A Friday cornucopia, featuring Julia, Gerard, Anne, John Travolta, Barney Zwartz, and an inspirational hymn for devout radical secularist atheists ..

(Above: et tu Julia).

You know something is amiss when you settle into your seat, only to be greeted by a scientologist blathering on about the team and air safety.

Fly me to Xenu at once!

Sadly Qantas isn't the airline it once was, and it seems it might not even be Qantas at all, which is funny because the Auckland flight I was on seemed to be wearing the Qantas branding. Is there a case here for corporate deception or fraud or passing off?

Never mind, we dodged the mechanical bullet that caused the trouble on the flight the next day, but it's amazing that Qantas continues to dodge the bullet while pandering to the notion that it remains the spirit of Australia. Does the spirit include lashings of Xenu and off-shore companies and union bashing?

Others write about it better, as with Alleged Qantas wages and tax dodge in 'emergency' landing at Sydney Airport, and the best strategy for the downward spiralling airline is simply to wind down the hook of frequent flyer points, and try other airlines, which deliver better service (and there are plenty of those flying into Australia at the moment).

Speaking of branding and the spirit of Australia, isn't it grand that Julia Gillard should front the Sydney Institute - home of Gerard and Anne - and indulge in a bout of dole bludger bashing, that being the single headline to emerge from an otherwise tedious speech (and if you don't believe me, just try getting through it at Crikey, where it can be found under Gillard: 'hard decisions lie ahead'. How about Gillard: 'caution: dole bludger bashers hard at work as an alternate header?)

Unfortunately you have to be a subscriber to read Sydney's sparkling elite gather to hear Julia kick the bludgers, but the header rather says it all.

Still, it sent me off to the home page of The Sydney Institute, now refreshed and re-branded, and with a sparkling array of testimonials in a rotating splash from a diverse bunch of Gerard and Anne lovers.

Naturally the Sydney Institute has no agenda "beyond supporting debate and discussion" (they wrote it, we quote it), which is no doubt why you can turn to one of the featured blogs on the front page by Shelley Gare. And what to we discover? Surprise, surprise, a routine bit of ABC bashing under the headline If You Love the ABC, Speak Now.

This is what I worry about with the ABC: that, as it veers more and more to the left, and into unblinking bias, it will gradually polarise Australians. And that, as Scott pursues his surprising agenda – what is that about; a later career in politics or at the head of a major corporate? – the ABC will look more and more moth-eaten; less able to do the job its charter describes.

Indeed. Perhaps Ms Gare should sign the petition currently doing the rounds at GetUp! regarding the ABC's drift from its charter, and demanding a return to its old ways:

petition for ABC to return to its charter

We have been witnessing the inclusion of right-wing shock jocks and commentators as the main talking force within ABC's news programming. There has also been a constant demonstration of ABC's journalists adopting news items, verbatim, from the Murdoch press. Any attempt to maintain balance has been demonstrably abandoned, and when challenged, the ABC's 'apologists' cite the amount of time given to each side of the political fence as a demonstration of balance, when in fact the quality of the reporting varies greatly (and example would be the 7:30 reports recent interviews with the PM and Opposition leader by Chris Uhlmann -- the first was antagonistic and rude, the second was sycophantic and a virtual political advertisement). As a viewer and taxpayer, I am more than concerned that the National Broadcaster has become a political mouthpiece for the ultra conservatives.

Second thoughts, perhaps not, but what a fine ship the ABC is, capable of listing to port, and drifting to starboard, all at the same time. What a spirit of Australia brand ...

Meanwhile, it being Friday, and the pond still in shock from being back in the land of the lotus eaters, we've only just caught up with Barney Zwartz's Why Christianity should be taught, properly, in our schools.

What an exemplary bout of paranoid Christian fear mongering, as Barney mutters darkly about various major concerns:

There is also an important battle taking place within secularism as to whether atheism should be an unofficial state ideology; more on that question later.

Ah yes those deviant devious atheists, and so lacking in ambition when surely they should be wanting atheism as the official state ideology.

Dear Barners gets quite agitated, in his usual way, about the evil extremist Richard Dawkins, and his dangerous radical secularism:

This radical secularism teaches that believers are wicked or deluded (Dawkins again), and in either case that they damage society. The clear-sighted anti-theist must ride to the rescue, generally insisting that religion must play no part in public discussion — which is itself hardly a religiously neutral position.

Yes, yes, and if you don't agree, just remember your punishment will be an eternity in hellfire. There, that'll learn ya:

This radical version is slowly and steadily moving into the mainstream of political discourse. As Anglican Bishop Tom Frame said in the 2007 Acton lecture, it "represents a veiled form of political tyranny and ideological oppression. It is yet another closed belief system with little capacity for self-criticism, sustained by an absolute conviction regarding the necessity of its own ascendancy.''

Oh dear. Isn't it grand, and wonderful, to see a church leader ascribe to secularists the behaviour of the Christian churches these past two thousand years, if we must talk of closed belief systems, with little capacity for self-criticsm, sustained by an absolute conviction regarding the necessity of its own ascendancy.

The Pellist heretics on climate change, anyone, or perhaps the nepotic Jesenists on the benefits of investment in the marketplace? Or perhaps we should discuss the attitude to women in the priesthood or gay marriage if we're talking of political tyranny and ideological oppression?

Not to worry, Barney is ready to sound the alarums:

Therefore the secularists cannot be let loose to devise a compulsory religion/ethics program for schools. If no religion should be advocated, neither should atheism.

Yes, indeed a scorched earth policy for all:

I do not suggest that all or most opponents of special religious instruction are radical secularists of this sort, or that their opposition forms part of a wider agenda for social engineering. But some are, and they should be resisted because they are as divisive as any religious fundamentalist.

And then Barney veers off into very strange territory:

Australia is not a Christian country — the constitution says so.

Actually the constitution in its preamble starts off:

Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established

Which is a great relief, since it means the founding fathers (where were the mothers?) must have been humbly relying on the blessing of the Almighty Islamic God, or perhaps Buddha, or perhaps some Hindu variant, instead of the common domestic almighty Christian god.

And while the constitution prevents some kinds of favouritism ...

116. The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

... it doesn't prevent the Commonwealth from funding all kinds of private religious schools peddling all kinds of religious nonsense as a form of child abuse, or chaplains in schools, or religious charities, or exempting Christian organisations from anti-discrimination laws, or permitting special religious instruction in state schools, and so on and so forth, to the point where you wonder where this Christian paranoia comes from:

... Christianity has had a long and profound influence on Australia's politics and values, and Christians are entitled to require that this influence be fairly taught in government schools.

Oh I get it. They've been sucking on the sauce bottle for so long, they've got to enjoy the taste of the secularist tax dollar sauce, and they want to keep on with the unfair, advantaged, privileged sucking. And to hell with the secularists and the other religions.

Well it's enough to make decent equal opportunity types wonder where's the sauce bottle for secularists and atheists, and enough of scientology and Brethren and creationist promoting schools getting funding, and most bizarre of all, scientologists turning up in the cabin screens of New Zealand planes pretending to be Qantas!

It seems what dangerous deceptive radical secularists need is a decent branding opportunity. So here's a suggestion for an anthem, sung in a spirit of Australia way up by children up against splendid images of the Australian outback:

Onwards radical secularist soldiers, marching as to war,

with the books of Dawkins going on before.

Dawkins, the disloyal atheist, leads against the foe;

forward into battle see his banners go!

At the sign of triumph, Barney's host doth flee,

on then, radical secularist soldiers, on to victory.

Barney's religion in schools foundations quiver at the shout of praise;

atheists, lift your voices, loud your anthem raise.

Like a mighty army in lock step the atheist unbelievers plod

Bros and sisters, we are treading where ancient Greeks have trod.

Atheists aren't divided, all one body we

One in hope and doctrine, and to hell with charity

What the Romans established that I hold for true.

What the ancient Greeks believed, that I believe too.

Long as earth endureth, radical secularists will hold,

While papists, reformationists, and fundamentalists in destruction rolled.

Liturgies and chants may perish, textual arguments rise and wane,

but the radical secularist constant will remain.

Gates of paradise or hell can never gainst those atheists prevail

We have Dawkins' own promise, and that cannot fail.

Onward then, ye secularists, join our happy throng,

Blend with ours your voices in the triumph song.

Glory, taxpayer subsidy, laud and honor unto the atheist brand

This through countless ages, the secularists make their stand...

Funny that, I don't remember the conspiratorial secularist atheists singing that song at our last prayer meeting on Sunday.

Perhaps next Sunday when we smite our enemies mightily and once more condemn them in relation to their morals, their ethics, their behaviour, their lifestyle choices, and their sexuality, before assigning them to an eternity of hellfire ... though we're open to discussing it, before the bolts of lightning strike.

Oh and dole bludgers and those with a firm view on the ABC's dangerous drift to somewhere are welcome to join, and of course you too will get your Pie in the Sky by and by ...

(Below: this is your friendly scientologist speaking).