d.b. echo's 100% guaranteed Astrological forecast

Aquarius: You're going to die.
Pisces: You're going to die.
Aries: You're going to die.
Taurus: You're going to die.
Gemini: You're going to die. Both of you.
Cancer: You're going to die.
Leo: You're going to die.
Virgo: You're going to die.
Libra: You're going to die.
Scorpio: You're going to die.
Sagittarius: You're going to die.
Capricorn: You're going to die.

It's all true.

(UPDATE, 7/11/08: True, and stolen from Chris Rock's No Sex in the Champagne Room. Thanks to a little note on this blog post, now I know where I first heard this.)

I remember when I was young, watching a psychic/spiritualist on the Merv Griffin show. (Or maybe it was Mike Douglas. I could never tell them apart.) The woman went out into the audience to tell people things about themselves. She approached one woman.

"Your mother is dead," she said, matter-of-factly.

The woman blanched and looked horrified. "No she isn't!" she retorted.

"But she's going to die," the psychic responded, not missing a beat.

I don't have much use for Astrology. I've studied Astronomy for much of my life. In the course of studying its history I've learned a few things about Astrology along the way. But I've come to realize that Astrology is just a big pile of nonsense - actually, a whole bunch of contradictory piles of nonsense - that at best takes up valuable real estate on the comics page of the newspaper, and at worst leads people to do dumb things that they otherwise might not do, sometimes with dire consequences.

(Or vice versa: more than a few people have analyzed the horoscopes published in New York City's newspapers the morning of September 11, 2001. None of them said "Do not go to work today" or "Terrorists will attack the World Trade Center today" or anything else that could have been helpful for the thousands of people of all different Astrological signs who died in the worst terrorist attack on American soil.)

I know and like quite a few people who do believe in Astrology, though. And..well, as I've said before, I won't reject you for your beliefs, though you may reject me for mine. But if you start behaving irrationally, in a manner detrimental to yourself or others because your horoscope told you to...well, that's a different matter.

Phil Plait from Bad Astronomy brought this little gem to my attention. It's a parody of Ben Stein's Expelled, with Astrology taking the place of Creationism. There are a few video clips included which people unfamiliar with Expelled may think are in poor taste. In fact, these are just the sorts of clips that the Expelled people used to make the point that Science is evil, and only Creationists know the truth.

My favorite is the guy spouting random pseudo-historical nonsense with a deadly earnest look on his face. Oh, and the redhead. 'Cause over at Bad Astronomy, I think we all agreed that redheaded Skepchicks are really, really hot.

Now, if you'll 'scuse me, the sun is setting, and the stars should be coming out soon. I think I'll go gaze at them.