John and Susan Townley's AstroCocktail

Last December, our “Dire Predictions 2006” pinned the meters, as an unexpected flood came to find out what was expected. This year’s harvest of frightening futures is even more outlandish than the last, as reality has made future-casters stretch the envelope just to surpass the current news. Since chaos, madness, and a world spinning into reckless destruction have become dinnertime TV, the urge to descry something even more compelling has propelled predictions to new levels of intensity. Almost every linked end-of-the-world forecast below has a harvest of other links, ad infinitum, so even if you live in a parallel universe, it’s likely that one’s about to end, too. The cornucopia of coming catastrophes falls into four rough categories:

Old Themes For The New Age. Armageddon is still definitely scheduled for 2007, in the Middle East of course, though that just seems so yesterday – or, in real terms, today, because it appears to be already happening. But despite some traditional end-of-the-worlders getting a thumpin’ at the ballot box, there are still plenty of Biblically-proportioned endings on the table…

New Themes From The Old Age. But maybe that’s also why someone so traditional as Mel Gibson has brought us not an Easter update but Apocalypto instead. The Mayans predicted the end of the world for 2012, but they managed it for themselves centuries earlier. For them, it’s come and gone, so maybe they know something we don’t. But then, it’s so hip to be already history there's a gamesite about it...

Deadly Databases. Since the end of the world is more popular than ever, it gets more analysis than ever. From ticking doomsday clocks to laying endgame bets, a good dose of discussion may throw light (or darkness, as may be) on the matter. You needn’t consult fringe fortunetellers, either, when hard science is chock full of doom, from killer asteroids to the Sixth Great Extinction… (that’s us!)…

Unique Perspectives. There are still individual entrepreneurs who, like Nostradamus, seek to trump them all. Why reduce yourself to simple surveys, traditional terrors, or fallible fads when you can tune into personal disaster dreams, perhaps vote for your favorite, or even take charge and publish your own revelation…

On November 23^rd, Jupiter moved into Sagittarius, as it does once every twelve years. What does it promise this time around? It’s hard upon a period of huge institutional and political deception both internationally and domestically (our current fixed Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune T-cross), similar to its 1936 visit to Sagittarius during the Berlin Olympics, when Axis propaganda declarations obfuscated what was obvious to many: a world about to come apart at the seams. While the athletes peacefully competed in Berlin, the machines of war were already in motion around the world, and the “good guys” were paralyzed by propaganda, confounded by confusion and indecision.

If there’s anything good to say about the comparison, it is that the current T-square will have just finished and not remain in operation as it was in 1936, although the Saturn-Neptune opposition still remains until well into summer. What Pluto will portend with its subsequent change of sign with Jupiter is another story, the telling beginning of the “final days” of Saturn in opposition to just about everything. One thing we can promise is, it will be Olympic in scope. For the complete story, see our newsletter feature: The Penultimate Year…

Otherwise, November finds its main sky news in the shift from a five-planet stellium in Scorpio to six in Sagittarius by mid-December, starting with Venus making its move as Mercury goes direct on the 17th, followed by Sun and Jupiter on the 22nd and 23rd. It will seem like everything has come out into the open, with a month of election-time secrets suddenly seeing daylight…

Hello Halloween! -- Skeletons and vampires are everywhere – and the Sun is like a great pumpkin erupting with flares and raining down magnetic storms from the sky. This year, it’s a St. Vitus’ dance leading up to American elections, so everyone’s trembling in costume, while naked reality is an even more ghoulish affair. Astrologically, a winter sky pattern is gathering that will hang over the earth like a great scythe, as reflected forces here on earth plot mayhem. Our newsletter readers already know this (they signed up free to learn in advance!).

But on the surface, and below, it’s going to be a strangely seductive October. The false-hearted Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune fixed T-Cross hangs in all month, with multiple sides competing to tell the biggest, most outrageous lies, so don’t believe the deadly let’s-pretend you hear – let what you see speak for itself. But third and fourth weeks’ skies also sponsor a ten-day ménage-a-trois of Venus, Mars, and the Sun in tight embrace across early Scorpio, so if you don’t like what’s happening in the headlines, just rip off the covers for the real skinny…in the end (the 28^th), Mercury goes retro, Jupiter flees toward Sagittarius, and counterfeit alliances crumble with lots of truthy denials…it just never happened, did it? That’s what they’ll claim, come the revolution…

Now watch the leaves. They always tell the story. Each week as they turn presages a corresponding, sequential month of winter: the brighter, the more severe…

As many astrologers have already been quick to point out, this fall’s skies are highlighted by a T-cross of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune, which gets filled out into a grand cross by the Moon on 9/11 (!), 10/9, and 11/6 (with Mercury retro), making those particularly tension-filled and anxiety-ridden autumn moments. The general stress is about trying to get new ideas and projects off the ground while facing blizzards of confusion, deceit, and other obstacles thrown into the mix mainly by those who’ve got trying to prevent those who haven’t got from getting theirs. If it weren’t so real, it would have all the Neptune mystery qualities of a film noir thriller: Saturn plots to stay in power while the resistance gathers and his dubious allies begin to desert him in the fray. Lots more about that in our next newsletter…

This month the changing skyscape features the seasonal pair of eclipses, this time a lunar eclipse (full Moon, 9/7) at 15 Virgo-Pisces featuring ever-surprising Uranus, followed by a solar eclipse (new Moon, 9/22) at 29 Virgo, intensifying events in general. The second is the most intense, being right on the equinox, flippy indeed. So, especially if you’ve got anything in those signs and around those degrees, expect some sudden turns of fortune. If you’re relatively stable, it may rock your boat, but if you’re hurting, it can provide welcome new directions. In the two weeks in between the two, watch out for choppy, unpredictable weather for everybody. Mars links them both (its degree in the first is the degree of the second), so it’s all about action, taking or receiving. Our advice: hit the ground running this month to get ahead of the pack, and to avoid getting run over…

After more than a month of war in Lebanon, where we correctly forecasted an untrammeled Israel with a faulty plan, we can turn to the skies, literally, for some comic relief. After much debate, the International Astronomical Union proposed that Pluto remain a planet (to the relief of astrologers and schoolkids alike), that the asteroid Ceres get promoted to planetary status, and that Pluto’s moon Charon get to be a planet, too. And, best of all, the newly-discovered far-off rock nicknamed Xena would be accepted into the club to make a total of twelve. Everything else roaming the solar system would be, for the moment, just something else. Not for long, however, as more asteroids and newly-discovered rocky space travelers would likely be upgraded, providing they are of certain size and pretty much spherical. That thought was too horrifying for many astronomers to swallow, so after enormous in-fighting and complaints from barely ancillary sciences like terrestrial geology (who claim a lock on the term "pluton"), finally the IAU voted to demote Pluto to a class of "dwarf planets" and crown it king of the trans-Neptune part of that division, called "plutonians." Meanwhile, the number of "classical planets" has shrunk to eight, but the "dwarf planets" now number four, soon to be lots more...what's up there, really?...IAU final resolution details here...

The whole thing may sound more than a little PC, and lots of astronomers will still complain about one detail or another that doesn’t suit their personal definitions or the group they’d have liked to gain admission to this high-status orbiting country club. It’s all about criteria, and scientists have lots of them. Astrologers, however, are keeping fairly quiet on the subject, as criteria is something dreadfully lacking in their area. There is really no agreement on a physical basis for astrology, and thus no criteria to go by. Astrologers use all kinds of space objects -- from planets to asteroids to comets to galaxies to imaginary points -- without much consensus, and since the 1970s the number has rocketed skyward. Western astrologers seem inclusively eager to accept anything new, which helps to explain practically everything, while Vedic practitioners still adamantly stop with Saturn but have dizzying sets of rules to achieve similar complexity and, hopefully, results. But there is no accepted bottom line on exactly how any of it works or why.

It would be nice if astrologers would attempt to apply something approximating astronomy’s rigor to their art, but it doesn’t seem likely at the moment. Nobody’s science budget has a slot for exploring and refining the ancient wisdom. But that doesn’t mean it won’t come – though our prediction is that it will be private industry that actually does it. Like, if this stuff really works, why aren’t you rich? That question may be answered sooner than you think…

Late Pluto Update: This story just won't go away. The chord is resounding more deeply in society than anyone in journalism or astrology had imagined. We've been condensing our story descriptions to cover as many links as possible -- there are over seven dozen so far, below -- and we'll stay on it as long as it's happening...

The stations of Jupiter (direct) and Mercury (retrograde) have ushered in a terrible attack in Mumbai followed by an even more overwhelming disaster beginning in Lebanon. We expected sudden reverses all over the place, but this is rolling overkill. As the grand trines of spring give off their last gentle flicker with the Venus-Jupiter-Uranus water triangle at month’s end, a grinding and deceitful Saturn-Jupiter-Neptune T-cross slides into place for the coming fall feature, occasionally flaring into a full grand cross. There are still some good personal opportunities to seize upon, especially after Mercury goes direct after July 28^th, so if you’ve got something going, get it nailed down soon.

But why this sudden and deliberate human catastrophe in the Mideast? And why does the usually-engaged U.S.A. now choose to look on like a confused, inoperative bystander? It’s a story of overarching trends all coming together to make a world giant ever more impotent and fierce small fry fruitlessly pretend they’re not. From the track record of the Arab-Israeli wars to the evolution of 1776, there’s a story of Mars affliction that’s turning the war-god’s sometimes-sturdy spear into a lethally flailing hose, wreaking wanton destruction. It is powerlessness in the ascendancy, where the strong fight the weak and both lose, while heaven looks on. The Poles have a perfect phrase for it, ni chuja, which we won’t elaborate on here. But for a full explanation of this and all kinds of trouble in process you should know about, go immediately to our complete article here…

We have had some complaints that this golden grand trine season just isn’t coming up to snuff, not as profitable as previously promised in these pages. True, it has seemed frustratingly quiet at times, but with lots of promising ripples in the water – like there are big fish waiting to strike, but the lines are still slack. Part of that’s due to some ornery T-squares and grand crosses that have been fading in and out, and part of it because Jupiter has been retrograde, and that makes it difficult to get a big liftoff.

But we’re hoping you’ve been putting in your oar everywhere possible, looking for involvement and not for an instant payoff, patiently tending your lines. That’s because as Jupiter goes direct on July 6^th, just before that giant planet’s huge storms converge, Mercury goes retrograde – so if you aren’t already firmly part of the action, you’ll have to scramble to reposition yourself. Under any circumstances, you’ll have to make fast choices as to which line has hooked the big one and which ones to cut away. From then on, it’s all about firming up on the fly what you’ve already got on the line. As Jupiter takes off, Mercury backs off, with a total reversal of field, frantic reworking of your position while in accelerating motion.

The time to fish or cut bait is just about past. The furious reeling and playing the catch is about to begin, so plant your feet, dig in your heels, and get ready to haul in that monster just now lurking beneath your boat, toying with your hook…

Mid-month update: that monster beneath the boat erupted right on time, first in Mumbai and now Lebanon, whose lines are literally being cut away as we write. We'll have a newsletter covering these and other dire developments out soon...give a prayer for all concerned...

One of the unexpected side effects of this glorious June period of astro-opportunity -- grand trine upon grand trine, sprinkled with the occasional challenge of a brief T-cross or grand cross -- is indecision and paralysis. There are so many different roads to choose, and to take one seems like you have to abandon all the others. The first reaction may be to just stand dumbstruck and let everything pass you by. That's particularly easy on lots of trines which are themselves relaxed and easy. Obviously that's the wrong choice. If you don't use it, you'll lose it -- times like these don't arrive on your doorstep every day.

But it's not like everyone is dropping wealth and power on you and you're ignoring it, either. On the face of things, nothing has changed, except some of the really fouled-up pressures of the fall. What is at your doorstep is not a harvest, but a planting time. You won't get immediately rich, loved, or successful on the spot from what's happening now, but if you pick up on what's around at the moment, the rest will take care of itself.

You can't do everything -- but at least you can start to. That means don't pick and choose, take a bit of everything as if it were your life choice. You can eliminate the least promising down the line, burn bridges later if you have to, but right now act as if you can and will do any and all of it.

The planets are splattered all across the sky like a miniature version of the Big Bang. The wheel is turning, so hop on and grab for the brass ring -- there are lots of them. Don't let conflicting options drive you crazy. Now is not the time to hesitate or make any single choice -- for the moment, it's time to choose them all...

-- Wine, Women, and Immigration...

As "come-here" Latinos demonstrate their patriotism with another set of warlike words to "The Star Spangled Banner" in Spanish, and "from-here" Anglos show their shock at the language leap, everyone seems to have forgotten that this rollicking American national anthem is itself an oh-so-Taurus immigrant drinking song, all about wine, women, and song. It began its days as the anthem for 1770s London's best and booziest, the scions of the Anacreontic Society, followers of the ancient Greek patron saint of wine and womanizing (above). Don't believe it? Take a look and listen here. These people knew how to party like there was no tomorrow, and their Anglo then-immigrant kids in America took up the toast, never mind the natives.

We only bring this up because this month has so many good aspects floating around, from multiple grand trines to mystic rectangles that there hasn't been a better time to party and take advantage of the surrounding opportunities, no matter what the price of gas. We were trying to think of something dire and serious to predict, like natural disasters or the fall of governments, but just couldn't come up with anything more exciting. Of course, those may also be in the wind, but if they are, they will have some unexpected good outcome despite all. And, come autumn, it will be back to some serious struggles as the planets launch the first of two final all-out winter campaigns against Saturn and the powers that be.

So, what do you do when the sun is shining and you think all Hell is about to break loose over the horizon? Ask Anacreon, and then hum along, in any language...

As promised, the real foreign shore, beyond the chimera, has arrived. We are now out of the crazy Mercury-retro, double-eclipse passage and firmly into the promised land of grand trine upon grand trine. Opportunity will be knocking and doors will be opening in a cascading movement that continues on through the late summer. Serial and overlapping grand fire, air, and water trines run amok in the sky in a pattern that rivals in its new splendor the misery of our recent fall and winter grand-cross discontent. Like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon above, one flourishing garden and fountain feeds two more, and each of them another two, and so on like a blooming chain reaction.

A Foreign Shore...

If what you’re seeing ahead of you doesn’t look like familiar landfall, it isn’t. In fact, it may not even be there at all. As we traverse the space between a troublesome, grand cross-beset fall/winter and a grand trine-enabled spring/summer of opportunity (see The Trines Of Spring), there are a lot of confusing mirages on all sides of us. Retro Jupiter squares Neptune, forming daily and monthly T-crosses, making new directions elusive and sometimes illusory, aggravated by unexpected turnarounds between eclipses (lunar on 3/14 in Virgo/Pisces, solar on 3/29 in Aries). But it’s all a matter of thinking it through, because retro Mercury (March 2nd-25th, in Pisces) is trine that Scorpio Jupiter, so second thoughts are going to be the ones that pay off. That aspect lingers into April and the beginning of grand trine season, so once you’ve double-checked your plans, you’ll be ready to roll into a fast-paced growth period.

Although it may start to seem easy, remember that you’re still in very uncertain waters, and what’s outside the window looks way better than what’s on the radar screen. There are two more winters of discontent to weather before the world at large pulls itself together into a consistent direction. For further enlightenment on that dark hint, subscribe to our free newsletter – its latest issue on that big picture just earned it AstroPro’s Website Of The Week, all on its own. That’s our second award from astrologer Richard Nolle’s prestigious site inside a year, a first-ever. The subject is “Which Side Are You On?” – when the dice start to roll, you’d better be sure you’re bet is on the right number.

Breaking Through

Goodbye Grand Fixed Cross! The lingering alignment of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune that in several variations hung on from mid-fall until mid-January, leaving havoc in its wake, has finally passed. It was the final touch of an unforgettably eventful year, when dire astrological predictions coming true began to look like everyday fare. Now, thankfully, we're headed for an unusually promising period of grand trines -- something subscribers to our latest free AstroCocktail Newsletter already knew a month ago. When that time arrives, be ready to take advantage and make hay while the sun shines.

In the meantime, we're in a transition that feels like breaking out of a winter ice pack -- it will still be stop-and-go for a while, but the resistance gives way and the open seas of opportunity beckon ahead. In the first week of February, Venus turns direct and with it the ability to address your needs -- and, Mars passes out of its autumn retro shadow, so what's been put on hold moves to the front burner. Further, Mars is beginning to shut down the enduring Saturn "bucket" sky pattern that has blocked progress for so long. It's only a window until the summer passes, but a promising one. And by the time that pattern finally dies in 2008, we'll be past the longest period of celestial obstruction since the Vietnam War years. Who has been part of that historical blockade (and is soon to be history), and where is the bandwagon of the future taking on passengers -- and at what price? That's the subject of our next month's newsletter, so better sign up!

Grand Fixed Cross. Often when there’s a brief grand cross in the sky (four planets all at right angles, making a great X) astrologers make a big deal of it, predicting momentous changes in human consciousness and the like. This last season we’ve had so many it was hard to count, and they showed their true faces: tangled frustration, inability to function and cure urgent problems, smoldering rage mixed with sorrow and helplessness. Storms in America, earthquakes in Pakistan, riots and fires in France – the reflections below of a repeating grand cross in fixed signs Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius, compounded by Mars, and briefly Mercury, retrograde. Like being stuck in the mud, with the engine racing and the wheels spinning.

Now that the season has changed, so has the feel of the situation. The cross continues at greater length in early January with Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune making a last, slow tangle -- with the Moon punctuating it right after New Year, then January 8th, and finally mid-month, the 11th such configuration since the beginning of November, most with Saturn commanding half the sky like a hard iron bucket handle. The obstructed energy of Mars is thankfully passing, but Venus falls backwards throughout January in chilly Aquarius and Capricorn. So, everything takes on an appropriately wintry texture. Passions cool, and though it’s good for fine-tuning your image or your economics, living better with less, don’t go risk a total makeover. The news in the press will again be about the general inability to act in emergencies, to get things done, to see through past lies and illusion, this time with a desperately frozen edge – all of which is simply the big picture projected by what’s going on in our individual lives.

Leonids To Sparkle (Bangor Daily News) – The Leonid meteor shower on the 17th will dazzle near the dark of the moon, plus other planet views for the month…

Mysteries Of Love (Seattle Times) – In India, they do it by the stars…among other tidbits...

Coup Leader Talks (Monsters And Critics) – The “ET” Thai-Burmese astrologer connection is revealed in harrowing tales by general who headed overthrow, in new book…

The Star Option (KeepMeCurrent.com) – Maine starcaster offers alternatives as political candidate on election day...

Mercury Transit Live (Exploratorium) – The transit of Mercury will be broadcast in real time from Kitt Peak November 8…one of only 14 this century, all fall within several days of 8 May and 10 November during its retrograde inferior conjunction…

Astro-TV (eMediaWire) – The UK’s “Astrology Internet TV,” featuring Brit astro-boffin Russell Grant and guests, launches at 14:15 on Oct. 31, with retro Mercury, a VOC Moon, 28+ Capricorn Asc. We're told Grant actually chose this chart...

Astrology Or Astronomy? (Canada.com) – Trouble is, people can’t tell the difference. Like Hollywood’s take on rocker and scholar Queen guitarist’s new book, which is actually about astronomy and the (nice sound/graphics here) big bang…

AstroTree (AstroTree.com) – A special online community network for pro astrologers and fans alike has just launched. It’s a chance to interact with the best in the business, now lifting off, so sign up on the ground floor…

Astrologers’ Plot (Hotair.com) – Skycasters are conspiring to overthrow our rightful Republican government this election, using Google, claim neocons. Something dark and spooky called the astrologers’ club…

Charting The Stars (Lawrence Journal-World) – Doing celebrity horoscopes, what an original concept. But it’s news in Kansas, so that’s news…

Domo Aregato Astrology (Japan Times) – His middle name is Percival, he studied at the Joseph Campbell Foundation, his thesis on shamanistic Okinawa…

“New Age” Is Old (News Blaze) – After all, astrology was integral to founding Christianity and later, Islam, says Britain’s “psychic agony uncle”…

Transit Of Mercury (NASA) – The perfect conjunction, when Mercury is actually outlined against the Sun’s face, will happen on November 8^th…a rarity, only about a dozen per century…watch what you say that day...

Signs Of Music (Radio Netherlands) – Is Bach’s Prelude in C Major the ultimate Virgo piece? Read, listen, decide…composer/pianist Gary Goldschneider holds forth on that, lots more…

Fake Fortunes (Ohmy News) – Just because you’re in Kathmandu doesn’t mean you’re in touch…

Turncoat Astrologer (Christian Post) – Former starcaster is warning kids against his earlier tendencies…

A Growing Dwarf (Daily Southtown) – Since the demotion debacle, Pluto is more popular than ever…

The Cricket Astrologer Portal (PR.com) – OK, you didn’t know there was one, did you? We’re not sure there is, from looking at it twice...

Bollywood Nostradamus (Newindpress) – Whether it’s astrology or tarot, the Subcontinent’s film industry won’t make a decision without him…

The Demise Of The GOP (Astrodynamics) – Why so many scandals? Why has the Republican House become Pandora’s Box? Maybe it’s Eris in Aries…

The ‘Zona Zone (ASStarnet) – L.A. astrologer transplanted to Tuscon finds plenty of charts waiting to be cast…

Junta Seizes Astrologer (DVB News) – Military dictators in Burma imprison famed starcaster for predicting end of brutal regime, itself notorious for relying upon astrology…

Osama’s Horoscope (Rediff) – Tales of a fortune-telling undercover operative, and what’s happening now…Osama chooses his dates carefully…

Saudis Just Say No (Reuters) – Powerful clerics warn media that reading the stars is “un-Islamic”...

Nuke Blast Imminent (Daily Telegraph) – North Korea is about to detonate an atomic bomb, claim Hong Kong astrologers...well, that one just came true only two days after we posted it...

Planetary Politicos (North Brunswick Sentinel) – Mayor and three councilmen born days apart…a coincidence?…chart details outlined by local starcaster…

Desperate Housewives (Riverfront Times) – On an astrologer’s doubtful advice (try casting the chart for the date mentioned, you’ll see), these women went nuts, wound up in court…

Back In The Sky (Northwest Arkansas News) – Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite “The Planets” is back in orbit thanks to Pluto fracas…

Czech Out The Stars (Belfast Telegraph) – Prague used to be chock-a-block with astrologers, and it’s still got plenty of evidence of it…makes you want to go visit…

Of Sea And Sky (Minivan News) – Maldive Islands president is astrologer, scholar, voice of nature all combinded…

Rumsfeld And The Goddess Of Discord (Astrodynamics) – Oh, we do love Lynn Hayes’s takes on people in the news…and a spin on Xena-turned-Eris, included…

Hired On A Horoscope (Mumbai Mirror) – Producers look at the birth data first, before putting a new star on the screen...but they deny it...

It Was All About The Signs (Journal-Register) – From The Police Blotter: outgoing Chicagoan who could guess your sign, loved astrology, found strangled…where it is just one of those common, endearing details of life…

Wedding Crunch (Times Of India) – Not many auspicious times to wed this season means 32,000 will be crowded into a few fortunate days…chaos is forecast…

Strange Moonlight (NASA) – They say it’s Harvest Moon, we’d say it’s a Hunter’s Moon (in October, in Aries), but it’s most peculiar in ways you never thought, a sight to behold…

Storm On Uranus (Hubble News) – The Hubble telescope has spotted a huge storm on Uranus, worth keeping an eye on…the last new storm on Jupiter marked the Lebanese war…

Pluto Is A Planet (Town Online) – That’s what this couple says, so does their grassroots website of that name www.plutoisaplanet.org -- and they’ve got plans…

Stars In The Arena (Inside Bay Area) – Andre Mallis is astrologer to the stars…sports stars, that is, especially bats and balls. Says New York City transplant, moved to Berkeley, “I'm like a cosmic umpire. I get 80 percent of my calls right…"

Eclipse On Equinox (Times Of India) – This has been an especially auspicious New Moon, according to Indian tradition, reports Lucknow Univ. professor…

Number Nine…(Nation Multimedia) – Whatever role the mysterious astrologer “ET” played in bloodless coup, lucky nine made it fine…but another astrologer says it might cause bleeding…

Defile Scandal A Plot (Times Of India) – India’s huge temple ruckus, involving major Bollywood actress, may have been an astrologer’s scheme all along, say cops…

Balmy Or Shivery? (Chronicle Herald) – Depends where you’ll be this winter, says yearly astro-forecast in The Farmers’ Almanac. In Canada, expect balmy, but down in the lower 48, lots colder…

He’ll Be Back (The Age) – Now we know what Thaksin’s astrologer is telling him…not to worry, he’ll be back, next year…

After The Coup (Bangkok Post) – Some Thai astrologers are officially happy to see star-crossed PM out and gone and forecast better days, but others are afraid to talk…nobody know what his astrologer is telling him…

The Mug On Mars (ESA) – The supposedly alien-constructed “Face On Mars” has a creepy-crawly on it…and it’s us…

In The Shadow Of The Sun (NASA) – The whole planetary shebang is wrapped up in the Sun’s protective blanket…only now are we just peeking outside…

Thaksin Tipoff (World Politics Swatch) – Our favorite star-crazed prime minister heeded eclipse warning from mysterious Burmese astrologer “ET” and beat it for New York one step ahead of the tanks…

“Guest Star” Was Supernova (China Post) – Ancient astrological annals charted what now appears to have been the oldest recorded cosmic mega-burst at what is currently about 0 degrees Sagittarius…on Dec. 7, 185 AD…

Maine Planets Expand (University Times) – Instead of pulling Pluto, Maine roadside solar system model will add others, perhaps stretching it the entire length of the state…