ASTROLOGY | Desert Star Weekly

The New Year ? Tracking the New Era Community

Well here we are in the new year of 2013. We survived the end of 2012. We?re shifting into the new Aquarian Age. We now must become ?trackers? and builders of the new culture and civilization, creating the new Era Community.

Pluto and Venus in Capricorn will help us as will the Capricorn new moon, the first of 2013 occurring early morning Friday (21 degrees). The ?Gate? to the new world opens up for us.

The stars? instructive New Year message for humanity seeking to create the new world?transform all ways of living; apply the new physics unlocking new technolog; help each other; cultivate illumined minds; not be distracted by continued materialism; ask Mercury (Hermes, planet of direction) for help; follow the stars (learning their significance); apply all impressions received during Festival week.

We are to stop all previous commerce and ways of being. Have courage. Create community. Observe without prejudice the course of world events. See in them the hands of the inner spiritual government. The time has come for the turn in Evolution. The forces for this have been gathered and brought together. The stars and heavens support the new world. They do not support the old. Ask, ?Where do I stand??

We are to apply our best efforts. In this labor of creation the Great Ones greet us. We become ?seeders of the New World and the Common Good. The sound of distance universes reach out to us, awakening Light consciousness, pointing to the Path to be followed. It summons us to the cries of those in need. We are called to service (Aquarian Age task).

Blessed with knowledge and with each other, let us realize the time is now. Let us begin our labors. Creating the new world. These are the words of the New Year, 2013, a year of gathering and working in harmony together. We enter the Flame.

ARIES: So much change is occurring its even surprising you with a complete reorientation of your public image and work in the world. Hang on. This is a long ride. Allow no control issues to limit your freedom. You will be confronted with issues of power and control ? yours and others. Learning how to recognize power over or power with? Maintain poise. Balance yourself.

TAURUS: The past is present and continues to be. You may have objects and articles from family, years and years, that need assessing. Giving much away is best. Lest you become limited in movement and travel. A clear well-lighted environment is best. Minimal and clean is better. ?Let the sun shine in.? So your creative talents, to flourish, are not hidden by the past.

GEMINI: You will feel you?re wearing a lucky charm, a four-leaf clover, a talisman of fortune this year. You will have more choice than usual. It?s as if you had been reciting the ?Gayatri?, an ancient Hindu prayer that brings expansion and increase. Work may be a challenging. Something disappears, something hurts. Turn toward what is dear to your heart. You must define it this year.

CANCER: Unusual and innovative studies will be of interest and as you learn you will teach. Do not withhold information with those close to you. Do not have the glamour of thinking everything?s personal. If you withhold you will be seen as someone who has secrets and thus untrustworthy. New responsibilities arise with family and children. Conserve your energy and strength. Garden most of the time. Nature is the body of God.

LEO: Home feels like a restriction with responsibilities making you unable to leave. You want freedom to come and go, travel, move about, change patterns and experience new environments, cultures, arts and people. You also might seek to study. However, you feel held back by tasks and promises. Weekly massages or another healing modality eases restrictions. And inwardly offering forgiveness.

VIRGO: You become more visible. Sometimes visibility and recognition are offered, but we must demur (be reluctant) for spotlights can become too bright. It?s important to bring forth creative skills still hidden within. It?s also important to care for any vehicles ? check-ups, insurance, registration, new tires. Things that make you safe and law-abiding. Careful with communication. Offer kindness.

LIBRA: Those close to you, intimates especially, will be experiencing change in their lives. They look to you for support and stability. Maintain balance and poise in the coming year, allowing those who depend upon you to experience your wisdom, reliability and sensitiveness. You will have much to experience yourself. Surprising things ? travel, study, spiritual encounters and reconciliation within the heart.

SCORPIO: Tend to you hearth and health in the coming months. Keep warm and dry. Exercise daily so your well-being can be balanced and in harmony. Professionally things may feel haywire, with strange behaviors from co-workers. When the new energies come into the world, people react and respond differently. Whatever you say to others is heard and listened to. When speaking, remember the virtues.

SAGITTARIUS: These things you will experience ? a new identity, profound understanding about finances, a bit of passion, intensity in communication, family wounds revealed and then disappearing, a topsy-turvy sense of creativity, integration and a deepening of spirituality. These are some of the events you can look forward to. Preserve your energies and seek only the truth in all matter. Sag is the sign of Truth.

CAPRICORN: You?re encountering deep and profound life events. Pluto has taken up residence in your life. You experience intense feelings, emotional responses more profound than most can imagine. Allows these. Know they will pass. Your life is changing inside and out. You will be called to work in the world when the world is ready for you. It?s preparing. Know you always do your very best. Place those words in your heart.

AQUARIUS: The coming months bring an increase of inner strength. The last year felt vulnerable. You will continue to experience changes reflecting your past. Focus upon building a new foundation that includes a spiritual practice, participating in like-minded groups (who think like you), and honing professional skills in your work world. Careful with finances. They may slip away. Take Aconite if you feel like lightning has hit you.

PISCES: In your personal life, be very careful with resources. Do not overdo with money or with energy. You need regular exercise, especially swimming. A natural pool or salt-water pool is best. Visualize this available to you. You offer to the world ways of seeing different from the norm. You offer inspiration and information that helps heal the world. There is more to come that you will offer the world. Something wonderful happens with family. A new harmony. A new light shining.

Risa, Founder & Director

Esoteric & Astrological Studies & Research Institute-a contemporary Wisdom School for the study of the Tibetan?s teachings in the Alice A. Bailey books

Email: risagoodwill@gmail.com

Web journal: www.nightlightnews.com

Facebook: Risa?s Esoteric Astrology

Shortlink:

Source: http://desertstarweekly.com/2013/01/02/astrology/

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Tallest building in the world turns into giant fireworks show

The tallest building in the world seems to like to go big.

The Burj Khalifa, the soaring 2,716-foot tower in Dubai, started the new year in a massive sound and light show that turned the entire high-rise into a giant fireworks display.

A video, which captured the attention of the Web, shows an eye-popping performance that was accompanied by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra playing live on the Burj Steps. Fireworks, which were also set off elsewhere around Dubai, appear around and on top of the skyscraper.

The tower has already had its Hollywood moment for a supporting role in the movie Mission: Impossible ? Ghost Protocol. That's the building Tom Cruise scales from the outside.

Even if you couldn?t afford a $4,300 window-side table at the restaurant on the 122nd floor, aptly named Atmosphere, to catch the show up close, there was plenty to take in from the ground. Close to a million onlookers watched from the street what organizers called ?arguably the best display on the planet."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/tallest-building-world-turns-giant-firework-show-180418816.html

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Is NASA Lost in Space or Aimed at Asteroid?

A report this month from the National Research Council (NRC) has called NASA?s overall trajectory into question. It pointed out the national disagreement over the U.S. space agency?s goals and objectives, a disparity detrimental to the organization?s planning and budgeting efforts.

The 12-person blue-ribbon study group observed that the White House should take the lead in forging "a new consensus" on NASA's future in order to more closely align the agency?s budget and objectives and remove restrictions impeding NASA's efficient operations.

For one, the NRC study team took aim at a lofty directive to NASA by President Barack Obama when he spoke at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in April 2010:

"Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit. And by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the moon into deep space. So we?ll start?we?ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it." [How NASA Will Explore Asteroids (Gallery)]

Dubious destination

While the NRC study team did not undertake a technical assessment of the feasibility of an asteroid mission, it was informed by several briefers and sources that the current planned asteroid mission has significant shortcomings.

"A current stated interim goal of NASA's human spaceflight program is to visit an asteroid by 2025," said Albert Carnesale, chancellor emeritus and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who chaired the NRC committee that wrote the report.?

"However, we've seen limited evidence that this has been widely accepted as a compelling destination by NASA's own work force, by the nation as a whole, or by the international community. The lack of national consensus on NASA?s most publicly visible human spaceflight goal along with budget uncertainty has undermined the agency's ability to guide program planning and allocate funding." [NASA's 2013 Budget: What Will It Buy? (Video)]

The NRC report added that there appears to be continued enthusiasm for a mission to the moon but not for an asteroid mission, although there is both U.S. and international interest in robotic missions to asteroids.

But the view that a manned flight to a near-Earth object (NEO) is a dubious destination doesn?t settle well in some quarters.

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Bring the asteroid to the astronauts

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"I agree with the findings in the NRC report that NASA has a long way to go to fulfill the Obama goal of an asteroid mission by 2025," said former astronaut Tom Jones, author of the upcoming book, "Mission: Asteroid."

Jones told SPACE.com that NASA has not taken any major steps, starting with a search for near-Earth asteroid (NEA) targets, necessary to achieve that goal. The agency has so little money that it can?t afford its own asteroid search program, relying instead on a private asteroid-hunting telescope commissioned by the B612 Foundation. NASA's Orion deep-space vehicle and large booster programs won't fly with a crew until after 2020, given current budgets and schedules, he said.

"The best way for NASA to reach both its asteroid goal and to launch humans into translunarspace ? beyond the moon ? is to use a robot spacecraft to retrieve and return to a safe lunar orbit a small, 500-ton asteroid," Jones said. "Near the Earth-moon L2 point, astronauts and robot probes can explore and dissect this asteroid for science and commercial-scale resources ? water being the most valuable."

Bringing the asteroid to the astronauts, Jones said ? as described by the Keck Institute for Space Studies team in 2012 ? "could jump-start an entire industry between the Earth and the moon, using the energy and raw materials of space to enable everything from robotic probes to the planets, to eventual moon and Mars surface exploration," he said.

Foundation of self-sustainability

"U.S. strategic goals for human space activity need to be long-term. We should have continuous operational reach in near-Earth space, regular access to the surface of the moon, and regular access to Mars," said Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz. He is also the chair of NASA?s Small Bodies Assessment Group.

"All of this requires building space-based infrastructure on a foundation of self-sustainability. Accessing and utilizing resources available on near-Earth objects, particularly water for fuel, life-support and shielding, is the cornerstone and is critical to achieving any of these goals," Sykes told SPACE.com.

Sykes said it would make sense to send a piloted mission to oversee the automated emplacement and startup of a resource recovery facility on a near-Earth object.

"This could help guarantee the successful deployment of many untended facilities to other targets in the future by bringing what humans do best: dealing with the unexpected and improvisation," Sykes said. "In the meantime, great science could also be achieved, but this is strictly bonus?not a rationale."

This could be done on the timescale envisioned by President Obama, Sykes said, with some initiative and little additional cost, and far less total cost than any other option.

Live off the (space) land

Existing Discovery mission proposals are on the table to fly a Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer-class spacecraft that would identify many NEO resource targets in orbits that would afford low-energy, short-duration missions, Sykes said.

Additionally, resource recovery experiments could be undertaken on the International Space Station using meteorite samples and other analog materials, Sykes said.

"Apollo taught us that doing something once or even a few times is no guarantee that it will ever be done again. If we want a permanent American presence in space, we need to learn to live off the land," Sykes said.

"Near-Earth objects are our best opportunity to accomplish this cost-effectively," he concluded.

Asteroids within reach

There's no lack of asteroids to focus upon, said Lindley Johnson, NEO Observations Program Executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Johnson noted that he doesn?t speak for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) and not in a position to be able to say anything about the priorities for piloted/human spaceflight missions.?

"I just know HEOMD has a great challenge to be able to build the basic capabilities needed for future human spaceflight with the budget prospects they?ve been given," Johnson told SPACE.com.

"But we also know there are a lot of near-Earth asteroids out there between here and Mars and we still see them on the horizon for the future of exploration. Maybe somewhat beyond this next hill we must climb, but they are still out there for us to reach for," Johnson said.

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-lost-space-aimed-asteroid-182610811.html

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Social Customer Service: With Great Power Comes Great ...

Like it or not, social media has become a mainstream communications channel. What makes it so appealing for consumers is that it?s usually the shortest distance between them and a brand ? no account number, security password or wait time required to connect, and it?s especially gratifying for those wishing to vent their frustration.

Even while recognizing social media?s proliferation and its power to alter brand?s perception with a single post, most businesses have not moved to incorporate social media at an enterprise level. Forrester analyst Zach Hofer-Shall says that will change in 2013.

?In 2013, the trend will be about bringing social media into the business itself, not relying on a separate social media function,? notes Hofer-Shall.

Does that mean turf battles over who owns within the enterprise will subside?

?Most companies still tend to believe that social media should be owned by the marketing function, but in 2013, I think we?ll start to hear less talk about who owns it and more about how everyone should be using it,? says Hofer-Shall. It made sense for marketers to take the early reins on social CRM because they have outbound training and skills in pushing out messaging, but to keep companies competitive, customer service teams must also learn social skills.

A New Shared Social Responsibility?
Given the high-profile nature of social communications, struggles over social CRM ownership aren?t particularly surprising. Any time a customer service issue gets aired in the public domain, it immediately becomes a marketing issue, too. ?Marketing can?t respond to every tweet or monitor and maintain conversations with every customer,? Hofer-Shall says. ?To work, social CRM initiatives need the kind of workflows, business processes, and tools that customer support teams have been using for years.? Service organizations will depend on this coalescence and scalability as use of social media for service grows.

?Departments essentially use the same processes ? they monitor feeds and conversations, aggregate content, analyze it to determine relevance and importance, and take action based on their core business function,? says Hofer-Shall. Customer service wants analyzed, aggregated data to develop better support processes, improve agent and self-service knowledge content, and respond to social messages with information or solutions. Meanwhile, PR wants to find out when there?s a crisis so they can manage it. Marketing wants to see where influencers are so they can reach out and track the spread of content, and sales teams want to identify sales leads.

While many organizations expect social CRM to increase self-service through crowd-sourcing and community development, social media will still primarily be used in 2013 as a way to seek assisted service. ?In the past, service organizations had the luxury of responding to a query in, say, 24 hours, but that?s no longer acceptable. Now they need to respond very quickly to what the market is looking for, regardless of channel, and that?s forcing them to rethink their strategies,? says Albert Pang, President of Apps Run the World.

?Companies that rely on strong service delivery should make themselves as transparent as possible so customers can be spontaneous in their communications. It?s about delivering the most relevant information to constituents in a seamless way, and not making them jump through hoops,? says Pang. 2013: the year all departments share the responsibility of social media? We?ll see?

Follow the Trends
Read more social customer service predictions, and find out the four additional customer service trends that companies can?t ignore in Parature?s most popular white paper of the year, Service Spotlight: What to Look For in 2013. Click here to access.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/social-customer-service-with-great-power-comes-great-responsibility-now-who-wants-it-0365241

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Graying baby boomers offer market opportunity | BoomerCafe - the ...

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With millions of baby boomers reaching retirement age, fears are mounting of the economic impact if they follow the pattern of previous generations by curbing spending and draining Social Security and Medicare benefits, even though boomers have funded those programs for decades.

The 78 million boomers ? born from 1946 to 1964 ? have always broken the mold in terms of setting trends, and some investors and business and community leaders see their retirement as no different. They see an unprecedented, multibillion-dollar opportunity to offer new products and services to an active demographic group that?s expected to live longer than previous generations.

Retirement community in Florida.

The Census Bureau projects that Americans 65 and older will make up 19 percent of the population by 2030.

Community and business leaders in places such as the coastal towns of Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head and Bluffton, S.C., are looking to the growing retirement community to help rekindle local economies. They?re rethinking sporting and shopping developments, as well as art centers, to attract on-the-go retirees looking for an array of easily accessible activities.

On the labor front, the health care industry is the most obvious benefactor of a longer-living active community. Demand for home health aides is expected to grow 70 percent in the next decade, according to the Department of Labor.

Demand also will be high in less obvious fields, such as for architects, who will be called on to build senior-friendly communities; financial advisers to help boomers plan their retirements; recreation workers, who will lead boomer-tailored excursions; and job trainers, who will teach the new workers called on to replace retirees.

?It?s only in Washington that 100 million people are viewed as an unaffordable cost and financial burden,? said Jody Holtzman, a senior vice president at AARP. ?In the private sector, 100 million people are called a market and an opportunity.?

Concern about a drain on entitlements from retiring baby boomers has increased as talks intensify over avoiding the fiscal cliff. Boomers have been depicted as the elephant in the room. The Congressional Budget Office warned in June of a shortfall for entitlement programs, as aging boomers would consume a ?significant and sustained? share of benefits from Social Security, Medicare and long-term-care services financed by Medicaid, the health care program for the poor.

Those projections fail to take into account that boomers are expected to work longer and they?ve never followed in the footsteps of previous generations, said Matt Thornhill, an author of ?Boomer Consumer,? a book that examines marketing to the baby boomer generation.

?We became the generation of consumption and personal gratification,? Thornhill said. ?Boomers are not going to spend at all like the prior generations did at 65. They?re going to spend at boomer levels. And there?s millions more of them.?
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Tags: baby boomers, Exercise & Sports, Featured, retirement, retirement communities

Category: Baby Boomers

Source: http://www.boomercafe.com/graying-baby-boomers-offer-market-opportunity/

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Minimum wage gap grows wider between states

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) ? With a bump in the Washington state minimum wage to $9.19 an hour, high school student Miranda Olson will edge closer to her goal of buying the black Volkswagen Beetle she's been researching online.

Olson is only able to pick up part-time hours working at a cafe after classes and on weekends. But the extra pennies she'll earn in 2013 will add up over the coming weeks and months.

"It's not much, but it's something," said Olson, 16, who works at Wagner's European Bakery and Cafe in Olympia. "Every bit helps."

Many workers around the country won't be as lucky as residents of Washington state, which is raising its minimum wage Tuesday by 15 cents an hour even though it already has the highest state baseline in the country.

Minimum-wage workers in Idaho will make nearly $2 an hour less in 2013 than their counterparts living just one state to the west.

Automatic increases designed to compensate for inflation have steadily pushed up wages in some states, even through the recession, expanding the pay gap between areas that make annual adjustments and those that don't. Of the 10 states that will increase the minimum wage Tuesday, nine did so automatically to adjust for inflation.

Rhode Island lawmakers approved that state's wage increase in the past year.

Paul Sonn, legal co-director at the National Employment Law Project, said he hopes more states will start looking at automatic adjustments as the economy recovers. He said the model ? which Washington state adopted in 1998 ? helps avoid sudden jolts as states try to catch up with each other.

"We think there's a case that it's better for everyone, including the business community, to have predictable, regular, small increases every year," Sonn said.

The automatic adjustments aren't much. Washington's bump will mean those who work 40-hour weeks will earn an extra $6 a week ? enough for a couple lattes ? or about $300 a year.

Hundreds of thousands of workers are expected to get a pay increase with the wage adjustments that begin New Year's Day. Along with Washington and Rhode Island, the changes will occur in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oregon and Vermont.

Among the nine states with automatic adjustments, the average minimum wage is $8.12 an hour, up from a little under $8. States that do not have automatic changes operate with an average minimum wage of about $7.40 ? a difference of about $1,500 a year for a full-time worker.

Many states, including Idaho, follow the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, either because they've tied their minimum wage to that threshold or because the state-enacted minimum is lower than that.

San Francisco has set the highest local minimum wage and will have workers paid at least $10.55 an hour in 2013.

Groups such as the National Restaurant Association oppose further increases in federal or state minimum wages, arguing that it's an ineffective way to reduce poverty and forces business owners to cut hours, raise prices or lay off workers.

At Tom's 1st Avenue Bento, a downtown Portland lunch spot, owner Tom Hume said he boosted pay for minimum-wage workers before the end of the year in order to get ahead of the game. He also raised prices on one-third of his menu items by 25 cents.

Natasha Baker, 22, who works at Hume's restaurant in Portland, recently moved back in with her mother but hopes to move to another apartment in January. She said the extra $5 or $6 she's earning every week with the salary boost is OK but won't make a huge difference.

"I don't usually look at what I get paid," she said. "I'm more directed on what's being taken out, which is more discouraging than anything."

In Montpelier, Vt., restaurant owner Irene Facciolo said she supported the 14-cents-an-hour increase in the minimum wage for her employees. She said the move from $8.46 to $8.60 an hour wasn't much.

"We don't have a problem with it at all," Facciolo said.

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AP Writers Steven Dubois in Portland, Ore., and Dave Gram in Montpelier, Vt., contributed to this report. AP Writer Mike Baker can be reached on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/HiPpEV

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/minimum-wage-gap-grows-wider-between-states-200950309--finance.html

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Smartphone Camera Features That Need to Appear In 2013

Cameras in cell phones have come a mighty long way in the past few years, from the pixelated shit-vision of yore to the current breed that have replaced most of our compact digicams. But the sense of wonder is fading, and we need some new features. Who's gonna step up? More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ZN3O9ER7crs/smartphone-camera-features-that-need-to-appear-in-2013

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