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We're now in the final day and half before the total eclipse of the Moon in Taurus. As I write, the Moon is in the 14th degree of Aries, just at the midpoint of that sign, and the Sun is at 4 Scorpio, exactly opposite the Chiron discovery point -- we are very close to the Full Moon. When the Moon enters Taurus at 7:27 pm Wednesday (Paris time, five hours earlier New York time), the eclipse is about eight hours away.

I don't have a sense yet of how people are responding to this astrology. I'm feeling rather edgy. My sense of humor is still in bed. I am still feeling traumatized by the time last week that my friend made me scrambled eggs with sugar. I don't notice the people around me feeling that way, they seem fairly friendly, but I do notice an increase in intensity. There's a lot of movement in the lives of people around me.

Though I am a bit surprised by how quiet the news is.

True, it emerged over the weekend that nearly 400 tons of high explosives are missing from Iraq (less than one pound of which is enough to take out a jet liner). It's being widely reported that the site was not secured by the U.S. military when Iraq was invaded. But now suddenly we have the reassurance of an embedded NBC television crew (traveling with the 101st Airborne Division) that these explosives were not there when the Americans showed up at the scene some months ago.

So, says NBC, they are still missing but it's not the commander in chief's fault. This is according to the great news organization that I call WGE. This is to say, NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the world's largest military contractors. I always wonder why you don't see that little detail when you read about them or see one of their news reports. GE has manufactured a lot of guidance systems for nuclear bombs, and much else besides. And they are not the paragons of virtue (see my earlier report on them at this link: http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200103/conspiracy.asp

Then there's the new report on how supporters of Bush believe that Iraq and al Qaeda were directly linked and that Iraq had actual weapons of mass destruction; and how supporters of Kerry have exactly the opposite perceptions. At least this is logical: people are voting based on their perceptions. The problem is with those perceptions; the weapons of mass destruction issue has been debunked a million times -- there were no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons found in Iraq -- and Bush has personally refuted the Saddam-bin Laden connection. But then in the next breath, he calls the war in Iraq a war on the terrorists, suggesting that these are the people who knocked down the World Trade Center.

Here is the link to the Program in International Policy Attitudes home page at the University off Maryland: http://pipa.org/

It would be nice, as my friend on the French Customs Service seemed to hint was possible (see yesterday's entry), if the election were as simple as people voting for who they wanted. Unfortunately it's not so simple at all. Besides the whole issue of the Electoral College (which has a fabulous cafeteria and bookstore on its tree-lined campus, by the way), raising the possibility that, yet again, the majority chooses one candidate and the other takes office -- there are lots of technical and legal issues floating around.

Voting problems have already begun to surface, including the voting computers not taking well to the heat in, of all places, Florida. There are literally thousands of lawyers ready to go into battle in closely contested swing states. It is possible that there will be an electoral college tie.

The boys in Washington have been doing a good job of maintaining the image of normalcy with this election campaign. They have a real opponent, which raises the credibility of the whole process. There has been nothing out of the ordinary; no Saddam trial to point to as a sham; no red alert; and to keep the process appearing real, there have been mud-flinging debates and plenty of stump speeches and sleazy television ads. Everything is looking good, from the label on the soup can.

There is much astrology yet to come. Let's stay runed. >>