew he was dead," McDill said. "He must have flown 20-25 feet from where he was hit. His backpack maybe 20 feet this way and he was in the middle of an intersection, just a pool of blood under his head. And when he opened his eyes, I said, 'Thank you, Jesus.'"
At that time, McDill said, others came to help.
"Found out three of us were nurses that happened to be there and see the whole thing, and there happened to be an ambulance right around the corner who saw it or heard it," McDill said. "And before people could dial 911, there was an ambulance to get him. So this gentleman had angels watching over him."
As for Avery, when asked if he thought twice before getting involved, he said not at the time.
"I guess adrenalin kicks in and it takes over your body," Avery said. "Afterwards, when the police got there, I was very relieved and very nervous about the situation there. But when it happened, I was thinking about the gentleman that got hit and wanted to make sure whoever hit him, hurt him was caught."