Homeland Security to Start Tracking Journalists and Bloggers and Monitor Their "Intent"

April 14, 2018: Farron Cousins reports for The Ring of Fire:

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Also see: Homeland Security to Compile Database of Journalists, Bloggers and Monitor Their "Intent." That's blogs and reporters with a national following. Hmm. Not Stars Over Washington. But I would have thought the Pentagon's 'Total Awareness' mission (TIA) already had gathered such a database. Guess Trump'n'company are demanding more information on resisters and dissenters--and America's natal Mercury-Pluto opposition across the Cancer-Capricorn axis of security is always up for such 'Big Brother' shadiness.

So in case you haven't seen one (and while you still can), here's a rather light-on-details post from 2005 which does, however, contain an image of the Horoscope of Homeland Security (November 25, 2002 1:44 pm Washington DC--debuted under the spell of a dramatic, volatile double Fire blend).

The Whole World's Real Time Stats!

Happy Earth Day!

A friend just clued me in to a site with all sorts of stats: total world population, births, deaths, illnesses, environmentals, war costs, and more are updated in real time...it even includes how many blog posts are being published today, and it surprised me to see how low the number was on that one!

Guess Twitter and FaceBook have really taken their toll, my fellow bloggers, so I'm doing my part: here's one more. Leave a comment with a link to your post for today, if you may.

The site is quite amazing and may be useful to bloggers and those who read blogs, so you may wish to check out WorldoMeters, if you haven't.

First Follower: Clymela!

Hurrah! Stars Over Washington now has its first Follower, or Favored Visitor as I've termed it!

Welcome aboard to Clymela of Clymela's Place, where I hope soon to find posts and whatever content my First Favored Visitor publishes!

Clymela, I guess that makes you SO'W's FFV!

blog dilemma: am i timing out?

As my pc ends its days with no whippersnapper waiting in the wings to take its place, you may find a little something on the following list to review or visit for the first time, who knows?

This is a full online accounting of myself some of which are archived on the interweb, and perhaps some of which are not:


Jude's Threshold, something of a 'sister blog' to SO'W but with Art, Celeb Charts, and Bad Political Poetry snugged in occasionally. Actually Bad Political is redundant, isn't it?

Named in honor of Saturn, the Guardian of the Threshold, Jude's Threshold is a 'tapestry blog' of Astrology, Politics, Astro-Politics, Celeb Charts, Art, and lamentable Poetry.

I also like to pass on links to social and political articles in case you've missed them.

Lim's Limericks political cat limericks with links to fishy dinners of the Dreamyfish variety, plus, some charming kitty cat photos for the feline among us.

Dreamyfish Art, my online gallery of tropical fish portraits, botanically rendered yet depicted as ensnared within their most private dream scenarios where you're invited to peek!

my Lulu Storefront for affordable Art Downloads...plus, you may wish to order a Dreamyfish Art print available there of a lovely Breaksea cod from Western Australia--an Aussie!

Secret Moon Art a gallery of drawings from such genres as: Moon Art, Cosmic Art, Children's Art, Fairy Art, and Botanicals such as flowers, mushrooms, moss and trees. Take one of my new Paths'n'Portals as you mosey over to Secret Moon Art!

Cosmic Persona Designs is for 17+ers please.

There you'll find (after you approve of Blogger's Adult content admonishment--now don't cheat with yourself!) a collection of beauties in the figure study department, but remember these drawings are approached with a 'design' sensibility which was revved up way back in college days by classes in Fashion Illustration, Lay-out, and Design.

This influence is easy to spot, as you may agree.

Masks and their pointlessness also make frequent appearances along with a saucier style of cabaret-infused scenes, and backstage tableaux of dancers and other lovely ladies.

Boudoir Blossoms is one of my imprints, if that helps describe something of the Cosmic Persona Designs pantheon of artchetypal images of the Chiffonery Art persuasion.

My Gather Pages are such a hodge podge contentwise, I can't even tell you. And frustratingly in recent months I've not technically been able to publish much there--a few images, that's about all, but no articles.

In spite of the many who may be relieved to be spared more Gather articles from yours truly, I do miss being and publishing on Gather, and highly recommend this social networking site for those who like to display their own and/or read and view literature, articles, and photography in particular...very creative!

Well, there it is, my list of personae upon the interweb, as TV's Craig Ferguson taught me to call the www, along with links to a bunch of my work...so you won't have to miss me much when I'm gone!

~~or maybe just a little...?~~ ;p

SO'W's blog stats hit 66,666--today!

66,666 is something of an illustrious number, I suppose, so you may wish to scroll to the end of this page (location of Bravenet Counter may depend on which browser you use and whether you've updated it within the last decade) to see Stars Over Washington 's current progress toward the ungainly digits...but perhaps the danger is past now that you are here, and you won't have to be forever known as visitor #66,666!

VP search: political musings for the week

Summer is upon us, it's Memorial Day weekend, and I've been blurbing and musing on 2008's presidential candidates and the required search for a VP candidate to share the ticket: VP search: too many senators has a few points I've been pondering this week concerning senatorial egos, piggish governors, Obama's Israel shout-out, and Hillary's crystal ball for June horrors, among other things.

Last here on May 21, the two-tiered interweb (thanks, TV's Craig Ferguson!) is continuing to be problematic for it seems I'm allowed into this blog on alternate days at best, or every three or four days more annoyingly and my 'real world' schedule must often take precedence over creaky page-loading.

But I love my Stars Over Washington blog, so please don't think I diss if I'm absent awhile, okay? Blogging has become quite a struggle on Turtle Lane.

And sometimes my blog on WordPress navigates more easily, so you may find me there instead. If you follow the above link you'll also find articles on the natal charts of TV's Craig Ferguson, chanteuse Amy Winehouse, and master artist Edgar Degas sprinkled amongst the politics.

That's because Jude's Threshold is meant to be a hodge podge of Art, Astrology, and Politics...a veritable tapestry of creativity and societal concerns stretched upon a loom of Astrology.

Perhaps it's a good mix, but as you know, the clunker in the happy blend is none other than Politics, that system of organized hatreds which ruins most of what it touches while lying to our collective face in order to cover its fallibility and pocket-lining.

We could put it down to human nature, but these critters, vermin, and crooks imagine themselves to be above the rest of us on the evolutionary ladder along with their elite societal status...because they confuse wealth of money with wealth of character.

And Scripture says it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. So that settles that, doesn't it?

Now this reminds me of the Sabian Symbol for "25Leo"..."A large camel crossing the desert"...ADEQUACY...

pos: uncompromising persistence and uncomplaining self-expenditure in any course to be followed;

neg/unconscious/shadow side: ruthlessness in an unintelligent self-interest.


But what would Washington be without its unintelligent self-interest?

(The Sabian Symbols in Astrology, Dr. Mark Edmund Jones.)

Chiron: discovery and meaning

First a word on my blog absence--two words actually--tech gremlins. My isp seems to be performing better today, for now.

As you know, it's takes hours to prepare an astrology-based article so when I've spent time and effort only to find that I'm shut out of the two-tiered internet, it's discouraging.

So to save precious blogging time, here's a link to a Page I've managed to put up at my WordPress blog on the Discovery and Meaning of Chiron and to which I plan to add details as tech gremlins may permit:

Discovery of Chiron 1977

Technorati answers my ping plea!

Yes, it's true--scroll just below to read about my longstanding Technorati ping dilemma which has now been repaired!

Stars Over Washington is freshly pinged and feelin' frisky with "sorry for the delay" apology happily accepted...

Thanks, spidaman!

my year of blogging dangerously

Blogging in 2007 has brought everything from electronic tagging to frisky hackers to a few of my favorite posts. Not favorites because of my writing or lack thereof, but because of the subjects themselves blended with Astrology's ability to look under the hood.

In no particular order, here's my Top Seven List ranging from Political Astrology to a snarlyrhyme about a certain politician whose deeds bring cries for Impeachment upon his bald pate:

Spotlight on Mercury: John Edwards (has link to Spotlight on Mercury: Barack Obama--hope to add candidates to this Mercury series in the next week or so, schedule willing.)

Sept 11 2007 Solar Eclipse chart with details--special for its date and Sun's degree from 9/11.

Eugene Debs still speaks convincingly (Debs' life and times remind me of the old film on TV yesterday, Meet John Doe (1941) where Gary Cooper's character begins as the pawn of the Hearst-esque robber baron media and ends by giving them what-for. Yay. Now where's my 2007 John Doe Club?)

America's Winter Solstice 2007 (this post-with-chart is good until Dec 2008--a year's shelf life--and has the Winter Solstice 2006 chart along with a link to Dec 11's Great Conjunction of Jupiter conjunct Pluto post.)

America's 2007 Solar Return (details and comments with link to chart's image published on one of my Gather Pages.)

Using the Moon in Electional Astrology (published at Jude's Threshold--not about political elections but about choosing propitious times to begin things.)


And then-n-n? a few snarlyrhymes were written this year and my fave might have to be Ode to Cheney for its impeachy flavor.


News, whatever that means: my favorite info sources in 2007--again in no particular order--continue to be:

NPR, The August Review, and Huffington Post, with fave political blog: George Washington's Blog for quite obvious reasons (contains much 9/11 info.)

So as 2007 closes up its tattered suitcase, my hope for 2008 is that people like Mike Gravel, with his refreshing honesty, will find themselves ruling the roost in Washington. I know...fat chance, as the pocket lining of Capitol Hill's fatcats continues apace, America's commerical and residential real estate goes to the highest foreign bidder, and the imperialist empire's military industrial complex bankrupts America down to her last penny.

Well, thanks for moseying down memory lane with me, Lone Reader, and wishing a Happy New Year to waylaid America and to the rest of the disappointed World


This blog written, as always, in honor of and hope for:

Dear Technorati: how about a PING in my stocking?

As I got out my quill to pen a plea to Santa Claus for a new pair of legwarmers, it seemed that Technorati was really where my plea should be sent--SO'W has racked up 28 days without a PING:


If I could ask for just one thing
it'd be a Technorati PING
to let folks know my blog's updated
overblown yet underrated.

Technorati Pings away
Stars Over Washington? not today
says it's 28 days since pinging
for some service I am singing.

Technorati isn't hearing
lots of blogs won't Ping I'm fearing
if a poem of plea will do it
Ping my blog and get right to it.


by jude cowell (I know many bloggers are having the same PING issues and that Technorati's auto-ping service has had some outtages of late and was offline for awhile. But this is ridiculous! And manual Pinging doesn't work either--plus, my other blogs are Pinging, just not SO'W. Anyone have ideas? Santa?)

your Treasure Trove of linky richness!

This evening I published an article at Gather.com with 24 links to my esteemed astrology colleagues' blogs and websites and which you may find useful if you have an interest in Astrology articles, eclipse info, Political Astrology, current news events, Free Natal Charts and Advice, and other such starry goodies (non-fattening, of course.)

You may read Want to learn Astrology? 24 links to help! if you think you should.

Also please scroll to my SO'W Links List for linkages of all sorts (Astrological, Political, and otherwise) meant to quench your pesky reading habit and your admirable quest for knowledge...