Comment and Opinion

Yisrayl Hawkins

Will we be here next week? (9/6/2007)
If it wasn't bad enough that the drought broke around my place last week and there are floods everywhere, but it seems that we are facing an imminent nuclear war. If I had known that I wouldn't have spent a holiday weekend helping my daughter to move into her new home – what's the point of carrying furniture up the stairs if it is all going to be ashes in a short time.

You might wonder why I am so pessimistic. It is because someone has told me that the world faces nuclear annihilation on Tuesday, June 12, 2007. That's next Tuesday!! I had been having discussions with this person for some time over a claim that eating pond scum could liberate swarms of stem cells into the body, therefore curing all ailments known to man (including, of course, all those cured by Mannatech sugars). I had been somewhat skeptical of this claim, and the person in question had accused me of being impolite when I suggested that he should (euphemistically) make love elsewhere and then expire. I was made aware of another side to this person's personality, a side where he is a follower of the prophet Yisrayl Hawkins. (You can read more about this prophet here.) The prophet has declared that Tuesday, June 12, is when nuclear war will engulf the world.

I am worried about time zones. Will the bombs start going off as soon as June 12 starts anywhere in the world? This particularly worrying to me as Sydney is one of the early adopters of dates. Will it only start when everywhere has experienced the date? If so, and the war starts in Hawaii, will the fallout take time to spread and will Australia be the last place to go, like in On the Beach? Should I wear a Hawaiian shirt or lots of sunblock? Should I pay my Visa bill or use the card to buy a Ferrari and drive around in an irresponsible manner until the mushroom clouds start mushrooming?

A question. Why is it that people who are convinced that the world is about to end are not prepared to give me all their money and possessions? Surely they aren't going to need these things after the end of time

End of the world update (16/6/2007)
It seems that the nuclear war predicted by Yisrayl Hawkins didn't happen on Tuesday, or if it did the fierce heat must have been quenched by the torrential rain that has been falling around my place over the last week. There is actually some confusion about the date anyway, as Guru Hawkins seemed at one time to be predicting the conflagration for September 12, 2006, with a nuclear baby being conceived on that date to be born on June 12, 2007. Strangely, he seemed to be working backwards from October 13, 2007, when things might really happen. Or maybe I am just misreading the prophecies. Whatever the case, his web site is saying at the time of writing:

Minus five days!! And there's October 13 again. Should I risk it and pay for my airline tickets to go to the Australian Skeptics convention in November? Will Qantas give me a refund if the flight is cancelled because the world is on fire?