US billboards claim Jesus will return May 21, 2011

... which, even by the standards of Christian predictions of the Second Coming, is kinda specific.

Forty billboards have sprung up around nine cities in the US, claiming that May 21, 2011 will be the date of the Rapture.

Fans of Family Radio, a nationwide Christian radio network, paid for the billboards after the network's founder, Harold Camping, predicted the date for the Rapture.

In Camping's latest publication, We are Almost There!, he states that certain Biblical passages point unquestionably to May 21, 2011 as the date of "Rapture", and October 21, 2011 as the end of the world. This is despite already getting it wrong - in his book 1994? he claimed there was a very high likelihood that the world would end in September 1994, although he did admit he "could be wrong".

Undeterred, 29-year-old Allison Warden orchestrated the billboard campaign in Nashville, Tennessee. Allison is a volunteer with WeCanKnow.com, a website set up by followers of Family Radio.

Although the exact nature of the Rapture is contested, in its most popular current form it involves Christ returning from Heaven to earth while saved individuals - both dead and alive - will rise up in the air and join him in the sky. A particular favourite of the evangelists in America, it's also the basis of Tim LeHaye's internationally best-selling 'Left Behind' series of novels.

Possible Palin presidential poll a sign of impending apocalypse?

A new "political thriller" by one Sheldon Filger has been published, based on a scenario that former Alaskan governor and Tea Party darling Sarah Palin runs for - and wins - the 2012 American presidential election.

We've blogged about Mrs Palin's little girl before, but we're still searching for the fully expected linking of the Mayan end-of-the-world theories and the date of the next US election.

And, if you're in any doubt about the side of the debate that the author comes down on, he leaves a handy hint in the title: SARAH PALIN APOCALYPSE AMERICANA.

Obama's Armageddon-proof helicopter kitchen ... no, we're not kidding

Amazingly, US President Barack Obama has said he doesn't need a new presidential helicopter with an "Armageddon-proof kitchen".

While the President, his opponents and US media are more concerned with debating the merits of so-called 'pork barrel' military projects, we're more intrigued by the idea of a) a kitchen that could potentially withstand the end of the world and b) the logic of putting it in a helicopter that ... well ... wouldn't.

"It would let me cook a meal while under nuclear attack," Obama mused, said AFP. "Now, let me tell you something: If the United States of America is under nuclear attack, the last thing on my mind will be whipping up a snack."

The US Navy charged Lockheed Martin to build a new fleet of 28 helicopters to serve as Marine One in 2005. The new helicopter was to be based on Lockheed's EH-101 aircraft, currently produced by a British-Italian partner.

The new generation of iconic green-and-white helicopters are said to offer the president greater protection and a higher range than current Sikorsky models -- some of which are up to 40 years old.

Neo-Con thought on Iran and the Millennium

We thought we'd seen all the permutations on the Millennium, from Christians who thought it was the date of the Rapture to the people who made a tidy sum by panicking people into thinking planes would fall out of the sky.

But The Iranian Time Bomb is a fascinating angle on turn of the century paranoia, this time roping in Iran long before the current on-going issues. Ledeen is well known for his theories that would make even Dick Cheney blush, but this one really does take the biscuit. It appears that foreign leaders believing in the end of the world is justification enough for wiping them out, but it's okay for your own leaders to do so ...

"They openly welcome the end of the world, which would usher in the millennium, under the sway of the long-vanished 12th Iman. They say they intend to precipitate the millennium by using atomic bombs on Israel. That is a chiliastic vision that embraces the murder of millions 0f us."

Chiliastic?

Games console nearly sparks Armageddon!

Occasions when electronic video games consoles are appropriate: while relaxing at home, a distraction on long journeys, entertainment while on holiday ...

Occasions when they are NOT appropriate: GUARDING A HIGH SECURITY NUCLEAR WEAPONS PLANT!

Three guards have been suspended for bringing video game devices, including one with transmitting capability, into the heart of a the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Spokeswoman Courtney Henry confirmed that the three security police officers were suspended without pay for an incident three weeks ago at the plant after they brought electronic game devices into the plant's "protected area" where warhead parts are made, dismantled and recycled.

Not even mobile phones are allowed in there, yet one of the players was a portable Sony PSP with "transmission capability".

The plant has since issued new rules requiring that guards personal bags be checked before they are taken into the area.

Iranian nuclear chief 'resigns'

The BBC is reporting that the head of Iran's nuclear programme has resigned.

No immediate reason for the resignation has yet been revealed, but back in April during one of the inumerable stand-offs between the US and Iran over the latter's nuclear programme, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said Iran had increased the number of centrifuges - required to enrich (and, the US claims, weaponise) nuclear material - it is running from 6,000 to 7,000 in February.

The End is Nigh: The Conference!

Y'know, while reading coverage of this year's International Prophecy Conference I'm not actually sure what scares me the most. It's either that preacher Mark Hitchcock has penned *20* books on apocalyptica or that there's a CONFERENCE where people go and talk.

It's no surprise to see Tim LaHaye, he of the bestselling Left Behind series, down as one of the speakers at this conference, though Hitchcock's latest title (The Late Great United States, What Bible Prophecy Reveals about America's Last Days) is a sobering reminder that the evangelical Christian community in America is very much alive and well and busy claiming the current crisis as a sign of the times. He's also author of the cherrily-titled Could the Rapture Happen Today? and Iran: The Coming Crisis.

Hitchcock confidentally proclaims that America will NOT be a superpower during the End Times, meaning it will have already be brought low by "anything from "a nuclear 9/11'' to an economic collapse to the expected Rapture that could swoop 30 million believers into heaven"

"We don't want to be obsessed with it,'' he said. I really hope the irony of that statement is clear.

I need a hol-i-day, a nuclear hol-i-day ...

Love is all around at the moment. Nuclear love, that is, as Russia announces a "comprehensive military rearmament" from 2011 - partly in response to perceived shortcomings during the recent war with Georgia and also in reaction to NATO's expansion and America's continued plans for its missile defence shield (no word on that yet from the Obama administration?) Russian President Dmitry Medvedev specifically named his country's strategic nuclear forces as being in need of the $140bn (£94.5bn) boost.

Meanwhile, China has voiced concern about the rising tensions in Korea over the forthcoming North's rocket test launch - with Japan even suggesting it could deploy a vessel equipped with missile interceptor technology to the Sea of Japan (East Sea) to destroy the rocket. Worries continue that North Korea is slowly but surely building an arsenal capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

And British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told Iran it should "let the world help it get civil nuclear power" and announced that an expansion of nuclear power was needed globally to meet carbon reduction targets. This less than a month after Iran and Russia started tests of the Middle Eastern country's first nuclear power plant.

Edit:
Further to coverage of Gordon Brown's warning to Iran, the BBC (where would I be without them?) helpfully did a nice little feature on the issue of Iran's civilian nuclear programme, but one which makes it clear that the UK is involved in this nuclear rearmament race, even if it is by stealth.

Elsewhere in his speech ... the UK leader also proposed to further reduce Britain's own nuclear warheads in the run-up to the next five-yearly proliferation review conference next year. These warheads now number fewer than 160.

The weakness in his argument, other governments might say, is that at the same time Britain is also starting on a major programme of renewing its nuclear weapons. It is planning to build four new submarines, will take part in an American programme to extend the life of the Trident D5 missile and is examining an upgrade for its own warheads.

N Korea gets jumpy, threatens war

Good to see the stand-off in Korea continues to bubble along nicely*, while talks over North Korea's nuclear ambitions remain stalled.

North Korea has warned that any attempt to shoot down a satellite it says it plans to launch will result in war, while also putting its military on full combat alert as an annual military exercise by US and South Korean forces begins. North Korea is always rankled by the annual drill, which tests the joint forces' ability to defend the peninsula.

The South and the US believe Pyongyang could be preparing to test-fire a long-range missile under the guise of a satellite launch.

In January, N Korea scrapped a series of peace agreements with the South over Seoul's decision to link bilateral aid to progress on "denuclearisation".

* irony

Radioactive relic found

A bottle discarded at a waste site in the US contains the oldest sample of bomb-grade plutonium made in a nuclear reactor, scientists say.

The sample dates to 1944 and is a relic from the infancy of the US nuclear weapons programme.

The type of plutonium in the bottle - known as Pu-239 - is a so-called alpha emitter. These alpha particles are too bulky to penetrate skin or paper, but they can cause poisoning if swallowed or inhaled.

It has a half-life (the time it takes for half the radioactive nuclei in a sample to decay) of 24,110 years.

The bottle in question was discovered in a burial trench at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state, north-western US.

Established as part of the Manhattan Project in 1943, Hanford was home to the world's first full-scale plutonium production facility.

Seriously ... what?!

'Many have seen how crowds react to his speaking and have wondered “Is Barack Obama the Antichrist?”'

Many?

We're all for refreshingly new points of view, but this odd blend of post-millennial anxiety, Biblical prophecy that even Joseph Smith would snort at, pseudo-Kenyan nationalism and mis-translation makes even my head hurt.

Of course, many figures have been fingered as The Antichrist, of Revelations fame - the Pope, Henry Kissinger, even JFK. But Obama? It's notable that this prophecy comes out of Kenya itself, rather than from certain right-wing evangelical Christian commentators in America who suggests their new president's moves to repair/improve American relations with the rest of the world means he's due to become some kind of 'President of the world' which, of course, would mean he'd be the unifying Antichrist ...

No, I don't get it either.

18 years for apocalyptic preacher

Wayne Bent has been sentenced on Tuesday to 18 years in prison for molesting one of his followers. Eight years of his sentence have been suspended.

Before the sentencing, Bent admitted in an looong online posting that he laid down naked with the two girls in 2006 but said any touching was "an act of religious healing with no sexual overtones".

US apocalypse in 2010, scholar predicts

A former KGB analyst and Russian academic predicts a civil war in the United States which will lead to the eventual fall of the country.

Igor Panarin, doctor of political science and dean of the foreign affairs department at the Diplomacy Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry claims that the economic decline, mass immigration and "moral degradation" will trigger a civil war in the US "as early as the autumn of 2009".

The piece claims Panarin's theory of the US demise was "first introduced in 1998" but "the current global financial meltdown has lent credibility to his prediction". Er ... if it was inaccurate in 1998, how precisely does the stock market not doing so well lend him credibility ... ?

Survivalism inudstry gets a boost in uncertain times

Far be it from us at The End is Nigh to suggest newspaper headlines cause people to act irrationally, but one Wisconsin TV station is reporting that firms touting survivalist paraphernalia are doing brisk business.

Lehman's, an Ohio retailer of "home self-sufficiency equipment" has apparently recorded "large sales increases, with water-pump sales up 95 percent and sales of home agriculture equipment up 50 percent from last fall. Minnesota-based Safecastle, which markets home shelters for protection against disasters like hurricanes and chemical attacks, has seen revenues more than double since 2007, says founder Vic Rantala."

"If most people think of a survivalist as an armed loner with extreme views -- there are folks like that out there, but there are many more in America who are simply involved in preparing for down times, lean times, or disaster," says Mr. Rantala, a former US intelligence analyst. "It's logical. It's common sense."

We're sure the US economy could do with the spending boost, but after years of being told just how misleading those old Cold War public service announcements about 'Duck and Cover' were, why are people still handing money over to KI4U, a Texas-based firm that peddles "personal radiation-detection devices", 'anti-radiation' potassium iodide pills and "distributes free nuclear-disaster survival guides, instructing people to keep rain ponchos, dust masks, and honey (a high-calorie food that doesn't spoil) on hand at all times"?!

Bush - how on Earth did we survive EIGHT years?!

"The president of the United States, now for 50 years, is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a 'football' that contains the nuclear codes that he would use, and be authorized to use, in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in"

-- Dick Cheney

Anti-MAD adviser dies

William Kaufmann, 90, a political scientist and Pentagon adviser who helped shape Cold War nuclear defense strategy, died on December 14.

The former national security expert spent many years fighting the prevailing war plan of the United States - all-out nuclear attack in response to any potential Soviet armed threat no matter how trivial.

Kaufmann attracted attention in military circles for a controversial 1954 essay, "The Requirements of Deterrence, which criticised the idea that the US could 'win' a nuclear war.

"We must face the fact," he wrote, "that, if we are challenged to fulfill the threat of massive retaliation, we will be likely to suffer costs as great as those we inflict."

ANALYSIS: it's the global apocalyptic financial end-of-the-world money armageddon!!

Far be it from me to suggest that the mainstream media has a nasty tendency to overhype things, but as you'll have seen if you've read Doomwatch in issue two, they have a nastier tendency to reach for the apocalyptic phrase book when things turn sour, as evidenced by the language used in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

So is it unreasonable for the financial press to avoid “crash,” “panic,” “apocalypse,” “Armageddon,” “meltdown” or “freefall” in news stories?

More to the point, does the speed with which they fall back on apocalyptic imagery alter our behaviour towards such events? If we're conditioned to react instinctively and quickly to such strong language then doesn't using it without just cause make over-reaction more likely? Do such words spark an inherent herd instinct to protect ourselves? What effect did the publishing of images of queues outside Northern Rock have?

How easy is it to describe something as an 'apocalypse' yet how hard to explain precisely how - while many people are suffering from the effects of a global economic downturn, will the world's financial sector crumble to dust, leaving us homeless, destitute and eventually eating each other in the streets? Highly doubtful. Yet frightening images are conjured up by these words and when big financial decisions are being made based on the latest rumour, words and how you use them become very important indeed. Image a president or a prime minister using words like 'apocalypse', 'armageddon' or 'end of the world' - we know they don't, simply because they'd spread panic. So what happens when reporters put such words into people's mouths? For all our tomfoolery at The End is Nigh, in the big wide world the apocalypse is not for toying with.

NEWS: Spanish town still haunted by its brush with Armageddon

Fascinating piece in the International Herald Tribune about the Spanish town that very nearly became ground zero for a nuclear holocaust in 1966, after a B-52 carrying nuclear weapons exploded above it in midair ...

On the morning of Jan. 17, 1966, a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber returning from a routine Cold War alert mission exploded during airborne refueling, sending its cargo of B28 hydrogen bombs plummeting toward earth.

One went into the azure waters of the Mediterranean and three others fell around this poor farming village, about 200 kilometers, or 125 miles, east of Granada.

Seven crew members on the air force planes perished in the fireball, while four parachuted to safety. No one on the ground was killed. The nuclear warheads, many times more powerful than those that fell on Hiroshima, did not go off - exactly.