Rapture day, and what better way to rapture your way to hell than by reading The Australian ...

(Above: a flyer kindly forwarded to the pond in the interest of saving civilisation).

The hour is getting close, but it's still Friday in America at time of writing, so you still have a few precious, fragile moments to rush off to Snopes to read about the Rapture of the Dolls, the tragic story of a woman killed and thirteen injured in a twenty car pile up because the woman was convinced that the rapture was happening when she saw twelve people floating into the air. Turns out that what she saw were helium-filled blow-up sex dolls ...

Of course this will be old news to you if you're a fan of Six Feet Under, which opened an episode with a dramatisation of this urban myth, a myth provoked by the fun pen of Elroy Willis. We like the notion so well we couldn't resist the flyer above, though as usual we have to forgive the spelling error. Surely graphic designers should be the first consigned to hell.

Meanwhile, a reader drew our attention to a splendid piece by Phillip Jensen, dubbed The Brothel and the Academic, wherein the nepotic Jensenite broods mightily about sinful brothels in Sydney, and the sinfulness of Stephen Hawking for daring to suggest that religion is designed for people afraid of the dark. The punchline? (Sorry, spoiler alert, but let's cut to the chase):

In the brothel we see sin. In “heaven is a fairytale” we hear the voice of Satan.

Yep, Hawking is channeling Satan, the father of lies, the user of the serpent to deceive, the plunger of the whole of humanity into God's condemnation, and perhaps, who knows, might even be Satan, using a funny Dalek voice and a wheelchair to hide his Satanic guile.

Look out, there's a sex doll rapturing its way to heaven.

Well the good Jensen sets a righteous tone of blathering nonsense, and so readies us for a trip to the opinion pages of The Australian, where predictable posturing is always the go.

There's Christopher Pearson explaining sagely how Time is running out for Gillard as PM, leading off with a plug for Andrew Bolt's new show, which sadly we've failed to see. Come to think of it, we're probably going to be sad for all eternity for failing to see it ...

Pearson's piece is utterly predictable - Gillard is facing gloom and doom in much the same way as the world is facing the rapture, and so Gillard must go, and former chairman Rudd must either make waves or resign his seat, and Greg Combet must be installed forthwith. Look out, there's a helium-filled sex doll wending its way to heaven ...

Tnen there's Dennis "the amazingly hued tie" Shanahan explaining how Gillard's long game is a big gamble. Naturally Tony Abbott is doing a wonderful job spreading FUD:

Abbott has no intention of easing his anti-tax campaign because he believes continuing price rises will be blamed on the carbon tax regardless of their origin.

We know electricity, gas, and petrol prices are going to continue to rise with or without a carbon tax and so Gillard has to deal with political reality while demonstrating Abbott's scare campaign hasn't lived up to his claims.

Never mind the truth, just roll out the scare campaign. Now there's a statesman ready to lead the country in a statesmanlike way. Look out it's a helium-filled sex doll on its way to heaven ...

And the weekend wouldn't be complete without reading Barnaby Joyce explaining how there's No place for sharia law here.

Yes it's good old Barners kicking the Islamic can, in a way only Barners could manage (he comes from up Tamworth way you know, watch the natives writhe in hellish fire and brimstone when you remind them):

Our grandads did not fight for some religious, unelected body to impose themselves on my freedom, stone adulterers or create a stratified society.

I know this is a Judeo-Christian society and I respect that when I go to Saudi Arabia it is not.

Yes, it's a Judeo-Christian society, so Barners thinks, but strangely, he seems to be wanting to keep a separation of mosque and state in the lucky country. Does that include churches as well, or do they get a free pass for telling their own brand of fairy tale?

How about kicking chaplains out of state schools, Barners, and re-thinking the policy on funding private schools dedicated to the propagation of their various forms of religious loonacy?

We look forward to to your many vigilant votes ensuring the separation of Judeo-Christian churches and dinkum secularist state.

Watch out, it's a helium-filled sex doll flying overhead ...

Barners seems to have his settings a little muddled:

Under sharia law, gay marriage would be another excuse for a good public stoning. How many Islamic countries are introducing a carbon tax?

Strange, did they introduce gay marriage laws in Australia while I was away? Or did the usual ritual public stonings of the concept continue?

And is Barners somehow suggesting that Tony Abbott's daily stoning of a carbon tax puts him in the company of many Islamic countries?

What a wondrous, dextrous thinker. And he knows about history too:

You get the feeling that in pre-Reformation Germany, the Greens would have been silent on Martin Luther's 95 theses, preferring instead to rail against the injustice of the trees that were chopped down to create the door of the Wittenberg church.

Actually I get the feeling that Barners has jumped the shark and nuked the fridge with his laboured comedy stylings about tree huggers. You get the feeling Barners is strangely silent on why he hasn't vigorously campaigned for gay marriage and a carbon tax, to differentiate himself from those Islamic fiends.

And so we come to the big Barners' wrap up:

I hope Australia's attention is clearly focused in dealing with this issue. If it isn't, then in a couple of years it will be prescribed that I cannot say I dissent.

Oh bugger me dead, or at least to an erotic state of ecstasy, now he's doing a Martin Niemöller routine, and worst of all, in some kind of double negative way.

Try it this way Barners. I can say I dissented, but was silenced, because they took away the trade unionists and gays, and saved the National party for last, because let's face it, we agree on so many things, like gay marriage, and climate change, carbon taxes and the value of oil and coal.

More to the point, try this: I can say I rabbited on like a goose, a gherkin, and a first water futtock. (oh I know a futtock is actually a curved timber that forms a rib in the frame of a ship, but I do so love it as a portmanteau, combining fuckwit and buttock, and a whiff of camel's arse).

Now we're ready for the big build:

That is the end game for the civilisation that gave us Mozart, penicillin, equality of men and women, the man on the moon, Shakespeare, habeas corpus, Hemingway, splitting the atom, James Joyce, electricity, man-made flight, locomotion, Jimi Hendrix - actually let's include the stockmarket, the mechanical wheat harvester and iPads.

Yes, and it also gave us Phillip Jensen, the Pellist heretics, helium-filled sex dolls, two world wars in which millions upon millions were killed, the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, Hiroshima, the Holocaust, nuclear weapons, the cold war, more hot wars than you can name, the inequality of men and women, and worst of all, the Dandy Warhols, currently touring the unlucky country ... (and did Barners mean Ernest or Mariel, the thinking bushie's piece of lesbian crumpet in Personal Best?)

Not to worry Barners, well said, but your bizarre point being? No place for bumbling idiots here, unlike in all 'dem Islamic countries? But, but, but, we elect our bumbling idiots to parliament, preferably the Senate, so we can enjoy their rambling idiocies and insights in that paper of record The Oz ...

Oh yes, it's a bumper crop of nonsense in the weekend Australian, so naturally we revert to the anonymous editorialist - worse than your average anon blogger - as he defiantly explains how wicked the Greens are, and how proudly independent The Australian is, holding everyone, except Tony Abbott and his truly inept climate change policies, to account ...

It's all there in Why the Greens are seeing red (yes, the anon edit loves a childish play on words, much like Barners loves tree hugger jokes), as the anon edit denies that The Australian is some kind of activist rag, and instead aims to hold authority to account and reflect the breadth of national views ... including Lord Monckton (and including but not limited to, such fellow travelling denialists and widely acclaimed scientists as Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair, and Miranda the Devine).

The poor sweet long suffering, proudly defiant anon edit's feelings are just so hurt.

Oh you wicked Greens, how dare you, when all we need to know is that Barners loves Jimi Hendrix, and suddenly my feelings about Jimi take a dive. Next thing you know Barners will reveal 'the Boss', for all his Democrat ways, is the finest example extant of National party and Judeo-Christian values ...

Never mind, it's fun to see Bob Brown fuck with the hive minds of the Murdoch hacks, as he explains why he has no intention of retiring, because he sees Rupert Murdoch as a role model for active eighty year olds (The Brown approach), and dishes it out to the evil empire, as reported in loving detail in News' revenge: editorial pages rain down on Brown's crusade. All because Brown had the temerity to strike back, and point out that the emperor regularly parades in shimmering denialist clothes.

The richest line in the whole thing?

Chris Mitchell, the man responsible for spreading more bad science, FUD, and fear mongering about climate change, more than any other editor in Australia, saying that he's washed out his mouth with soap, and The Australian has long supported a market-based mechanism for dealing with climate change.

What climate change, you goose? A consistent reading of The Australian's opinion pages over the past couple of years has firmly established in my mind that (a) like unicorns, climate change is a myth and (b) if urban myths like unicorns and helium-filled sex dolls and climate change are real, why we just have to learn to live with them, and certainly not spend a cent on them (well no more than fifty bucks for your sex doll, and the helium you can pick up at your local balloon party store, and dammit that's way cheaper than a carbon tax, which will increase the price of mashed potatoes, amongst many other things).

Confronted with all these Satanic issues, the Oz responds to Brown by running Barners on the joys of western civilisation.

It could be worse I suppose, it could have been Sarah Palin.

Watch out, there's a helium-filled sex balloon floating just above your head ...

(Below: Stephen Hawking in The Simpsons. Hang on a second, The Simpsons is funded by Fox, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and here he is allowing Hawking to speak directly to The Simpsons' vast audience of children, which can only mean that Murdoch is Satan, or at least Satan's accomplice, and so The Australian is Satan's mouthpiece. Well you might think that if you were Phillip Jensen, and truth to tell, it's as coherent as any editorial piece by the anon edit in that wicked, devilish, Barners, Pearson, Shanahan worshipping rag).