orld famous for his claims that bible math proved the rapture would come on May 22nd, and less famous for his claims a few days later that the rapture actually totally did happen, but it was all meta and conceptual and shit, Harold Camping has emerged from hiding this week to announce his boldest prediction yet: HD-DVD will be coming back on July 27th.

HD-DVD, the home video optical disc format launched by Japan’s Toshiba Corp in 2006, spent the entirety of its brief existence engaged in a bitter format war with rival Sony’s Blu-ray. The war came to a sudden, testicle-bashing end in January of 2008, when Warner Bros. announced it would end its policy of supporting both formats and throw its weight behind Blu-ray, because of that technology’s larger capacity and cooler name. Toshiba vowed to keep up the fight, while immediately stopping HD-DVD player production with its other hand and dispatching ninjas to WB headquarters with a surprise third hand that ended up being a fake made of paper mache. Soon after, the disc format folded like a delivery from Netflix.

"This is the real one," claimed Camping when questioned by the commune as to whether or not this was the real one. "I’ve read the bible twice and there it is, plain as day. Thine format begat by Toshiba shall rise once more, because The Jerk hath never come out on Blu-ray."

When this reporter pointed out that there was no fucking way it says "Toshiba" in the bible, Camping issued me a demerit for swearing and gave me a note to take to my parents. They are dead.

Skeptics of Camping’s revelation were not difficult to find.

"Bullshit," explained movie collector "Rowdy" Ronnie Pepper.

"Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit," he explained further.

And yet, Camping’s devout are convinced their man has it right again, for the first time.

"I totally knew it," boasted Philadelphia layabout Bob Rudolph. "All my friends were re-buying Black Rain on Blu-ray and I was like no way dude, HD-DVD is coming back. It’s in the bible and shit. With numbers."

"Wouldn’t that be awesome?" queried Quad Cities grass painter Mitchell Clung. "Imagine a world where you could buy any movie you wanted in high-def, as long as it was put out by Universal. It would be like heaven."

"The whole rapture fake-out was just a test to weed out the non-believers from the faithful," shouted Wisconsin housewife Mary Snupp, because this reporter had already started to walk across the street to interview someone who didn’t have cartoon cats on their doormat. "Now only the true of heart will know to start bidding on that Bee Movie HD-DVD on eBay."

When asked if Jesus would be returning with HD-DVD, Camping made a joke about The Passion of the Christ and then mumbled something about getting back to us after he’d learned how to do bible fractions.

fter thrilling America with exciting, action-packed tales in the hours after the May 1st raid that took Osama bin Laden’s life, White House officials have issued a series of statements gradually correcting and de-awesomeing their story as additional details have arisen from talking to people who actually know what the fuck happened.

"I may have gotten carried away in my initial statements about the raid," explained White House counterterrorism head John Brennan, source of many of the erroneous stories. "It turns out that bin Laden wasn’t actually killed by Matt Damon and Christian Bale, as I originally indicated, although that would have been awesome, but rather by faceless Special Forces goons you wouldn’t know if you were drinking right next to them in a bar. Sorry. Also, the Black Hawk helicopter that crashed during the raid was not brought down by an awe-inspiring salvo of RPG rockets as I first stated, I think I was thinking of that Ridley Scott movie on that one, but anyway, a five cent nut snapped and that piece of shit came down like a Chevy the day after your warranty expires. I know, I know. Reality is boring."

Brennan’s corrections were accompanied by noticeably fewer sound effects and animated hand gestures than his initial statements had been.

"I know I also said bin Laden was holed up in a mansion on a million-dollar compound like the drug kingpin in Commando, but yeah, it was actually a shithole. That place had like two windows and there were stray dogs all over the place. C’mon, it’s Pakistan, you guys should have called bullshit on that one yourselves. If I’d known you were all writing down everything I said I might have dialed back the pizazz a bit, you know? But whatever. Anyway, what else? Hold on, I’ve got a whole list here. Whooboy."

"Uhm, yeah we shot bin Laden’s son and his wife, but there was a guy down the street with a machine gun… pretty sure on that part… President Obama did not watch the raid live on TV, that photo I referenced was actually the president and his cabinet watching The Human Centipede and I think you’ll all agree that’s some sick shit… And no, we didn’t bury bin Laden at sea to prevent his gravesite from becoming a shrine for terrorists, actually this is kind of funny, but apparently when they were flying back over the sea, the guys in the chopper got in an argument about Lost and they wanted to re-create the scene in season 4 where the chopper’s running out of gas and Sawyer jumps out into the ocean to save everyone else… anyway, they said it was pretty awesome… uhm… Look, did you guys hear bin Laden had like 100 gigs of porn on his laptop? Holy shit, right? Let’s talk about that."

After original reports from White House officials indicated that bin Laden was shot while charging Navy SEALs with a blazing Uzi sub-machinegun in each hand, using his own wife as a human shield, this story was later amended to remove the wife and arm Bin Laden with a sack of poisonous vipers instead. After several subsequent corrections, the sack of vipers became a little girly derringer pistol, then stack of tax audit paperwork, and finally a really snotty Kleenex. Later in the week, the story was further amended when White House officials admitted that bin Laden was actually unarmed and in his pajamas at the time of the killing, and may or may not have been playing with a newborn kitten. Just before press time, the story was again corrected to indicate that bin Laden died of a head cold in 2003.

Emil's Note: You won't believe your luck and mine, Rok readers! Did you know that, after the initial Sept. 11 attacks on American soil, nerves-of-steel columnist Rok Finger wrote his thoughts about the event for commune publication? For some reason known only to the Red almighty, it never ran. Maybe too controversial for its "barely coherent handwriting" and with uncommon levels of coffee staining, but it's been a decade, the standards have changed, even drastically lowered, and I'm willing to run what Señor Bagel did not. So here to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the commune's Oct. 1st return to regular publishing, enjoy this nose nugget from a time gone by…

Good people, there are no words to describe what I am feeling today. Though "fuckdammit" and "cuntballs" are pretty close.

Here it is, Wednesday morning, and I have endured, with the rest of America, watching those glorious towers fall yesterday in New York City. Some bad shit also happened in the nation's capital, but I was getting a sandwich when they covered that. To hit the World Trade Center, all of those casualties, all that property damage done, it's the greatest tragedy of our lifetimes, or it would be, if all those people who were around during Pearl Harbor would hurry up and die off. Myself excluded, of course.

We must not rush to conclusions on this. No matter the anger that we all feel, it's more important than ever to remember the tenets of our judicial system. I trust as soon as the president comes out of hiding he will remind us that it's not enough to assume who did it, to round up every suspect and throw them away in prison for the rest of their lives without giving themselves a chance to prove their innocence at trials. No matter how it might seem, we need to investigate this great tragedy, find those responsible, wherever they are. Even if we already know who did it.

That's right: Mall developers. It was bound to happen, all of that beautiful expensive real estate taken up by those shining silver towers jutting up from the ground like twin robot erections, not a Sbarro or Spencer's Gifts among them. The best designers in the world couldn't make escalators that go up that high, and we knew it the whole time, we knew we were asking for foreign mall developers to come and give us the business. I keep hearing that the casualties might have been worse in the afternoon, after all the teenagers had gotten out of school, but I still wish it had been earlier in the morning, when only the old people were walking the towers.

Nor should we go out into the streets of our own country, like a mob, and take out our frustrations on people just because they're part of the same group. I've known many mall developers in this country, and no matter how scummy they are, some of them are good people. Why, here in Flatbush we have one of the world's most beautiful malls, not built as a beacon of commerce but as a town center, complete with a garden and library. True, the garden is mostly made up of Chinese food and goes by the name Mandarin Garden, and the library charges preposterous prices for every book you check out, but this is the town center of the 21st century. Mall developers have brought us that, good mall developers, not the monsters who knocked down our big buildings.

Some people have been quick to ask that the military involve themselves in this conflict, but I ask, what could the military do? The damage has been done here. The injuries we've suffered as a nation doesn't give us the right to go stomping around the rest of the world, throwing out weight around, exacting vengeance like a pissed-off Mel Gibson—not unless we get Mel Gibson himself to do it. Man, that guy's star will never fade. No, I say the military has no place in this. We must ask our brother nations and sister nation (I'm winking slyly at you, France) to join us in ending mall developer terrorism, forming a coalition of peace to arrest mall developer terrorists and dismantle their organizations. It's the wisest and most constitutional course of action, but I don't have to tell our president about doing the right moral thing. I look to you, Mr. President!

One final thought: Let this horrible scar in our modern history be a reminder, not a wasted opportunity. This closeness we all feel today should not be lost or forgotten. When I first got news of the tragedy, I saw a hot dog vendor hugging a Rocky Horror Picture Show fan—that's right, mortal enemies locked in an embrace, right out in the open. Just this morning I looked out my window and saw a child savaging my lawn with a flaming roll of toilet paper and I didn't have the heart to interrupt his fun. Things are getting back to normal, however slowly, but we will never be the same, and if we are all quick to remember we're more alike than unalike, we can be better from this.

As for the responsible party (cough, cough, mall developers, cough), don't worry. They will be brought to justice, even if it takes us another ten years. But not one single year longer than that, do you hear me? Not one.

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