Cdn Liberals choose Dion

The Canadian Liberal Party has chosen Stephane Dion as their leader. In a surprising development, Dion beat out frontrunner Michael Ignatieff on the fourth ballot.

Since I had predicted Ignatieff, I have to fess up to my mistakes on this one. Hindsight is always 20/20 but there are a few things I missed. As I noted earlier, Igantieff's transits on the day of the convention were not favourable. The stationing Saturn squaring his natal Sun was the dealbreaker. My preference for Ignatieff was based on very favourable progressed aspects, or so I thought. I relied heavily on the assumption that progressed stations by benefics in declinations would carry the day for him. Clearly, this negative result disproved that hypothesis. I had also written off Dion owing to a tertiary progressed Saturn station in December. Saturn stations are less likely to be linked with happy outcomes, so I assumed this would be the symbolic expression of his loss. Wrong again.

In retrospect, the Saturn station was greatly energized by virtue of a favourable trine aspect to tertriary progressed Uranus. So that is the lesson here for astrologers: all things being equal, Saturn stations may symbolize more negative events than positive, but if they are placed in positive configurations with other planets, then Saturn's more positive significations of responsibility and respect are more likely to come to the fore. Also, I will be more cautious about extending the theory of progressed stations to apply to declinations. Clearly, more study is needed to that area.

I can't feel too bad about this outcome since I didn't have access to any of the birth times of the candidates. And since this event has helped me refine my understanding of some of the finer points of progressions, it's not a total loss. A great learning opportunity overall.

Dion's future electoral chances look pretty good. I'll have more to say on those in the weeks ahead.

Gold touches $650

It seems the bull run in gold is back on. Gold hit $650 briefly today, its highest close since July. This is more or less in keeping with my June prediction that gold would push past its May high of $725 in the new year. Perhaps this price rise has come a little ahead of schedule but I'm not complaining. The Uranus station on Nov 20 coincided with a nice $20 increase in the past two weeks. Watch for even faster price increases -- along with the occasional retrenchment downward -- as Uranus once again applies to conjoin natal Jupiter in the gold futures chart. The exact conjunction occurs February 15 so that is a strong indicator for further price increases. At the same time, Rahu also applies to Jupiter (conjunct May12) creating powerful momentum that will push prices up sharply.

With Mercury, Sun, Mars, and Jupiter all in Scorpio in the 11th house, we can expect prices to continue to climb through December. I would not be surprised to see and equalling of the May highs of $725 by year's end. That would set the stage for explosive price movement in the following months. I think $1000/oz is a very possible target in early 2007.