'May 21 Doomsayers Are Crazy,' Says 2012 Doomsayer

Followers of the Rev. Harold Camping and his Family Radio Network are preparing for the end of the world on May 21st, a date Camping arrived at using a mathematical formula to derive hidden messages from the Bible.

"What a load of hooey," says Grover Mulch, one of many believers that the world will instead end on December 21st, 2012, as predicted by the Mayan calendar. "Anyone who thinks you can figure out the end of the world from a thousands-of-years-old book is crazy. Clearly you need a thousands-of-years-old stone carving to do that."

Mulch fears the hype around May 21st will get many believers into trouble. "People are quitting their jobs and spending all their savings. What's going to happen when May 21st comes and goes, and they have to support their families for another 19 months?" Mulch has no such financial concerns for himself, having received a large advance payment from black market organ smugglers who expect to harvest his kidneys in 2013. "Suckers!" says Mulch.

Of course there are a few people who don't believe the world will end on either of those days. Melvin Lessor believes the true date of the apocalypse is September 6, 1994, the day Rev. Camping originally predicted. Lessor has been living in an underground bunker for the past sixteen years, repeatedly listening to his Ace of Bass CD and searching AltaVista for confirmation that Fox's Party of Five was in fact the final achievement of human civilization.

Mayans Predict Palin Will End World in 2012

2012 was number one at the box office this weekend. The picture is based on the ancient Mayan prophecy that the world will end in 2012 after Sarah Palin's election as president.

According to Mayan scholars, the ancient mystics believed the end of time would result from the

apotheosis of a charismatic, yet vastly stupid woman, so extremely unsuited for leadership that her rise to power would cause the very universe to collapse in on itself. "The hieroglyphics depict her as a flying huntress," explains Harvard Mayanist, Ian Whetherby, "one who shoots down wolves from a floating chariot that very much resembles a helicopter."

Whetherby warns however, against reading too much into the prophecy. "These are just the attempts of a primitive society to understand their world," advising that any correlation with modern events should be looked on as coincidental.

"That said," he continues, "the inscriptions do specifically name the 'doom-bringer' as Sarah Palin, a former beauty-queen and governor of Alaska, and mother to a brood of offspring with nonsensical names."

When asked about the prophecy at a stop on her book tour, Palin dismissed it as a "wild and paranoid conspiracy theory," and urged the public to focus on the real issues facing our nation, "like how Obama forged his birth certificate to illegally become president, create death panels, and take God off our coins."

Fourth Horsemen of the Apocalypse Downsized Due to Budget Cuts

HEAVEN- In a joint press conference this week, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse announced that when they make their final charge across the world to bring about the end times, there will only be three of them. "We know the prophecies call for Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death," War told reporters, "but when you think about it, pestilence, war, and famine all cause death. We couldn't justify the expense of a fourth horsemen for death alone."

"Also," added Pestilence, "you all have syphilis now."

The need for budget cuts comes as a result of the housing market crash, as the Horsemen had become heavily invested in real estate over the past decade. "For a while we were doing so well, we were thinking of hiring a fifth Horseman," said Famine. "We weren't sure if it was going to be Halitosis or Celebrity-Has-Been-Reality-Competitions, but it was going to be something suitably appalling. But now we can barely afford horse feed."

As for Death, he announced that he is looking forward to

pursuing solo projects. He assured reporters that his job prospects are good, but added "if you hear of any openings, let me know. Seriously, I'll do anything."

How to Prepare for the Apocalypse

While the Horsemen declined to offer a specific date for the end of the world, Famine confided that Amazon.com's offer of no payment for twelve months on electronics is "a way better deal than you know." For those attempting to plan ahead, there is a new guide to making the best of a post-world world. Rob Kutner's Apocalypse How is chock full of tips on how to survive the unsurvivable.

As a writer for the Daily Show (a rival news organization), Kutner is an expert on dealing with utter catastrophe. The Inquisition ranks Apocalypse How as one of the top two books in print today to offer practical advice on what to do while being devoured by a band of irradiated flesh-eating mutants, the other of course being Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope (see the chapter on his early days in the Illinois Senate). Clearly both books are a must read.

BBC Headline: God 'Will Not Give Happy Ending'

The BBC News online today ran a story about the Archbishop of Canterbury's announcement that "God will not guarantee a 'happy ending.'" Upon hearing of the article, Inquisition staffers raced to the site, hoping for news about a heavenly massage parlor, but were disappointed to discover just another dull report about how all life on earth probably will be extinguished by global climate change.

Further research however, revealed that God has in fact opened a massage parlor in east Hollywood, and will give a happy ending if you slip Him an extra twenty and ask for the "altar boy special." Would-be clients are urged to schedule appointments before global warming makes the entire earth bursts into a big ball of flame.

Roommate from Hell (video)

by Chris Pearson & Allan Piper

LOS ANGELES- In an ever worsening economy, more Americans are having to adopt unconventional living situations just to keep a roof over their heads. Eric Sharpe and Dave Stahler have been roommates for three years. Describing themselves respectively as a "neat freak" and "a slob," they often have felt like their two-bedroom, North Hollywood apartment wasn't big enough for the both of them. Nevertheless, when Dave recently lost his job and Eric suffered a pay cut, they decided to take on a third roommate.

"It's not an ideal situation," Eric admits. "We've had to give up a lot of space."

"Also," adds Dave, "our roommate is a demon who devours human souls, is trying to bring about the apocalypse, and really hogs the bathroom."

Tod von Unschuldigen (German for "death of the innocents") is a torment administrator from the Eighth Circle of Hell, who happened to be looking for a new apartment when Dave inadvertently summoned him in an attempt to get out of doing household chores. Tod had never considered moving to North Hollywood, because he regarded it as "too far from Hell, and not as nice a neighborhood," but when he learned that these two humans were seeking a roommate, things fell into place.

"Hell rents have gotten ridiculous," Tod explains. "And with all the real estate agents who end up down there, you always have to pay a broker's fee."

Living in such tight quarters requires a lot of compromise. "Unfortunately," Eric laments, "not everybody in this house understands human standards of decency."

"It's true," Tod confirms. "Dave has no sense of boundaries. I had a bag of hornets I'd been saving, and Dave just went and ate the whole thing."

"Hey, if you don't write your name on it, it's fair game," Dave counters. "Anyway, they were gross."

Given such a difference of cultural backgrounds, some clashes are inevitable, but the roommates are doing their best to get along. "I'm an active member of a conservative church," Eric relates, "so a lot of people assume I'd have a problem living with the Prince of Lies."

"The Prince of Lies is my uncle," Tod corrects. "I'm just the Viscount of Misleading Statements."

"Anyway," Eric continues, "it turns out we have very similar moral values. We volunteered for McCain together. We both voted for Prop. 8. And while I'm not crazy about the fact that he slays virgins in his room and sets fire to their bodies on an altar of human skulls, as long as he pays his rent on time, it's really none of my business."

All three roommates hope to save enough to eventually get places of their own. In the meantime, Tod is grateful for the hospitality his human roommates have shown him. "I'm a stranger in the human realm," Tod says, "but now that I live here, they've really made me feel like I belong in their world. I hope before long I'll be able to do the same for them."

Click here to see a short documentary about the three roommates.

Bush Looks for One Last Thing to F*** Up

WASHINGTON, DC. With just over forty-eight hours left to his presidency, George W. Bush has been thinking about his legacy. When he was first elected, the nation was experiencing an economic boom, a nearly six-trillion dollar budget surplus, domestic tranquility, and seemed to be making substantial progress in brokering middle-east peace. "Those are terrible conditions for being in the White House," President Bush explained in an exclusive interview with the Inquisition. "It's boring. It's what they call in the business, 'bad tv.'"

Despite such inauspicious circumstances, Bush has managed to preside over the largest attack ever on US soil, two wars that have cost the lives of nearly five-thousand American soldiers and an untold number of civilians, a pre-Magna Carta era policy on civil liberties, the destruction of an entire US city, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, a growing national debt so large that mathematicians may soon need to invent new numbers to quantify it, a collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, a strengthened Al Qaeda, a nuclear-armed North Korea, a breakdown of diplomatic relations with our allies, a critically damaged environment, and even a tri-continental plague of locusts in 2004 (this is literally true-- look it up).

Even in light of these achievements, the president who called himself the Decider, is concerned that history may not be kind to him. "My presidency has been what the queen of England would call an 'annus horribilis,' or 'a horrible anus,'" the president explained, "but I don't know if it's enough to make it stick in the books." Bush compared himself to King Jehoram of Israel. "When he was president, things got so bad, mothers ate their own babies. We haven't seen anything even close to that," adding, "yet."

The president has not given up hope that in these last two days he can accomplish one final catastrophe. "When I owned the Texas Rangers," he said, "I told them, as long as there's time on the clock, you just keep running with the ball. I've still got the nuclear strike codes, and I'm not ruling anything off the table."

No matter what the president is able to accomplish in his final hours, he is sure to leave office with some regrets. "I was really hoping for a global zombie epidemic," he said with a sigh, "but it looks like it's just not going to happen."