If you were expecting some kind of sun sign nonsense, forget it. This is real astrology. See the section above. Please note: this forecast is expressed in terms of Universal Time (UT). Current UT date and time appear at the top of this page. (To update display, use your browser's reload/refresh button.) 

The Mars-Saturn opposition of the 3rd, which as I wrote is "within a degree or two of being exact all the way from the 1st through the 7th," continues to live up to its billing: "this kind of alignment is bound to coincide with an up-tick in crimes of violence . . . including another of those now all too common senseless mass shootings." That's just what we got February 5 at a Navistar truck plant in Melrose Park (near Chicago). It was there that yet another desperado shot up his former workplace, killing four of his erstwhile cohorts before taking his own life. A bomb exploded that same day in the Moscow subway, injuring at least nine people. Terrorism or a gangland hit? Authorities aren't sure yet. My money's on the terrorists in this instance. In a gruesome precursor to these two fatal incidents just a day before the exact alignment of Mars and Saturn, a man went on a rampage with a machete at an elementary school in Felton PA on the 2nd. Five children, two teachers and the school principal were wounded by the machete-wielding intruder.

Even as the Red Planet was about to leave its one degree orb of alignment to Saturn on the 7th, here in the States a lone gunman fired a few shots in the direction of the White House, and got himself knee-capped by the Secret Service. Moral of the story: NEVER go up against sharpshooters on the roof with nothing but a handgun. And for heaven's sake, don't go playing games like that on the White House grounds! (Better yet, if you've got a beef with someone while Mars opposes Saturn, see if you can't work it out without weapons - but if you can't, be sure you've got a good, well-practiced plan and the best weapons around.)

Similar to the Mars-Saturn opposition, as I noted, "is the Mars opposition to Jupiter on the 19th." And sure enough, headlines started filling up again with news of "international saber-rattling, cross-border raids and other forms of military confrontation" in the days surrounding the Mars-Jupiter alignment as well. Most notably, for example, there was the February 16 combined US-British air attack on Iraq, the first to strike in the vicinity of Baghdad since December 1998. Russia did some serious nuclear saber-rattling that same day, test firing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in simultaneous land and sea launches. This came just two days after Russian warplanes challenged Japanese and Norwegian air space - on the same day that US and British bombers were hitting targets in southern Iraq.