Summary: Harold Camping, the octogenarian multimillionaire preacher who heads the worldwide religious broadcasting network Family Radio, predicted years ago that the End Times — the coming Judgment Day, Armageddon, the Apocalypse, Doomsday, the End of the World — would be revealed today, Saturday, May 21, 2011. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 21, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that a car bomb exploded at an open-air market in the Shiite town of Khalis, northeast of Baghdad, killing 23 people and wounding more than 50.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense news releases and iCasualties.org. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 20, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that despite forensic evidence proving that North Korea fired a torpedo that sank the South Korean warship Cheonan, North Korea continued to deny responsibility and threatened “all-out war.” He also featured a psychological evaluation of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: Pakistan has witnessed a jump in violence since al-Qaida and its Pakistan Taliban allies threatened to avenge the May 2, 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, including a twin suicide bombing in Shabqadar that killed more than 80 people, most of them paramilitary recruits, and an attempted bombing of two U.S. consular vehicles in Peshawar. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 19, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Taliban insurgents launched a brazen pre-dawn attack on Bagram air base north of Kabul, one day after the deadliest day of the year for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, with seven Americans dead.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: A leading specialist on al-Qaida, Noman Benotman, says Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian, is acting as interim operational leader of the terrorist organization pending the expected appointment of deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri as successor to Osama bin Laden. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 18, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: As U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann prepares her official announcement that she’s running for president, here’s a rundown of her ugly track record of extremist rhetoric, incendiary demagoguery, and political paranoia, catalogued and documented since Bachmann’s 2008 reelection to the United States House of Representatives in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, and demonstrating that Michele Bachmann, in essence, is not merely gaffe-prone and is more than just a flake. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 17, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Washington D.C. political handicapper CQ Politics, in its district-by-district congressional race ratings for the 2010 midterm election, reclassified Minnesota’s 6th District from “Leans Republican” to “Likely Republican” — reflecting an increasing likelihood that incumbent Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann would be reelected for a third term.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: Michele Bachmann, three-term Republican congresswoman from Minnesota and a favorite of social conservatives and Christian fundamentalists, is poised to announce that she will run for president in 2012, with a formal announcement expected by June 2011. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 16, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Dr. Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, former leader of the opposition in the South African parliament, had died.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: With former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee bowing out of the 2012 presidential contest as a potential Republican contender, only two remotely viable candidates remain — former Massachussetts governor Mitt Romney and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty. Much of the rest of the field has been characterized as reminiscent of the “Star Wars” bar scene: “passionate-about-his-country-and-worked-so-hard-that-he-felt-compelled-to-seek-God’s-forgiveness” Newt Gingrich; birther Donald Trump; and conspiracy nut Michele Bachmann, to name a few. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 15, 2010, Aubrey Immelman commented on the opening of Minnesota’s 2010 open-water fishing season.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: Angry over the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistani lawmakers are demanding an end to U.S. missile strikes against Islamist militants on their soil and warned that Pakistan may cut NATO’s supply line to Afghanistan if the attacks don’t stop. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 14, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Al-Qaida in Iraq warned Shiites that “dark days soaked with blood” lay ahead with a new campaign of violence yet to come.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: The discovery of pornography in Osama bin Laden’s possession is consistent with his psychological profile, which I developed at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics in the months following the attacks of 9/11 and presented in June 2002 at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology in Berlin. According to the profile, Bin Laden, whom I classified as a “unprincipled narcissist,” did not fit the profile of the highly conscientious, closed-minded religious fundamentalist, nor that of the religious martyr who combines those qualities with devout, self-sacrificing features. Far from being a religious zealot, the profile suggests that Bin Laden — in Machiavellian fashion — was adept at exploiting Islamic fundamentalism in the service of his own burning ambition and personal dreams of glory.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: NBC’s Chuck Todd writes that if the object of 2012 Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney’s May 12 health-care speech was “to put the health issue behind him, then the address was an ‘un-Mitt-igated’ failure.” Research conducted at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics under the direction of Aubrey Immelman, Ph.D., suggests that Massachusetts’ health law, enacted during Romney’s tenure as governor, may be the least of his problems as he vies for the Republican nomination in a crowded GOP field. In short, Romney lacks the personal charisma to sway non-base voters, as measured by the Personal Electability Index for presidential contenders, developed at the Minnesota-based political psychology research unit. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 12, 2010, Aubrey Immelman announced that Independence Party-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Tom Horner scheduled a press conference at Stop Light Bait in St. Cloud, ahead of the weekend’s Minnesota’s fishing opener.

  ::  Read Comments (0)