End of the World Scheduled for May 21. Mark Your Calendars. (video)

Doomsday predictor Harold "Chicken Little" Camping.

The Independent reports:

The end of the world is nigh; 21 May, to be precise. That's the date when Harold Camping, a preacher from Oakland, California, is confidently predicting the Second Coming of the Lord. At about 6pm, he reckons 2 per cent of the world's population will be immediately "raptured" to Heaven; the rest of us will get sent straight to the Other Place.

If Mr Camping were speaking from any normal pulpit, it would be easy to dismiss him as just another religious eccentric wrongly calling the apocalypse. But thanks to this elderly man's ubiquity, on America's airwaves and billboards, his unlikely Doomsday message is almost impossible to ignore.

Every day Mr Camping, an 89-year-old former civil engineer, speaks to his followers via the Family Radio Network, a religious broadcasting organisation funded entirely by donations from listeners. Such is their generosity (assets total $120m) that his network now owns 66 stations in the US alone. 

Related articles

• Preacher Says World To End 6PM May 21 (alan.com)
• May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day! Blame the Gays. (dead-logic.blogspot.com)

Sarah "I'm a Loser and a Quitter" Palin can't get a lecture booking

The New York Post is reporting that former Alaska Governor/ex-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is having a really hard time getting booked on the lecture circuit.

"Sarah Palin is said to have pocketed a $7 million advance for the 400-page memoir she turned in four months early, but she might not have such an easy time on the lecture circuit.

After quitting as governor of Alaska in July, Palin signed with the top-notch Washington Speakers Bureau, which also reps George W. Bush, Laura Bush, Condoleezza Rice, hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger, LA Dodgers manager Joe Torre and magician David Blaine.

Palin's bookers are said to be asking for $100,000 per speech, but an industry expert tells Page Six: "The big lecture buyers in the US are paralyzed with fear about booking her, basically because they think she is a blithering idiot."

"Palin is so uninteresting to so many groups -- unless they are interested in moose hunting," said our insider. "What does she have to say? She can't even describe what she reads."

Palin likely quit as governor just months after losing the election as John McCain's vice-presidential running mate because of money. "She knew that if she waited until her term ended in 2010, these opportunities would be gone," said a source. "She would have lost millions by staying in office."

Palin's "Going Rogue: An American Life" is described by Harper publisher John Burnham as "her words, her life, and it's all there in full and fascinating detail." Harper wouldn't discuss what Palin was paid."

Ouch! Looks like the wing-nuts' favorite baby-granny has gotten hit upside the head with a big, old, steaming pile of reality. I guess it's just cheaper to find a yowling ally cat and drag your fingernails across a chalk board to acheive the same effect as a Palin speech.

A 400-page autobiography, really? Five out of the seven Harry Potter books were longer than that. Apparently even Palin couldn't find anything interesting enough to write about herself.

Meanwhile, Levi Johnston, the boy who practically had to gnaw his foot off to escape the witch of the north, is turning down offers left and right.

I guess it's so long, filet mignon and hello, Mooseburger Helper, for Sarah: Plain and Boring.