News Watch

Scott Brown spells trouble for Obama

(Posted January 25, 2010)  The days of wine and roses appeared to come to an end for Barack Obama last week as the Democrats super-majority got swept away by the election of Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts in a special Senate election to fill the seat of the late Ted Kennedy. As a result of this stunning defeat, the Democrats have lost their super-majority of 60 seats that had given then extra leeway to pass the more contentious legislation in their program. Now there is a growing realization that much of Obama's ambitious agenda for health care and economic reform may go by the boards as greater compromise with the GOP will be sought.  Read more...

 

Conan O'Brien leaves The Tonight Show

(Posted January 21, 2010)  Conan O'Brien is off to a bad start in 2010.  The newly-minted host of NBC's The Tonight Show has seen rumours of a late night shuffle grow over the past two weeks to a point where he is on the verge of relinquishing the coveted host's chair to the long-running late night talk show back to his predecessor, Jay Leno.  The dispute between Conan, Leno and NBC has been public and acrimonious and has left the television audience forced to choose sides between supporting the younger, hipper O'Brien and the more established and mainstream Leno.   While Leno will likely garner better ratings, at the moment most people believe that Conan has been the victim here.  It is a very unfortunate development for Conan in what has been a long and successful career that began in television writing, through 16 years of hosting the popular The Late Show and now his aborted 7-month stint at the helm of prestigious Tonight Show.  A quick glimpse at his horoscope shows the source of his woes.   Read more...

Eathquake in Haiti

(Posted January 13, 2010)  As a possible indication of what kind of year it will be, all that bad karma for 2010 we saw in the New Year's chart didn't take very long to manifest.  Not even two weeks into the New Year, a powerful earthquake has devastated the small island nation of Haiti.  On January 12, 2010 at 4.53 p.m EST, a huge earthquake measuring 7.0 struck just 10 miles from the capital Port-au-Prince.  Early reports suggest there has been widespread destruction and countless thousands of deaths as the impoverished country now struggles with the grim task of recovery and rebuilding.

The horoscope of the earthquake shows considerable affliction, although the aspects and orbs with angles are not as close as one might expect for a event of this magnitude. It is perhaps no coincidence that the quake occurred just three days before a Solar Eclipse and just one day before Saturn, the planet of  loss, turned retrograde.  Read more...


Venus opposes Saturn as Mars stations

(Updated March 6, 2010)  Stocks jumped higher last week as positive US employment numbers convinced more investors that the recovery could actually be real.  Stocks in New York were 3% higher with the Dow closing at 10,566 and the S&P at 1138.  It was much the same story in Mumbai as Sensex added 3% to close at 16,994 while the Nifty finished at 5088 as investors basked in the afterglow of the union budget.   This bullish outcome was largely in keeping with expections as the midweek Venus-Uranus conjunction kept the bears at bay and fueled enough optimism to take prices to within a few percent of their January highs.  Interestingly, once Venus began separating from Uranus, the post-budget rally in Mumbai stalled while New York enjoyed more gains on Friday.       Read more...

Tiger Woods' Troubles

(Posted December 17, 2009)  The bigger they are, the harder they fall.  Tiger Woods, at once the best golfer and richest athlete of all time, has seen his career and reputation dissolve over a period of just three short weeks as a parade of young women (thirteen at last count) have come forward with sordid tales of Tiger's sexual dalliances.  The details of Tiger Woods amorous escapades have revealed a whole other side to the man and have laid waste to his carefully cultivated All-American family man image.  What started as a strange late night car accident near his home in Orlando, Florida on November 27 has mushroomed into a career and image killer of massive proportions.  Not only has Tiger Woods gone on indefinite leave from the golf tour, but his many corporate sponsors are now abandoning him as his clean-cut image takes a beating with each new sexual revelation.  For an athlete who stands to earn $100 million in advertising endorsements in 2009, this affair is a considerable blow.  And now there are reports that he has moved out of his house in Orlando and his wife Elin Nordegren is planning to divorce him.    Read more...

 




Al Gore sideswiped by Climategate

(Posted December 13, 2009)  Sometimes being the leading light of the most important environmental movements of our time isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Just ask Al Gore.  The former US Vice-President has become the face of the global warming movement over the past ten years through his award-winning documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth".   According to the anthropogenic (i.e. human made) global warming thesis (AGW) that Gore espouses, the world is warming as a result of carbon-based fossil fuels and will cause widespread environmental destruction and economic dislocation unless carbon emissions are reduced.  The world was looking to Gore for continued leadership on this issue as he planned to deliver an important speech at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen from December 7-18. 

But all that has seemingly changed with the hacking of e-mails from the Climate Reseach Unit in East Anglia, England on November 17-19.  These stolen or leaked e-mails from prominent climate scientists revealed apparent data manipulation, destruction of data, refusal to share data, denial of Freedom of Information requests, blacklisting of journals and silencing of researchers who did not share the consensus view of global warming.  Read more...
 



Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

(Posted October 9, 2009)  In a surprising development, US President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. With the Nobel Committee citing his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples", the award has generated plenty of controversy as a large number of observers feel Obama hasn't done enough to warrant such a distinguished prize. Last week's SNL comedy skit "What's He Done?" playfully underlined the fact that Obama has accomplished little in his first year in office. The win is an awkward embarrassment of riches for Obama, as it seems to have come in a politically inopportune time with the current stalemate over health reform still very much on his mind.  Read more...



Michael Jackson 1958 - 2009

(Posted June 26, 2009)  The death of pop superstar Michael Jackson yesterday has sparked an overwhelming outpouring of grief and remembrance around the world.  Although more recently known for his bizarre behaviour and various legal and financial troubles, his millions of fans paid tribute to the man and his music and the indelible mark he left on the entertainment industry.   There are several widely divergent birth times floating around for Michael Jackson, some from apparently reliable sources.  And yet unless and until some one sees the birth certificate, his true horoscope will likely remain an open question.  Of all the birth times in common usage for MJ, I think the 7.30 p.m. chart offers a plausible window onto the nature of the man and his life events.  Read more...

 

Leo New Moon -- August 20

The forthcoming New Moon takes places at 3 degrees of Leo in the nakshatra of Magha just before sunrise in Washington, DC.  Overall, it is quite a busy chart in that it contains many close aspects.  Generally speaking, it features a number of tense aspects that point to an array of significant problems that could emerge over duration of this lunation cycle (Aug 20 - Sep 18).  Magha is sometimes associated with leaders and given its fairly close opposition to the dissolute effects of Neptune, we may see troubles ahead for Obama (see also section below on US politics).  Neptune indicates weakening or illness, illusion or deception, perhaps a loss of identity (attention "birthers"!), and a lack of focus.    Read more...


Iran election protests

(Posted June 16, 2009)  Mass protests and rioting broke out in the aftermath of a contested election result that saw victory declared by incumbent hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over the moderate challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi.  In an unprecedented move to mollify opposition protesters, Iran's religious leadership under Ayatollah Khameni has agreed to a partial recount of the results.  Just where these protests may lead remains unknown, as a new generation of young Iranians try to seize the this opportunity to bring their country into the 21st century.   The astrological indications for this uprising is quite clearly seen in the horoscope of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as it was declared on April 1, 1979 at 3 p.m.
Read more...


GM on the brink of bankruptcy

(Posted May 11, 2009)  With time running out on General Motors as the June 1 deadline approaches for presenting its plans to the US government, a growing number of analysts believe it will seek bankruptcy protection.  Certainly, the horoscope of GM is very afflicted at the moment and offers an adequate account of a company of the verge of a major re-organization and scaling down.  The Saturn station at 21 Leo is activating the Moon-Mars square in the GM natal chart with predictable consequences.  I have prepared a short video that discusses some of these basic transit influences which you can view on YouTube.  View Video...

Swine flu: real threat or media scare?

(Posted May 1, 2009)  The swine flu threat has emerged as a significant development in recent weeks after originating in Mexico in mid-April where it has caused over 100 deaths. While the number of cases and deaths remains quite low around the world, there is real concern by governments and health authorities that a dangerous pandemic is possible. While I alluded to the possibility of some kind of disease threat in last month's newsletter based solely on the New Moon chart, this matter deserves a closer examination. Just how serious could this flu outbreak become?   Read more...


 

 

Mars and Obama's first 100 days
 
(Updated February 9, 2009)  As the warm glow of his historic inauguration fades into the background, President Barack Obama now faces more familiar political battles over the stimulus and banking proposals. With most Republicans opposing the huge stimulus package, the oft-mentioned new era of bipartisanship and change in Washington seems to have gone missing. While Obama's tasks to rebuild the economy are momentous, it's clear from his horoscope that the acrimony in DC foretells more difficult times ahead for the new president.

According to the Vimshottari dasha system and Krishnamurti ayanamsha, Obama will enter his Mars subperiod or bhukti on or around February 26.  Read more...

Thailand in Crisis
(Posted April 15, 2009)  As the recent wave of violent protests by the anti-government "red-shirts" wind down, Thailand's future political and social stability remains an open question.  This peaceable kingdom known as the Land of Smiles has become riven with factional struggles that has divided the population across a range of different issues.  At the centre of the cleavage is the controversional leader Thaksin Shinawatra, whose populist coalition won elections in 2001 and 2006 but was removed from power due to corruption charges.  Read more...



Long Term Financial Outlook

(Updated April 15, 2009)  To say a lot has happened in the economy since my last update in September is an understatement.   Stocks markets crashed in the fall more or less as predicted as the global economy worsened as credit was strangled by an increasingly embattled banking sector.  While the new Obama administration has put in place a wide range of programs designed to encourage lending and generate economic activity, unemployment is still rising.   Read more...


iraq150 Iraq War

(Updated August 4, 2008) While the rebuilding of Iraq remains very much a work in progress, there are genuine signs of improvement as violence has lessened and life slowly returns to normal for Iraqi citizens.  The American troop surge initiative appears to have worked as insurgent activity has sharply declined over the past six to eight months.   This picture of a gradual calming of the conflict is largely borne out by Sun dasha in the 1932 Iraq chart.  When I made the observation in January 2007 (see below) that the coming of the Sun dasha would bring eventual improvement, I noted that natal condition of the Sun in the Iraq national chart was quite good and largely free of affliction.  This strongly indicated that there was reason for hope in Iraq.  Read more...

 

 

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