The past few days have been a "learning program" for me, Camping said. However, he pointed out, we're not changing our tune. During the question period, which got pretty raucous, Camping's quasi-apology was less heartfelt than Jimmy Swaggart's after being caught with prostitutes, Jim Bakker's after having been found to have ripped off his followers to the tune of millions of dollars, and Jerry Falwell's after blaming 9/11 on the gays, liberals, abortion supporters, etc.

In fact, Camping didn't really apologize at all; it was only after being asked whether he would apologize to his followers that he even used the "a" word. In essence, Camping claimed that everything he had said before May 21 was correct and that the world will be destroyed - sans any more warnings from he or his crew -- on October 21.

"Our task is done," says Camping. "The whole business of Judgment Day and all the terrible things we have been saying in the past will all be gone." Neither he nor his followers will be putting out any more tracts, Camping said. He added that they will not be putting up any more billboards because the world has already been told. In fact, Camping pointed out, the billboards will be coming down. The Bible clearly teaches that on October 21 the World will be destroyed very quickly.

Since The Rapture didn't happen, does Camping, the nearly ninety year-old founder of the highly profitable Family Radio stations, owe his followers anything? What does the future hold for those people who gave large sums of money to pay for Camping's "End of the World" billboards, or gave away their possessions in anticipation of the End of Times?

As Camping emphatically stated, in response to questions about whether he would help those followers who had contributed mightily to his efforts and may have spent their life savings before May 21, there would be no restitution, no payoffs, no refunds.

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Boston was hopping on Saturday, May 21. It was a beautiful spring afternoon. I was in town for my daughter's sister's graduation (same mother, different fathers) and the streets were packed with all sorts of folks. I can't say everyone was talking about Harold Camping's End Times prophesy - set for 6 that evening - but talk of The Rapture was in the air.

The longtime alternative newspaper, The Boston Phoenix, featured a massive front-page headline: "May 21, 2011: Is This The End?" A busload of Camping followers, who had been traveling around the country warning people that the end was near, were also in town, having chosen Massachusetts for the final stop on its Judgment Day tour.

Regardless of whether you think Harold Camping is a crackpot,  a cult leader or a savvy businessman - and he could be all three, especially the latter -- one thing is for sure: Camping was dead wrong when he predicted, with unrelenting certainty, that May 21, 2011, would usher in the End of Times.

The following morning, outside the front door of his house in Alameda, The San Francisco Chronicle reported, Camping admitted that it had "been a really tough weekend."

The Chronicle reported that "on Sunday, almost 18 hours after he thought he'd be in heaven," there was a "flabbergasted" Camping, outside his home in Alameda, "wearing tan slacks, a tucked-in polo shirt and a light jacket." Various reports had Camping spending close to $100 million to promote the May 21 date. How much of that came from Camping supporters is unclear.

So Camping had a "really tough weekend" and was flabbergasted," a condition that was not nearly as dire as those of some of his followers who had gotten rid of their possessions, quit their jobs, gave away their bank accounts, and left their families.

Take for example Keith Bauer from Maryland, a trucker who drove his family across the country so they could spend their final hours in the empty parking lot of Camping's Family Radio station in Oakland. Bauer told the Associated Press that he "had some skepticism, but" he  "was trying to push the skepticism away because I believe in God. I was hoping for it because I think heaven would be a lot better than this earth.

"It's God who leads you, not Harold Camping," he said.

AP reported that Bauer "began the journey west last week, figuring that if he 'worked last week, I wouldn't have gotten paid anyway, if the Rapture did happen.'  Now, having seen the nonprofit ministry's base of operations, Bauer planned to take a day trip to the Pacific Ocean and then start the cross-country drive back home today with his wife, young son and another relative."

Or Robert Fitzpatrick? Reuters reported that Fitzpatrick spent ""over $140,000 of his savings on subway posters and outdoor advertisements": "As he stood in Times Square in New York surrounded by onlookers, Fitzpatrick, 60, carried a Bible and handed out leaflets as he waited for Judgment Day to begin. [...] When the hour came and went, he said: 'I do not understand why ...,' as his speech broke off and he looked at his watch. 'I do not understand why nothing has happened.'"

Harold Camping owes the folks who supported him - variously labeled suckers, naïve, mindless true believers -- more than a toothless apology.

He needs to take a chunk of dough out of his remarkably ample bank account (CNNMoney reported that Family Radio, which has a total worth of $72 million, received $18 million in contributions just in 2009), and make restitution, or at least offer restitution, to those that were snookered.

At the least, Camping should offer to support them until October 21, the next date Camping has cited for Judgment Day.

The blog haroldcamping-21 ("This Site is not about the Correct or Misteachings of Harold camping (sic). This site will expose how the 'followers' of this man (and other leaders) are affected"), underestimated Camping's steadfastness. It pointed out that "everything has disappeared" except "Camping's followers": "Well of course the T-shirts and banners have disappeared. And of course the money has disappeared. Everything has disappeared except what was suppose to disappear, Camping's followers into the sky!"

Despite Camping's re-setting of the date, most of the money he's collected in the past year or so, still resides in his bank account. It is from that account that he should start cutting checks to the innocent, the desperate, the feeble-minded, and the hopeful that believed Camping's cockamamie story.