The Moon Opposes Pluto

NewsScope for January 18, 2010
by Michael Wolfstar
 
Haiti's Earthquake
 
Haiti's horoscope (January 1, 1804; Gonaives, Haiti; noon) reflects the long and difficult history of the country, as well as the current devastation. The Capricorn Sun attended by six other placements in Capricorn shows the tendency for strong, patriarchal government. But with a Mars-Chiron conjunction squaring Saturn, the government has often been ruled by corrupt dictators supported by a brutal and oppressive military.
 
At the moment of the 7.0 earthquake (January 12, 2010; 21:53 UTC), transiting Saturn and Pluto were squaring each other while aligned with Haiti's Mars-Chiron square Saturn. If we think of the transiting Saturn-Pluto square as a crisis of authority (as described here last week), we can see how this incident left Haiti without a functioning central government.
 
Natally, the Moon opposes Pluto in the Virgo-Pisces polarity, which describes a population that has been victimized politically, socially and economically. Challenging transit and/or progressions to planets in the Virgo-Pisces axis often lead to disaster. In Haiti's case, the progressed Moon and Pluto were conjunct in Pisces while being squared by progressed Mars. Here we have the indications for violence and chaos that could have been seen beforehand had any astrologers been tracking Haiti's national horoscope.
 
I came across this recently. I find the notion that the natural disaster was somehow "in the stars" and could have been "seen beforehand had any astrologers been tracking Haiti's national horoscope" is a good demonstration of why I don't give much credence to astrology. One might as well say that any disaster could be foreseen by astrologers and people evacuated beforehand! It just doesn't happen.

"Haiti's horoscope reflects ...the current devastation". If someone had said that before I might pay more attention. Retrospective predictions really aren't much good.
 
Astrology is not the only offender. Even with the technology, and computer models, there is still so much chaos and randomness in weather patterns that weather forecasters either make incorrect predictions, or fudge the forecast ("wintry showers", "occasional rain", "risk of thunder" etc) which are almost impossible to pin down.

I have no gripe about the incorrect forecasts, because it is not an exact science. What I would like to see, however, is an explanation in scientific terms of why the forecast went wrong, and only rarely (the Michael Fish Hurricane) do we get that. Mostly what we get is much the same as in astrology - a retrospective explanation of why the weather happened the way it did, which is, of course, 100% accurate.

I'd like to see the forecasters being more open about the deficiencies in their models, and if astrologers ever want me to take that seriously, I'd like to see them making more definite predictions, and explaining where their models are deficient, and saying how they are improving the models to make better predictions. My prediction: the forecasters might, the astrologers will not.