Bingo!

Bill in Exile:

46 Comments

And that’s another thing that fascinates me: This is the first Internet-era Rapture prediction. (1994 doesn’t count, unless you were on Usenet.) We’re witness to a grand sociological experiment.

Somehow it’s going to be the gays’ fault.

@nojo: We did have Y2K. Not quite the same in detail but same in structure.

When Elizabeth Claire Prophet got her followers to sell everything, give most of it to her, and follow her into caves to await the end of the world she announced that it was her prayer that saved humanity when they all had to come back out.

@Benedick HRH KFC: The gays are already covered in Camping’s FAQ. One of the Signs of the End Times, of course.

@Benedick HRH KFC: Y2K crossed my mind, but that was a Geek Apocalpyse. Doesn’t rate eschatologically.

@nojo: you will recall, as Gore Vidal pointed out, that the Emperor Justinian thought buggery caused earthquakes.

It’s 6pm, and BOOM goes the East Coast!

My bet’s on the Gregorian calendar.

@blogenfreude: I have known it so to do in the past.

@nojo: Though all of this was preordained and written in the Book from the beginning of time and such as, it seems that the gays really pissed off God on account of how somehow He didn’t see us coming. Which caused Him to move up the date. Theology – UR DOIN IT WRONG.

I think Y2K was religious – or what passes for religious these days – in its structure: end of world, judgement, bad code, yadda yadda.

But I repeat my question: will he now close up shop and return the money?

Has anyone checked their website? I’ve been looking through the day and will now look again.

It’s still there, such as it is. I just remembered the Millerites and the Great Disappointment. 1844? They all went up hills to wait. Do I really need to note what happened?

I went outside with my trombone and blasted the Tuba Mirum from the Mozart Requiem. Hope I caused any local evangelicals to soil themselves…

Last remark. He also conflated the rapture with the Second Coming, which is not the same thing at all. Do we care? No. Will it make Gingrich STFU? No. Will it encourage Palin to run for a third party? I’m on my knees.

@WaltTrombone: Good for you.

@nojo:
East Coast is still here.

My intertubes ISP went belly up just before six and just came back 20 minutes ago.

Hey! I’m still here!

Celebrating the continuation of the world in American fashion — clogging my arteries at a greasy spoon.

BTW: *do* we have an official excuse yet, or is he waiting until the Aleutians check in, or out as the case may be?

@Benedick HRH KFC: I’ve been checking the site from time to time, but I think it’s crushed by traffic. I was able to get in late last night.

And although he’s clearly a Thessalonians Dude, I don’t recall him citing Thess in his FAQ. Nor Matthew (the standard retort), for that matter.

But he does cite Paul in claiming the Book is God’s Word. Which struck me as logically odd, since (1) the KJV Paul says “inspired”, which provides some stenographic wiggle room, and (2) at the time Paul wrote that particular letter, Paul wasn’t Scripture.

Meanwhile, Y2K was “religious”, not religious. There was some indeed Millennial Shit going down, but nothing like a $100 million campaign would produce.

And will he return the cash on hand? Let’s wait for the lawsuits first.

@chicago bureau: No official word yet that I can find. And I’ve been checking around all day.

Confirmed Apocalypse Sighting: Herman Cain formally announced today.

@nojo: Some of the more fundie environmentalists treat global warming in the same way: the language and structures are essentially religious.

This is why I’m a devotee of Thor’s Hammer. I find that there’s something so moving in the Norse theology of the gods themselves facing destruction and knowing that their heaven is doomed. The Greeks had a similar notion with the Olympians giving way to whatever would come next but without the intense poetic ache of the destruction of Valhalla and the collapse of Ragnarok. They knew instinctively that the Koch brothers would win. If I must worship sky gods give me Oðin every time. Damn. Valkyrie is being HDeffed live from the Met at a local arts place. I’d have gone but I’m cleaning up work after 4 months of it. I love love that opera. I saw it once in English and it was one of the great experiences. Oðin explaining to his daughter why she’s the only hope of the gods – they must fight evil though they know it will win in the end – and he must circle her with fire as she sleeps for centuries waiting for Siegfried to awaken her is one of the great scenes. (note to self. Sleeping Beauty: thorns: Prince; kiss)

The purse at the Preakness Stakes (won by my boy Shackleford) was $666,000. Mark of the beast, baby!

@Mistress Cynica: Which is funny because the OH, who did not bet on that horse, has a cell phone which has 666 in its number. Coincidence? I think not.

I was in the shower rinsing off from a kids’ swim birthday party when I looked at my watch and it hit me: OMG, it’s 8:00… the rapture’s been going on for two hours! But I looked out my window and saw no flames leaping in the horizon, no swarms of locusts, no buildings crumbling in the distance.

So I guess the prediction was wrong… shocking

6pm PT: Overcast in Sandy Eggo. Surely the sky is falling.

@nojo: Like there’s anyone worth the rapture in Sandy Eggo.

LAT:

On Saturday morning, Espinoza, 60, received a phone call from her father, Harold Camping, the 89-year-old Oakland preacher who has spent some $100 million — and countless hours on his radio and TV show — announcing May 21 as Judgment Day. “He just said, ‘I’m a little bewildered that it didn’t happen, but it’s still May 21 [in the United States],'” Espinoza said, standing in the doorway of her Alameda home. “It’s going to be May 21 from now until midnight.”

So, six hours (plus Hawaii) until they finally give up.

Oh, and somebody trashed Family Radio’s Sacramento station.

@Benedick HRH KFC: Rapture contrails violate California pollution laws.

I haven’t been this disappointed since the Matrix sequels.

3.6 earthquake in the East Bay, headquarters for Fielding, just rattled our windows and showed up on the seismometer in the basement.

Coincidence? I think not!

/Waiting for the rapture at home with a very large martini post-hot water and water pressure shower.

Speaking of which, every time I think I could be an expat, I realize there are two things that mark me as an American: (1) my love of water pressure (and hot water) in showers; and (2) my need for ice in cold drinks. Kiwis are pretty good with water pressure, iced beverages and hot water, not so much.

@SanFranLefty: Feh – according to my Japanese GF, the Japanese don’t even look up unless it’s over a 5.0!

Rapture site’s back up, unchanged. ANOTHER INFALLIBLE PROOF is especially entertaining.

@SanFranLefty: @blogenfreude: 6.0 hit off East Honshu again this morning, and I felt it for something like 45 seconds, although it felt like minutes.

That’s two in as many days for me, here.

@blogenfreude: Nor do we notice it, unless I was standing next to the laundry basket and noticed a wall-hanging was rattling and said “Hey sweetie is it another fucking earthquake?”

@Nabisco: We felt a crazy-pants earthquake in Vanuatu. S-waves and P-waves galore, all over the place. Aussies and Germans shitting their pants.

We were sad to see it downgraded from a 7.2 to a 6.8, it was definitely the strongest/weirdest/most interesting EQ I’ve ever been in – about 30 seconds of vigorous shaking followed by about 15-20 seconds of surfboarding rolling. And then a final good-night shudder.

/hiding from everyone saying “Welcome to Saturday night” Stinque at Darque

@SanFranLefty: I was gonna say, a 3.6? Are you sure that wasn’t a Hummer passing outside?

Whatever I was going to say here, I forgot.

@nojo: Damn it, I was going to make that the 2 pm post on Sunday. Milk it out. Still wanna do it?

Huh?

@SanFranLefty: Huh? What? Sorry, had a Mary Poppins moment, tried to laugh myself into a Rapture.

@SanFranLefty: Explain these S- and P-waves, and how they are felt. This morning’s was just a lot of weird moving of the building (an aging luxe hotel that is still probably 20x safer than anything in most other EQ prone places I’ve lived), but it was looong.

I’m still here, and no sign of flying zombies.

Does this mean A) Hebrews can’t count, B) The bible is bullshit, or C) There is no God?

The line will be that the prayers moved God to spare us, thereby further conflating the rapture/day of judgement malarky.

Personally, I think the authors of the bible were just fucking with people. The bible is a long con.

@Nabisco: Briefly, without explaining *WHAT* they actually mean because I don’t know and my source is asleep, S-waves are felt as the herky-jerky quick-rattling back and forth movements, P-waves are felt as the sensation of surfing or being on a boat when the ground is moving in a slower ocean-wave style. Generally in garden variety smaller EQs you get one or the other. When you have both simultaneously or one after another, then you know you’re in for something bigger/more interesting.

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