by Lore Sjöberg

Welcome back. For those just joining us, you've happened upon the awards ceremonies for our first contest, "Bullish on Babylon."

The Background

We discovered a Web page, created by a member of the Internet evangelical community, which keeps close and quantified track of the many signs that the Rapture may be just around the corner.

The Challenge

Profit from perdition by "investing" in said signs of the Apocalypse. As the world gets more sinful, the "stocks" go up. The four persons whose holdings go up by the highest percent get T-shirts. The best investor also gets a piece of original Brunching Shuttlecocks art.

The Winner

Jerry Ellis. Jerry had the Beast's number over a month ago, and managed to maintain his wealth even through the depreciation in depravity that took place in the final weeks, thanks to a one-two investment punch in (declining) Moral Standards and Debt. He wins a T-shirt and the original artwork for the very first Lore cartoon.

Two of the runners-up, Gary Tsalalikhin and Joseph Antolick, were also towards the top last time we looked, with blue-chip holdings in Moral Standards, and the other, Stephanie, came up to fourth place from 26th in March, thanks to a dramatic rise in False Christs.

If you want to see how the end times they are a-changin', you can check out the original index and the index as of midnight on Good Friday (the end of our little game). Overall, the Index went down from 166 to 162, so anyone who did better than -2.41% at least beat the index fund.

Will there be a Bullish on Babylon II, perhaps with real-time stock trades? Well, that depends on whether the world comes to an end, doesn't it?