[LINK] Good news, Apocalypse apparently Deferred.... Was - Err - Apparently the World Ends on Saturday.

[Tom Koltai]

Umm, it is the weekend...


Apocalypse not right now: 'Rapture' end of world fails to materialise

Quote/ [From:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8527582/Apocalypse-not-right-no
w-Rapture-end-of-world-fails-to-materialise.html]

Inhabitants of New Zealand, scheduled to be among the first to meet the
apocalypse according to a US fundamentalist preacher, this morning
confirmed they were still in existence as the appointed time was reached
in their time zone.

There were also unconfirmed reports that Tonga has, thus far, failed to
boil into the Pacific.

Eighty-nine-year-old tele-evangelist Harold Camping had prophesied that
the "Rapture" would begin with powerful earthquakes at 6pm in each of
the world's regions, after which the good would be beamed up to heaven.

This morning, Kiwis confirmed there were no signs of the dead rising
from the grave, nor of the living ascending into the clouds to meet
Jesus Christ.

Twitter users were disappointed by the absence of Armaggedon.

Daniel Boerman said on Twitter, the micro-blogging website: "I'm from
New Zealand, it is 6.06pm, the world has NOT ended. No earthquakes here,
all waiting for the Rapture can relax for now."

Gavin Middleton wrote: "Well it's 13 minutes past the Rapture here in
New Zealand. I'm still holding out hope for the trumpet call and the
firey rain..."

Similarly, on the Pacific islands whose clocks ticked over to 6pm before
the fateful hour hit New Zealand, there was no evidence of a "super
horror story" predicted by Camping - no zombies, no true believers
hurtling skywards, no arch-angels and no trumpeters.

A post on Godlike Productions, a website dedicated to conspiracy
theories and UFOs, reported that Tonga, which reached 6pm one hour
before New Zealand, was "still on the map".

Likewise, no reports of chaos were heard from Christmas Island in
Kiribati, where the super-earthquake was set to hit first.

Two minor earthquakes did hit the Pacific earlier in the day, measuring
3.1 and 4.8 and not triggering any tsunami warnings, but earthquakes of
that magnitude are a regular occurrence in the region.

Vicky Hyde, spokesman for the New Zealand Skeptic Society said she was
confident the Rapture was not imminent.

"These kind of predictions come up particularly in times of economic or
social uncertainty - which is pretty much almost every year actually,
you can track them, whether it's commentary impacts or the rapture or
giant space aliens or something.

"And the only thing they have in common is they are all wrong," she
said.

Camping spread his message of doom via Family Radio, which has a network
of 66 radio stations and online broadcasts.

After today's day of reckoning, he said non-believers would suffer
through hell on earth until October 21, when God would pull the plug on
the planet once and for all.

But after incorrectly predicting the end of the world in 1994, Camping's
prophecies have been met with derision. And it seems this time he was
wrong again.

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg - who is Jewish and, according to
Camping's prophecy, therefore unlikely to be beamed up to sit alongside
Jesus in heaven - said on his weekly radio show yesterday that he would
partially suspend parking restrictions in New York if the world ended
today.

David Speer, on Twitter, said: "Oh well no rapture. Just as well. New
Zealand didn't need that right now. Another delay to the filming of The
Hobbit would've been terrible."
/Quote

That was the Good news.
The bad news is that now dear linkers, you are stuck with me until the
next scheduled terminal event... The 21st December 2012...

/body