If you were expecting some kind of sun sign nonsense, forget it. This is real astrology. See the section above. And if you need help deciphering the astrological glyphs in the graphics accompanying these forecasts, see Astroglyphs: Astrological Symbols Guide. Please note: all forecasts are expressed in terms of Universal Time (UT).

A lot of party hacks, political pundits and media mavens seem to be in shock over the results from the November 2 US Presidential election, but if you're a regular reader of my forecasts, you saw it coming. After all, the 2004 World Forecast Highlights I published last year (reiterated in my November forecast published online last month) spelled out in advance the way it went down: "a toss-up . . . with the edge to Bush because the GOP chart presages the Republicans getting out their vote better." I said to expect "another close election in terms of the popular vote, although the electoral totals won't be so close." As it turned out, President Bush got 51.5% of the popular vote with an Electoral College count of 286 (53%); while Senator Kerry took 48.3% of the popular vote, with an Electoral College total of 252 (47%). (In percentage terms, the Electoral College margin of six percent was double the popular vote margin of three percent.)

With all due modesty, it must also be conceded that I forecast not only the election outcome, but the reaction to that outcome as well: "There'll still be a certain contingent of extremist party hacks consumed with whining and moaning about how their guy was robbed, how the system is unfair, etc." Although, as I observed, the US has been highly polarized politically ever since the Kennedy assassination, the post election bitterness, whining, conspiracy theorizing and recrimination that has been de rigueur for the last two Presidential contests is really over the top. There are some celestial pointers to suggest that this kind of ugly post election churlishness may now fade away. As I have noted, 2004 is "the last election to coincide with Pluto's transit to Uranus, the ascendant and Mars in the US Declaration of Independence chart - a combination that's been off and on within a few degrees since the Clinton impeachment." (The last of its kind for about 240 years, at any rate: that's the length of a Pluto cycle.)