I have some friends here looking over my shoulder at this thread. They are not Skyscript members but they know enough astrology to identify synastry. By their own admission they can?t interpret it but they sure get excited when they see it ? ?Ooh, look, there?s my Ascendant on the MC - what does that mean?? When they read Dave?s assertion that the guilty party can be identified by natal synastry with the event chart, they all raced to bolt the doors for fear astrologers would arrive with a mob to lynch them for collapsing the bridge. You guessed it ? they all have strong synastry with the collapse chart.

For example, (all exact aspects June 1964) one has natal Asc 24 Libra which is the collapse chart MC. Natal Asc Lady Venus is collapse chart MC Lord. His natal Venus is 26GeminiRx exactly conj collapse chart Descendant! Opposition collapse chart Asc-Pluto. Descendant and planets in 7th = the enemy = he is the enemy! His natal Mars is L7 (also collapse L4) in natal 8th square collapse VenusRx mutually applying to his LoA VenusRx (he is in cahoots with a malefic killer). His MC is conj collapse chart Mercury, his Saturn conj collapse NN, his Uranus conj collapse chart SN, and on and on. He had not heard about the bridge collapse until this moment, yet he trusts astrology and figures his astral body must have done it (he is very gullible). Jabberwocky ? or, in statistics, a simple spurious correlation.

There is definitely a correlation between the charts. What might cause it? There are four possible reasons for two variables (e.g., a natal chart and an event chart) to correlate positively.

1. Variable A causes variable B. (e.g., My friends & Pres Bush caused the collapse)
2. Variable B causes variable A.
3. It is a coincidence.
4. Some other variable, C, causes both variable A and variable B.

There is a positive correlation between ice cream sales and violent crime. When one increases so does the other and vice versa. Does one cause the other? No. It is a ?spurious correlation? where one variable only appears to cause the other.

The causal variable is really C, in this case, an antecedent variable (comes before variables A and B). The weather comes before increase or decrease in ice cream sales and violent crime. Increase in temperature causes both increase in ice cream sales and increase in violent crime. IOW, in statistics, when you control for weather the correlation between ice cream sales and violent crime disappears.

Not all spurious relationships are as easy to see as the ice cream/violent crime example. Astrology is tricky and navigating valid, non-spurious correlations is complex. Fortunately, this one is easy.

Probable antecedent variable C for spurious correlation (synastry) between natal charts and I-35W collapse chart: humankind born on earth and not dead yet. Therefore, any ?guilty party? synastry correlation disappears.

Caveat: I am not saying astrology is causal, only that when measuring validity it behaves as though it is causal and can be evaluated similarly.

Dave, I?m all for brainstorming outside the box but concepts need to be honed for plausibility. What kind of world would it be if we banned ice cream sales every time violent crime went up?

Christina

Obviously this thread by S.G. Foxe, deserves better, if you have comments involving myself, please direct them to the thread "Crucial evidence relating to the English Gregorian Calendar".

Monk wrote:

There is no doubt when G.W.Bush was born being 6th July 1946 at 07:26, that Sirius was conjunct the Sun, by projected, thus when the Sun rose in New Haven, Connecticut, it was conjunct the Asc. , Sirius, Sun.

At this time Pluto has an altitude of 2 minutes of arc (rising), and while the Sun has an altitude of 20 deg 8 min, Sirius has an altitude of -2 deg 27 min. (Draconic Moon has an altitude of 9 deg 19 min). It is stretching the term to say Sun or Sirius conjoin Ascendant. It would not be stretching the point of an actual, mundane conjoined rising of Sirius and Pluto.

I have not given much credibility in the past to this supposed GWB birth time, as it is dubiously attested, and does not seem a particularly good fit (to me anyway). It now seems that like HM Elizabeth II has two birthdays, GWB may have both a real time of birth, and an "official" time of birth.

Either way, the scenario is too disgusting to think about. Except that we must. Does anyone else have two birthdays we should know about?

Of late I have been struck by the relationship of food and ideas. Whatever our skills & tastes with ideas, our skills & tastes with food will always be greater. Restaurants, cafes & bars outnumber bookstores & libraries by at least 100 to one, and always will.

Dear Deb,

I wish you much success with your on-line endeavours.

Dave

I haven?t been able to find information on which planet rules bridges. Mercury was my first choice, with communication, exchange, etc., but Jupiter now seems at least as likely. Crossing divides and bridging gaps do seem Jupiter-like. Jupiter transits are often significant at the time of death (The obvious 'crossing the great divide'). There is also the origin of the word 'pontiff' from Latin pons ? bridge. This is from Cirlot's A Dictionary of Symbols under 'Bridge':

?According to Gu?non, the Roman pontifex was literally a 'builder of bridges', that is, of that which bridges two separate worlds. St. Bernard has said that the Roman Pontiff, as the etymology of his name suggests, is a kind of bridge between God and Man ... And there are a great many cultures where the bridge symbolizes the link between what can be perceived and what is beyond perception[...] Even when it lacks this mystic sense, the bridge is always symbolic of a transition from one state to another ? of change or the desire for change. ?

Sounds like Jupiter to me. So Jupiter as symbol of ecclesiastical figures could have a symbolic link to bridges. That is particularly interesting in looking at the 2006 Mars-Saturn conjunction chart for Minneapolis, the 2007 Aries ingress chart, and the bridge collapse chart.

About the Mars-Saturn chart I previously wrote:

Mars, Saturn and Jupiter are all closely tied together. None of them aspects any other planet; they are their own group. That is the case worldwide. In the Minneapolis chart for the Mars-Saturn event Jupiter rules the ASC and MC ? so this location is linked to the malefics through their square to Jupiter. Jupiter is retrograde so the square is mutually applying. There is mutual reception between Mars and Jupiter in combinations of rulership, triplicity and fate [I didn?t know how to word this clearly]. Once again, the influence would be worldwide, but is brought specifically to Minneapolis through Jupiter?s rulership of the ASC and MC.

Concerning the 2007 Aries ingress chart I wrote:

Jupiter is the dispositor of the IC-Pluto conjunction, as well as ruler of the angular 7th. Jupiter here is in the 3rd. In the collapse event chart Jupiter rules the 3rd and is the dispositor of the Moon-Uranus conjunction near the 3rd house cusp.

And about the collapse chart:

?The Sun rules the 8th and is placed therein. It is trine the 12th house retrograde Jupiter ? ruler of the 3rd. Trines cause flow of movement and easy release.

?The Moon is closely applying conjunct Uranus, and they are both conjunct the 3rd house cusp. The Moon's last aspect was square Jupiter (ruler of 3rd) and its next aspect is the conjunction with Uranus.

I?ll add that Jupiter is the dispositor of the ASC-Pluto conjunction in the collapse chart.

And what if Jupiter doesn?t rule bridges? I have no idea.

I don't know if there has been mention of the opening of the bridge to traffic on Dec 26 1967 in the early afternoon. This comes from a Minneapolis newspaper report. That chart shows significant affliction at the time of the collapse including the Mars Saturn square forming a t-square to natal Neptune and tr Neptune cj natal Mars.