Eideard

 
The evangelical Christian broadcaster whose much-ballyhooed Judgment Day prophecy went conspicuously unfulfilled on Saturday has a simple explanation for what went wrong — he miscalculated.

Instead of the world physically coming to an end on May 21 with a great, cataclysmic earthquake, as he had predicted, Harold Camping, 89, said he now believes his forecast is playing out “spiritually,” with the actual apocalypse set to occur five months later, on October 21.

Camping, who launched a doomsday countdown in which some followers spent their life’s savings in anticipation of being swept into heaven, issued his correction during an appearance on his “Open Forum” radio show from Oakland, California…

Reflecting on scripture afterward, Camping said it “dawned” on him that a “merciful and compassionate God” would spare humanity from “hell on Earth for five months” by compressing the physical apocalypse into a shorter time frame.

But he insisted that October 21 has always been the end-point of his own End Times chronology, or at least, his latest chronology…

Asked what advice he would give to followers who gave up much or all of their worldly possessions in the belief that his Judgment Day forecast would come true, Camping drew a comparison to the nation’s recent economic slump.

“We just had a great recession. There’s lots of people who lost their jobs, lots of people who lost their houses … and somehow they all survived,” he said.

“People cope, he added. “We’re not in the business of giving any financial advice. We’re in the business of telling people maybe there is someone you can talk to, and that’s God.”

A good bartender will achieve the same effect – for the cost of a couple of beers.

The Taliban have long been known as haters of modern technology, certainly the kind that comes out of the Western world they revile.

Now, they’re on Twitter, and as of this week, even tweeting in English.

The account, @alemarahweb, links back to the Taliban’s website, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which is the name they use for themselves. Most of the tweets on the account, which was created on December 19, are written in Pashto, the native language in parts of Afghanistan.

As The Guardian, the UK publication, noted, the feed had fewer than 1,000 followers as of Thursday. The addition of English, as well as the media reports about it, have more than tripled that total to over 3,000 as of Friday morning.

The feed appears almost entirely made up of links to the Taliban website. The English-language posts appear to be wildly exaggerated claims of attacking and killing NATO and U.S. troops and Afghan government personnel.

If the tweets were to be believed, 81 “enemy” troops were killed since the feed began publishing in English on Thursday. A U.S. spy plane, and 23 vehicles, including five U.S. tanks, also were destroyed by Taliban attacks, according to the tweets.

Military and news reports do not support anything approaching those claims.

I’d say this alternates between hilarious and thoroughly dumb. I doubt if it carries odds of growing their support at roughly a hundredth of that enjoyed by the average religious nutball who leaves their sect’s newsmagazine rolled up and stuck into the top of our front gate.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Politicians, Bollywood figures and other mourners paid homage to Indian holy man Sathya Sai Baba Monday amid fears of a fight over his $9 billion trust legacy.

The spiritual leader’s body lay in an air-conditioned glass casket with gold plating in the main meditation hall of his Prasanthi Nilayam ashram to let the expected hundreds of thousands of followers pay their last respects, officials said.

Sai Baba, 84, died Sunday of multiple organ failure in a hospital near the south Indian ashram…

Giant screens placed near the ashram gates projected images of his body, evoking cheers and tears among the people waiting to get inside, The Indian Express reported.

Sai Baba was known for conjuring jewelry, food and vibhuti, or sacred ash, out of the air, which devotees saw as proof of his powers and skeptics called sleight of hand.

His gentle demeanor, Afro-style hair and embrace of many belief systems beyond his eclectic blend of Hindu and Muslim beliefs attracted an estimated 6 million active and 33 million passive followers, including former presidents, generals, film-industry luminaries and sports stars. His Sathya Sai Organization, which seeks to help people recognize the divinity within them, maintains more than 1,200 Sathya Sai Baba Centers in 130 countries worldwide…

Sai Baba left no trust heir, raising fears of a custodial “succession war” over who would now manage the $9 billion.

He left enough money behind to fund a small country. Who knows where it will go, now?

Social media company Twitter is struggling to craft a profitable business model, but the Web-based service has helped Dell Inc chalk up millions of dollars in sales.

Dell said on it has raked in more than $3 million from Twitter followers who clicked through its posts to its Web sites to make purchases. The company, which has posted to Twitter about two years and tracks the sales with proprietary software, made more than $1 million in the past 6 months…

Three million in sales over two years is a pittance for Dell, ranked by IDC as the world’s second-largest PC maker in the first quarter of 2009. Dell posted $12.3 billion of revenue in the first quarter of this year, alone.

But the PC maker has become one of the first public examples of how companies might profit from Twitter.

Twitter does not charge companies for such benefits, but does not rule out doing so in the future.

“For now, monetization of this type of activity remains unknown,” Twitter spokeswoman Jenna Sampson said in a statement. “However, as the network grows, the company will be committing more resources toward profitability…”

Dell said it posts 6 to 10 times a week to its DellOutlet account, which is where the majority of Twitter-based sales have come from. Stephanie Nelson, who manages the account, said almost every post includes a coupon or a link to a sale, and about half of the posts are Twitter-exclusive deals…

Other non-media companies ranked in the Top 100 include Whole Foods Market Inc, Woot.com, Zappos.com, JetBlue Airways Corp.

Well, I guess it’s a reason not to find Twitter so bloody boring.