I'm a Gemini. I'm a Taurus. I'm a Gemini ... again!

After the universal cafuffle about how the stars don't match up with the Astrological signs due to precession, I did some digging.

Following several leads I learned that Tropical Astrology, the version that is used here in North America, is quite different from Sidereal Astrology, the version that purportedly uses star maps.

So in reading this:

Tropical astrology is based on the idea that astrology is based on the configuration of the solar system relative to the Sun, not to the remote fixed stars. For tropical astrologers therefore it is irrelevant that the solsticial points (tropics) have drifted from one constellation to another over the millennia, due to the precession of the equinoxes. The names of the zodiacal constellations that became the star signs are supposed to suggest the characteristics of (the sun in) each segment of the year. Thus, Aries (House 1), representing the sun just returning to the northern hemisphere at the vernal equinox, Leo (House 5), representing sun of mid-summer, Sagittarius (House 9), representing the retreating sun close to the winter solstice, etc. In its emphasis on the symbolic or metaphorical meaning of the star signs tropical astrology differs from sidereal astrology which claims intrinsic meaning for the star signs and wishes to preserve those meanings by laying out horoscopes against fixed stars.

... I had to think that all of the hubbub over changing signs didn't actually apply to us here. Western Astrology doesn't even use the stars to make it's predictions.

But THEN, I started to think about all the people who have paid to have their charts done, according to some very complex maths interpreting the positions of heavenly bodies, were being ripped off. It's all bollocks anyway.

I, for one, welcome our new Overlord

Paul the octopus lived in a tank at a commercial attraction, theSea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany and became internationally famous after his feeding behaviour was used to correctly predict the winner of each of Germany's seven matches in the 2010 football World Cup, as well as the outcome ofthe final.

The Sea Life aquarium just unveiled a creepy yet fitting 6 1/2-foot tall monument of an oversized Paul the octopus limply crushing a large ball featuring the flags of all the 2010 World Cup nations' flags. I'm assuming this represents how for one summer, an octopus used the game to become overlord of the human world.

Some people got too much time on their hands...

Fans around the world had asked for a memorial to the psychic mollusk

Researchers to study if out-of-body experiences are real

A group of British, U.S. and Canadian researchers will study whether out-of-body experiences are real, as some people have claimed after surviving cardiac arrest.

In a study run by the University of Southampton's Human Consciousness Project, researchers will examine 1,500 survivors of heart attacks over three years at 25 hospitals in Europe, the U.S. and Canada to determine if the phenomenon of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel or floating above as reported by some is genuine.

To test patients, doctors will place random photographs on shelves higher than the beds in emergency and intensive care rooms, which will only be visible if the heart-attack victims are looking down, the researchers say.

The photos will be confidential and changed routinely, they say.

Uri Geller and skeptics settle copyright dispute

The "Rational Response Squad" is dedicated to debunking what it calls irrational beliefs. One of the videos that RRS uploaded challenges Geller's performance techniques using video of Geller on Johnny Carson.
CUT TO: [ Geller vs. "Fair use for criticism purposes" ]

VERDICT: Video does not infringe Geller's copyrights, and Geller must license the eight seconds of the over thirteen-minute video under a non-commercial Creative Commons license, and pay money - thereby preempting future legal battles over the fair use of the material.