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Seven-day reprieve for world?

 

The end of the world came and went Saturday, earthquakes did not girdle the globe, 2 billion people did not die and in Boyes Hot Springs, Bill Tinker, the affable acolyte of doomsday predictor Harold Camping, expressed his confusion.

"There's only one more chance we've got from the Holy Bible," he said on Monday. "Noah had seven days to get into the ark. Then it was Judgment Day."

To Tinker, that could mean that the Earth had seven days from May 21, Camping's widely publicized end date, before the end really begins.

"Other than that," Tinker acknowledged, "our timing is somehow off. But I don't see how. Mr. Camping is right on the money. Everyone agrees."

Asked who everyone is, Tinker explained, "It's all those who call him up."

Camping is a Christian broadcaster in Oakland who founded Family Radio, an evangelical network of some 66 stations with broadcast licenses potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. According to the Contra Costa Times, the nonprofit network has taken in more than $100 million in the past seven years and was worth more than $72 million in 2009.

Tinker said Camping is "the greatest Bible teacher that ever lived ... I hope he's not getting too depressed."

On Saturday, Amy Cooper, the newly reinstated director of Sonoma County Animal Care and Control, led a team of rescue personnel, accompanied by Sheriff's deputies, to take possession of Tinker's two parrots and a black and white cat. Two other cats that had been on the property had already disappeared.

Tinker had promised to humanely kill his animals once the global earthquake reached Denver, which he calculated would be sometime Saturday afternoon.

Animal Control officials told him they would return his animals this week, after the imminent end of the world had passed. "I'm calling them and telling them to bring back my animals," he said Monday. "I'm calling the lady up that stole them."

Cooper could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

Tinker, whose vehicle license plate reads "2011END" insisted, "There is no error in our timing. None. It has to happen between now and 2017. That's three score and 10 from 1948," a date Tinker says he had a personal revelation.

Meanwhile, a yard sale continues at Tinkers 1st Avenue address, where he is selling numerous items he bought at "the Dollar Tree for $1.09 that I'm selling for $1.25."