So Australia has voted to say goodbye to John Howard, and hello to Kevin Rudd.

Here's Kevin's birth chart, although at the moment his birth time isn't available so you'll need to ignore the house cusps and bear in mind that the Moon could be about 6 degrees either side of the one shown (it's definitely in Leo though.... an instinctively proud person, comfortable with issuing orders, though not necessarily with accepting responsibility):-

His Sun-Mars conjunction is an eye-catcher, usually a sign of a very willful person. Again, comfortable in charge but not necessarily with being held accountable. The Virgo placing moderates that to some extent, but nevertheless he'll prefer self-possession to being told what to do by higher authorities.

Venus-Neptune in Scorpio? Inscrutable. Mercury in Virgo square Saturn? Careful with his words and ideas, wanting them to be well-crafted. Sensitive to ridicule. Jupiter in Libra on the midpoint and in sextile to Saturn and Uranus (which are themselves trine)? Indicates his ability to be a good 'ambassador' and go-between, bridging divides between ancient (e.g. China) and modern (e.g. Australia). With Saturn about to oppose Uranus in 2008-2010, he'll need to draw on this a lot, I would imagine - in a sense, his time has come to use this part of his chart.

This is off the top of my head. I don't know the man, and I'm not up on Australian politicis, so make of it what you will!

Haven't got time to write more about this election result just yet, but once I've collated data for Kevin's new Cabinet an astrological profile of it will be published.

New articles added to the website affiliated with this blog:-

~ Liberal Democrat Leadership Contest: The LibDems are choosing a
new leader, this article discusses their prospects from an
astrological point of view

~ Mercury Retrograde 2008: Mercury will be retrograde three times
in 2008, in the Air Element Signs Aquarius, Gemini, & Libra

~ Astrological Calendar 2008: An exclusive free gift, this calendar
has astrological and astronomical information for 2008

More updates will follow in the next fortnight.

Astrology for the 21st Century
www.astrology21.co.uk

From this Thursday, the 15th of November, Mars is retrograde.

It turns retro approximately every two years, and this year it'll move from Cancer back into Gemini.

It's a good time to view it in the night sky too; the red-orange colour is very visible with the naked eye, in the constellation Gemini at the moment.

To read about the potential of this Mars retro period, visit this page at the website for Astrology for the 21st Century.

Here's an image of the night sky to help you locate Mars during mid-November (click to view the full-size version in a pop-up window):

Hoping to write something soon about the government's proposal for a national ID database and ID cards, but until then, here's a couple of quotes to compare:-

Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demand, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local communities.

– Tony Blair, Prime Minister, House of Commons, November 2004

This past week both Neptune and Mercury have stationed and changed direction. It's Neptune in particular that the events in Pakistan are resonating with.

President Musharraf has his Sun at approximately 17 Leo 41 (his birth time is unavailable). Pakistan has its Sun at 21 Leo 07. The midpoint of the two is therefore approximately 19 Leo 24, with a longer-arc midpoint at 19 Aquarius 24. On 31st October Neptune stationed at 19 Aquarius 15.

As well as being opposite Pakistan's Sun and the abovementioned Sun-Sun midpoint, Neptune is also very closely square Pakistan's Ascendant-Descendant axis, very closely square its Jupiter, and - more widely - opposite its Venus and Saturn.

Benazir Bhutto has Pluto at 21 Leo 21.

This new documentary looks inspiring, but isn't being shown at many cinemas so a lot of us might have to wait until it's released on DVD.

Made by a British director, it's about the voyages to the Moon that took place between 1968 and 1972. Most excitingly, it includes footage that's never been seen before, filmed by the astronauts.

Here are the links to the websites, first the USA one and then the UK one. They contain the film's trailer, a photo gallery, background information, and a list of cinemas showing the film.

http://intheshadowofthemoon.com/

http://www.itsotm.com/

No, not the film ;-)

The building blocks of planets and people come from black holes

WHEN the writer of Genesis said man was made of dust, he spoke true. And not just man. The whole Earth was made from dust particles in orbit around the primitive sun, as were all the other solid objects in the solar system. But how did the dust itself come into existence?

That is a puzzle. Modern space dust blows off stars that formed about 10 billion years ago. These stars would have been too young to have shed much of the stuff by the time that the solar system formed, 4.5 billion years ago. The universe's primordial dust must therefore have come from somewhere else—and a team of researchers led by Ciska Markwick-Kemper of the University of Manchester think they know where. The answer is from black holes.

Full article here:
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9942036