Social Travel Planning Site Gtrot Debuts City Discovery Service

gtrotSocial travel sharing/planning website Gtrot.com (short for ?globetrotting?) is debuting a personalized city discovery service that aggregates travel recommendations from friends? social network updates into an interactive grid. Founded by Brittany Laughlin and Zachary Smith, Gtrot helps users source travel plans, deals, tips, and recommendations from other friends via their social graph. For example, if you are visiting Paris and need travel advice, you can use Gtrot?s Facebook app or site to see which of your friends have been or live there, so you can reach out to them to get personalized advice and recommendations.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/y-S5srb3weY/

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Video: What is Occupy Wall Street?

3 cups of coffee a day keeps skin cancer away?

??Drinking copious amounts of coffee may reduce the risk of the most common type of skin cancer, a new study finds. Women in the study who drank more than three cups of coffee a day were 20 percent less likely to develop basal cell carcinoma.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45023192#45023192

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Low mortgage rates elude 'underwater' homeowners (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Today's record-low mortgage rates are out of reach for millions of U.S. homeowners who would benefit from them most.

One in four homeowners with a mortgage ? 11 million people ? owe more than their home is worth. These "underwater" borrowers have virtually no shot at refinancing.

Their plight is a drag on the housing market and the broader economy.

The Obama administration is hoping at least 1 million of these borrowers will take advantage of its refinancing program under more lenient rules unveiled Monday. Homeowners who are current on their payments will be eligible to refinance no matter how much their home's value has dropped.

Still, it's unclear how many borrowers will benefit. Lenders will remain under no obligation to refinance a mortgage they hold.

A growing number of these people are missing mortgage payments and falling into foreclosure. And the higher rates they're locked into limit how much they can contribute to a weak economy. If they were able to refinance at today's rates, it could boost consumer spending by tens of billions of dollars, economists say.

Underwater homeowners are paying an average 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 5.7 percent, according to an analysis of mortgage data by CoreLogic and The Associated Press. That compares with today's average rate of 4.11 percent on a 30-year fixed mortgage. For a homeowner with a $250,000 mortgage, the lower rate would save more than $200 a month.

For many Americans, a few hundred dollars each month would mean the difference between paying their mortgage on time and in full and losing, or walking away from, their home.

Underwater borrowers are the "most desperate population in the country today," says Barry Bosworth, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

Dan and Maggie Micoff bought a two-bedroom home in the Detroit suburb of Marine City in 2003. They paid $119,000. Eight years later, they're underwater with a 6 percent loan.

If they could refinance, the Micoffs, both 58, could shave at least $120 from their monthly bill.

"The banks won't work with us," Maggie Micoff said. "We helped bail them out, and now we can't even get a personal loan to get by. We could rent something for a few hundred dollars cheaper."

Even among homeowners who do have equity in their homes, few are refinancing. Many have already refinanced within the past year. Others can't meet tighter lending standards. That's why underwater borrowers represent the best chance for refinancing to unleash spending that's otherwise going toward mortgage bills.

With millions locked into artificially high rates, foreclosures are rising. Mortgage default notices surged nationally last month.

Whether the administration's revamped mortgage refinancing program will reach more Americans this time is unclear, said Mark Vitner, senior U.S. economist at Wells Fargo.

"No one knows if it will spur a lot more people to refinance, but it's a start," Vitner said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111025/ap_on_bi_ge/us_underwater_mortgages

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UK lawmakers defy gov't over Europe (AP)

LONDON ? British lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly rejected a motion to hold a national referendum on leaving the European Union, but Prime Minister David Cameron suffered a bruising as several Conservative Party lawmakers rebelled against his orders and supported the bid.

The revolt within the ruling Conservative Party ranks underscored discontent with Cameron's stewardship ? an unhappiness that has grown following his handling of riots that gripped the nation in August and his decision to hire a suspect in Britain's phone-hacking scandal.

The motion for a referendum ? which was not binding on the government in the first place_ was handily defeated, with 483 lawmakers voting against having one and 111 voting in favor of it.

The government had ordered its lawmakers to vote against the referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU, leave it, or re-negotiate membership, and said those who backed it would face disciplinary action.

House of Commons leader Sir George Young told the BBC he believed 80 or 81 Tory MPs had rebelled

In a last ditch attempt to sway would-be rebels in his party, Cameron insisted the current economic crisis meant the "timing is wrong" to abandon the EU. But his appeal failed to resonate with several Conservatives ? a fact highlighted by dramatic proclamations from lawmakers during a more than five-hour debate that they would back the referendum despite the personal cost.

Conservative lawmaker Adam Holloway resigned his unpaid post as an aide to Europe minister David Lidington so he could vote in favor of a referendum.

"If you can't support a particular policy then the honest course of action is of course to stand down, and I want decisions to be made more closely by the people they affect, by local communities, not upwards towards Brussels," Holloway announced to cheers in the chamber.

Fellow Conservative Stewart Jackson said he was prepared, "with a heavy heart," to "take the consequences" of rebelling against the government order.

"For me constituency and country must come before the baubles of ministerial office," he told his fellow lawmakers.

Britain's role in Europe was once a bitterly divisive issue for Cameron's Tories, with the 1980s and 1990s marked by internal conflicts between those advocating closer links with the EU and legislators who favored leaving the now-27 nation bloc.

Former Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher famously railed against a "European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels," but found herself at odds with many pro-European Cabinet ministers.

The issue of Europe has also split Britain's current governing coalition. The Conservative Party's junior partners, the Liberal Democrats, are strongly pro-Europe.

Although a member of the EU, Britain is not among the 17 countries that use the euro single currency and are struggling to hammer out a bailout for debt-laden Greece.

Cameron's leadership has weathered fierce criticism in recent months for a slew of perceived missteps.

Cameron's judgment has repeatedly been called into question by his decision to hire as his communications chief an ex-News of the World editor implicated in the phone-hacking scandal at the now-shuttered tabloid. The prime minister's stature also took a blow when riots swept Britain in August. He was accused of a feeble initial response.

The prime minister also has been accused by critics of changing his tune toward Europe since being elected and doing too little to challenge EU legislation or European court rulings. He pledged Monday to wrest more powers away from Brussels and agreed that there is a need for fundamental EU reform. But he said it is in Britain's national interest to remain part of the EU and noted that the eurozone is in dire straits economically.

"When your neighbor's house is on fire, your first impulse should be to help them to put out the flames ? not least to stop the flames reaching your own house," Cameron said in a statement ahead of the vote. "This is not the time to argue about walking away, not just for their sakes, but for ours."

Monday's debate was triggered by a 100,000-signature public petition on the prime minister's website.

Foreign Secretary William Hague, a longtime euroskeptic, said that with the EU mired in a debt crisis and Britain's economy fragile, a referendum "would create additional economic uncertainty in this country at a difficult economic time."

"Europe is undergoing a process of change and in an in-out referendum people would want to know where the change was going to finish up before they voted," Hague told the BBC. "Clearly an in/out referendum is not the right idea."

____

Associated Press Writer Jill Lawless contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111024/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_europe

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US pulls envoy out of Syria over security concerns

FILE - In this June 20, 2011 photo taken during a government-organized tour for foreign diplomats and the media, US ambassador in Syria Robert Ford, covers his nose during his visit with other foreign diplomats to a mass grave, in Jisr el-Shughour, north of Syria. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday, Oct. 24, 2011, that Ambassador Robert Ford returned to Washington this weekend after "credible threats against his personal safety." (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi, File)

FILE - In this June 20, 2011 photo taken during a government-organized tour for foreign diplomats and the media, US ambassador in Syria Robert Ford, covers his nose during his visit with other foreign diplomats to a mass grave, in Jisr el-Shughour, north of Syria. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday, Oct. 24, 2011, that Ambassador Robert Ford returned to Washington this weekend after "credible threats against his personal safety." (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi, File)

(AP) ? The United States pulled its ambassador out of Syria over security concerns, blaming President Bashar Assad's regime for the threats that made it no longer safe for him to remain.

Ambassador Robert Ford returned to Washington this weekend after the U.S. received "credible threats against his personal safety in Syria," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday. Ford has been the subject of several incidents of intimidation by pro-government thugs, and enraged Syrian authorities with his forceful defense of peaceful protests and harsh critique of a government crackdown that has now claimed more than 3,000 lives.

"We hope that the Syrian regime will end its incitement campaign against Ambassador Ford," Toner said. "At this point, we can't say when he will return to Syria."

Toner said the U.S. embassy will remain open in Damascus and that the threats were specifically directed toward Ford. His return is conditional on a U.S. "assessment of Syrian regime-led incitement and the security situation on the ground," Toner said.

An American official said there were no plans to expel the Syrian ambassador in Washington in retaliation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation

Ford was the first American ambassador to Syria since 2005. President George W. Bush's administration withdrew a full-time ambassador from Syria over charges the country was involved in terrorism and the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syria has denied any involvement.

The Obama administration decided to return an ambassador to Syria earlier this year in an effort to persuade Syria to change its policies regarding Israel, Lebanon, Iraq and support for extremist groups. Syria is designated a "state sponsor of terrorism" by the State Department.

Although Ford's appointment in January, while the Senate was out of session, was originally criticized by some Republicans in Congress, he has won praise within the administration and beyond for his determination to meet Syrian opposition leaders in a hostile environment, and tough criticism of the Assad regime's brutal military response to mass demonstrations.

The Senate unanimously approved Ford's nomination earlier this month, with Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, a Democrat, praising Ford for continuing to visit cities under siege and "speak truth to power."

Ford was greeted by demonstrators with roses and cheers when he traveled to the restive city of Hama in July, prompting immediate recriminations from the Syrian government, which tried to then limit where Ford could travel. Only days later hundreds of regime supporters attacked the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, smashing windows and spray-painting obscenities on the walls.

Ford also has been the subject of several incidents of intimidation by pro-government thugs, often in coordination with pro-Assad media capturing the humiliation. Media reports said Ford was hit last week with eggs and tomatoes while going to a mosque in Damascus. Other such incidents have occurred after meetings with dissident groups or individuals, and his postings on Facebook have provoked thousands of Syrian and other responses, and even some death threats from pro-Assad hardliners.

The U.S. last month decried Ford's treatment and "unwarranted and unjustifiable," after Assad supporters tried to force their way into a meeting he was having a prominent opposition figure. Syrian police were slow in responding, and Ford was trapped inside the building for about three hours. But White House press secretary James Carney insisted at the time that the U.S. had no plans to remove Ford for his safety.

Haynes Mahoney, the embassy's deputy chief of mission, confirmed that Ford has left Syria but said Washington hadn't not formally recalled him ? a symbolically significant diplomatic step.

At the time of Ford's arrival in Damascus, Syria was bouncing back from years of international isolation. Still, Assad largely shrugged off U.S. attempts to pull it away from its alliances with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. And as the Arab Spring protests escalated in Syria, Ford dropped his engagement efforts and took on an increasingly high-profile role defending the rights of Syrian protesters.

Toner lamented that the threats deprived the United States of a valuable emissary to the Syrian people at a time they face daily violence from Assad's security forces. Clashes on Sunday saw forces flood into villages where residents have been on strike and shoot two people dead, according to activists.

President Barack Obama has called on the U.N. Security Council to sanction Syria for using deadly violence against citizens who are rising up against the authoritarian government there.

A seasoned diplomat with extensive Middle East experience, Ford "has worked diligently to deliver our message and be our eyes on the ground" in Syria, Toner said. "This decision was based solely on the need to ensure his safety, a matter we take extremely seriously."

___

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-24-US-Syria/id-c400faaa3ae44bb092dc89daaead5e98

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Jordan's king urges restart of Mideast peace talks

Jordan's Prime Minister Awn al-Khasawneh, left, speaks with Mahmoud Jibril, the prime minister of Libya's transitional government, during the World Economic Forum, at the Dead Sea, 34 Miles (55 Kilometers) southeast Amman, Jordan, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)

Jordan's Prime Minister Awn al-Khasawneh, left, speaks with Mahmoud Jibril, the prime minister of Libya's transitional government, during the World Economic Forum, at the Dead Sea, 34 Miles (55 Kilometers) southeast Amman, Jordan, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)

Mahmoud Jibril, the prime minister of Libya's transitional government, center, speaks during the World Economic Forum, at the Dead Sea, 34 Miles (55 Kilometers) southeast Amman, Jordan, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)

Mahmoud Jibril, the prime minister of Libya's transitional government, speaks during the World Economic Forum, at the Dead Sea, 34 Miles (55 Kilometers) southeast Amman, Jordan, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)

King Abdullah II of Jordan speaks at the opening of the World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea, 34 Miles, (55 Kilometers) southeast of Amman, Jordan, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. Jordan's king has urged Israel and the Palestinians to look to the Arab Spring uprisings for inspiration and to restart their peace talks. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)

King Abdullah II of Jordan speaks at the opening of the World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea, 34 Miles, (55 Kilometers) southeast of Amman, Jordan, Saturday Oct. 22, 2011. Jordan's king has urged Israel and the Palestinians to look to the Arab Spring uprisings for inspiration and to restart their peace talks. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)

(AP) ? Jordan's King Abdullah on Saturday urged Israel and the Palestinians to look to the Arab Spring uprisings for inspiration and to restart their stalled peace talks.

"The future for the Middle East and beyond is with the normalcy of peace," Abdullah told the opening of a two-day special meeting of the Davos-based World Economic Forum, held on the shores of the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth.

He said "shortsighted leaders may think they can shut" the door to peace ? a rebuke believed directed at Israel's right-wing government. He added that a Palestinian-Israeli deal must consider Israel's "security and acceptance" and allow for the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Around 1,000 participants from 50 countries, including the United States, are attending the meeting which will discuss ways for economic development and creating jobs in the Arab world following the revolts that unseated three longtime Arab leaders.

Abdullah said one of the main factors to be considered is creating 85,000 jobs across the region soon to help alleviate poverty and improve living conditions for the youth who are leading the effort for change.

"Our region stands today at the gates to the future," Abdullah said, referring to the Arab uprisings. One of those gates, he said, leads "to peace and justice, opening the way out of regional crisis, especially (for the issue) at the heart of the region, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."

Former Arab League chief Amr Moussa said recent shifts in the Arab world coupled with an economic contraction at the global level have created a new urgency for decision-makers across the region to review policy to revive economic growth and support human development.

Moussa, who is Egypt's presidential hopeful in the wake of the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak, said his country's economic woes following its revolution are "solvable."

"Serious" work, planning and stability are the keys to reinvigorating Egypt's economy after near daily protests and strikes wreaked havoc with revenues and unsettled investors since January, Moussa told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the WEF.

The Arab world's most populous country has seen economic growth contract sharply with key foreign revenue sources like tourism and foreign direct investment hit particularly hard.

Also at the gathering in Jordan, Libya's acting Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said his country has used 62 percent of its oil resources under deposed Moammar Gadhafi.

"We only have 32 percent left," he told the AP.

"We have to look for other sources of income in the next 20 years," he said. "The time is limited and it's very critical. Therefore, we have to utilize it well to look for other alternatives."

Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum and the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in a report released at the conference Saturday urged Mideast policy makers to boost jobs, education and entrepreneurship, as the region grapples with uprisings and a global economic crisis.

The groups said that the Middle East had the highest youth unemployment rate in the world with 2.8 million youth entering the labor market every year. They said that 25 million new jobs were needed over the next decade.

Protests in Tunisia, Jordan and other Arab countries since the start of the year began with calls for more jobs, lower taxes and other economic reforms before assuming an increasing political tone.

___

Associated Press Writer Dale Gavlak contributed to this report.

____

On the Web:

World Economic Forum: www.weforum.org

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-10-22-ML-Jordan-Mideast/id-c37b458bdf2d49259012b0799f8cac03

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Forest 'roadless rule': environmental victory or US job-killer?

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals moved closer to resolving a battle over a Clinton-era executive rule protecting national forests from new roads. But critics see the 'roadless rule' as a job-killing block on the country's natural resources.

Environmentalists on Saturday hailed as one of the biggest conservation victories in decades a federal court ruling that upheld a "roadless rule" to protect massive swaths of national forest.

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But while the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday removed a lower court's block on the "roadless rule," the Clinton-era order protecting over 50 million acres of prime federal forests from timber and mining companies could leave President Obama vulnerable to charges similar to those levied against the White House after the Gulf drilling moratorium: that the administration is unfriendly toward extractive industries that utilize the nation's natural wealth and create American jobs.

The strong 10th Circuit ruling may be the final court decision on a matter that has now touched three presidential administrations. While the "roadless rule" has stirred up a range of controversial issues ? states' rights, executive privilege, and wildfire risks among them ? the central question likely to be posed to the Obama White House is how it fits into attempts to get the American economy rolling again. The Obama administration said Friday it will enforce the rule.

The Monitor's weekly news quiz for Oct.17-21, 2011

"Obama may be reluctant [to embrace the ruling] at a time when he faces a tough reelection battle and Republicans are eager to accuse him of favoring environmental restrictions that hinder the nation's economic recovery," writes the editorial board of the Register-Guard newspaper, in Eugene, Oregon. "But he should remember Americans ? expect their federal government to honor their wishes to protect roadless areas for future generations."

The ruling Friday struck down a 2008 Wyoming court ruling that had blocked implementation of the rule. In 2009, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 2005 change to the rule by the Bush administration that weakened the order by allowing states to rewrite the rules.

Only two states ? Idaho and Colorado ? chose to push forward with their own plans as the courts continued to mull a case that turned largely on the question of whether the president can designate national wilderness areas or whether it takes an act of Congress to do so.

Given the ruling, eyes are now likely to turn to a Republican-sponsored bill in the House that aims to gut the "roadless rule." Even if unsuccessful, such a bill could force Democrats to defend a rule that conservatives argue is antithetical to a strong economy.

The stakes have been most evident in Colorado, where critics of a federal forest road ban say it fails to take into account local environmental and business dynamics.

Since former president Bill Clinton signed the rule shortly before leaving office, Colorado has lost nearly 2 million acres of trees to a bark-beetle infestation, leaving nearby areas vulnerable to wildfires if new roads can't be cut. Federal enforcement of the rule means "management agencies will be hamstrung from providing much needed access to manage these lands in a safe and responsible manner," US Rep. Scott Tipton (R) of Colorado told the Colorado Independent in August.

Environmentalist Tom Turner, who wrote a book called "Roadless Rules" about the Clinton rule, credited "tenacious lawyering" by environmental groups for a ruling that "looks very good for the forests."

The ruling, however, reflects a lack of practical understanding of land use, and is bad news for American energy independence and job creation, argued the Colorado Mining Association in a statement Friday.

The Monitor's weekly news quiz for Oct.17-21, 2011

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/kgFi81fSGA4/Forest-roadless-rule-environmental-victory-or-US-job-killer

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"Jersey Shore" season finale ratings barely up from last week Tim Kenneally - Reuters - 9 hours ago

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Season 4 of "Jersey Shore" started out with a bang, ratings-wise, and while the season didn't exactly end with a whimper, it was nothing to?? More??"Jersey Shore" season finale ratings barely up from last week

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Doomsday?prophecy fizzles out ... again

Once again, the world failed to end, despite a high-profile prediction from a radio preacher in California.

Harold Camping, the 90-year-old leader of Family Radio International, stirred a global frenzy when he predicted that the Rapture would take 200 million Christians to heaven on May 21. When the Rapture didn't occur, Camping said he got his Bible-based calculations wrong and revised his prophecy to set the world's end on Friday, Oct. 21.

But as Friday morphed into Saturday around the world, there was no sign that doomsday had come. Two moderate quakes jolted the San Francisco Bay area on Thursday, and floods threatened to swamp Bangkok, but no world-shattering changes took place ? sparking this typical Twitter refrain: "Dear Harold Camping, Worst. Apocalypse. Ever."

Millions of dollars had been spent by Family Radio and its followers to get the world out about May's date with doomsday. Some quit their jobs, or donated retirement savings or college funds for the more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs that were plastered with Judgment Day messages.

This time around, Camping took a lower profile ? perhaps because he was chastened by the mockery he suffered in May, or perhaps because of his health.

Camping suffered a mild stroke in June. His daily radio program, "Open Forum," is no longer aired on the Family Radio syndication network, which includes more than 60 U.S. radio stations.

Contacted by telephone on Thursday, Family spokesman Tom Evans declined to comment on Camping or his prophecies ? except to say that he had "retired" as a radio host but remained chairman of the board of Family Stations Inc.

'Nothing to report'
Camping himself had little to say when he answered the door of his home in Alameda, wearing a bathrobe and leaning on a walker. "We're not having a conversation," he told a Reuters reporter, shaking his head with a chuckle. "There's nothing to report here."

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Municipal records show that a Sunday prayer group led by Camping, the Alameda Bible Fellowship, has continued to meet on a weekly basis in a large ground-floor room of the Veterans Memorial Building leased by the city Recreation and Parks Department.

Marcia Tsang, a facilities coordinator for the department, said receipts show that Camping's group has been renting that space since at least 1996, paying the standard fee of $45 an hour. The room remains assigned to his fellowship under an evergreen reservation that extends beyond this week, she said.

Local American Legion officer Ron Parshall, 70, part of a veterans group that meets at the same building in an adjacent room one Sunday a month, said he has seen Camping leading his Bible services there regularly.

He said Camping's congregation has dwindled since the failed prophecy in May ? down to about 25 attendees on a typical Sunday, plus about 20 youngsters who attend Sunday school classes in conjunction with the prayer group.

Parshall said he thought Camping was "a nice man."

"He was just too radical for me," he said. "Anyone who claims to be that close to God, I take it with a grain of salt."

Calculating the endtime
Most Christian interpreters of the Bible ? even those who believe the end is truly near ? say the precise date for Judgment Day cannot be predicted. They generally point to a passage in the Book of Matthew in which Jesus says "no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen."

Camping, however, based his prophecies on an idiosyncratic calculation of the number of years since the Noah's Ark flood and the number of days since Jesus' crucifixion, plus a healthy dose of numerology. If it weren't for the multimillion-dollar publicity campaign, his prediction might have attracted little notice in May.

In a message on the Family Radio website, Camping tried to explain his revised math. He said that God's judgment and salvation were actually completed on May 21, but that a reinterpretation of the dates in the Bible pointed to an Oct. 21 doomsday.

"Thus we can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on Oct. 21," he said on the website.

Camping said he didn't think doomsday would be marked by natural disasters or blasts of hellfire. "I really am beginning to think as I've restudied these matters that there's going to be no big display of any kind," he said. "The end is going to come very, very quietly."

Camping, a retired civil engineer, also prophesied that the Apocalypse would come in 1994, but he said later that didn't happen because of a mathematical error.

More about doomsday:

This report includes information from Reuters, The Associated Press and msnbc.com.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44983933/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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