Well, the Rapture didn't happen, but this did: "'Evil' drunk birds are falling from the sky in Darwin." Yes.

Photo by RaeA, from Flickr.

Prison Island opposition leader Tony Abbott is currently embroiled in the delightfully Australian named "shitgate" controversy, which concerns remarks he made when discussing the death of a soldier. "Sometimes shit happens, doesn't it," asked Abbott, and while many seem willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, the whole episode has inspired a fascinating linguistic debate: "Australians use the phrase in two quite different ways, and the clue to whether what Mr Abbott said in Afghanistan was disrespectful or not lies in the modulation of his voice. Did he say ‘shit happens’, meaning ‘get over it, suck it up, spilt milk’? Or did he say ‘shit [...]

A six-year-old Australian girl has been banned from her school bus for five days, after facing bullying over her hijab. In response to being teased by a boy on the bus, she pulled down his pants. Her school is 40 miles from her house, so she'll have a nice week to sit at home and think about how life isn't fair while her bully goes to school. In other news, Australia has a word for pulling down people's pants in retribution: it is "dacking." Now you know.

After weeks of negotiations, Prison Island has a government: "Prime Minister Julia Gillard's center-left Labor Party will form a minority government to rule Australia for a second three-year term, after two independent lawmakers joined her coalition Tuesday in the interest of stable government."

"The first lesson is not to always believe your Navman and to have a look at a decent road map before you leave travelling to somewhere you've never been. And the second one is to never travel on the dirt roads in the west of NSW or western Queensland, particularly after heavy rainfall and when there's clear signs saying the roads are closed." -An Australian policeman creates a teachable moment from the story of a family of four who spent four days trapped in the mud after ignoring road closure signs in favor of the advice of their GPS.

Your lead of the day comes from Prison Island, where the government of New South Wales has pledged to spend approximately $125 million (American) to renovate a distinguished structure which has become dangerous through neglect: "Sydney's iconic Opera House is well known for beautiful singing, less so for the agonised screams of hapless visitors."

I'm not sure what's better: The fact that this is an actual public service announcement by the Australian government to improve driving behavior, or this headline describing the controversy surrounding it: "Government's 'Don't Be A Dickhead' campaign takes aim at gingers, emos." Win-win, I guess. [Via]

To Prison Island, where an Australian rules football player was recently removed from the field "'because his hair was too dangerous' and might have poked another player in the eye." Nathan Van Someren was sent off during the third quarter after an umpire decided that his gelled mohawk represented too much of a threat to other players.

• Shifting, avalanching, freezing-and-unfreezing dark basalt sand dunes encircling the North Pole of the planet Mars

• Area flooded around the city of Rockhampton, in Queensland, Australia last month

• God's rusty steel ring

• The hole you left deep inside of my heart

Travelers to Australia need to declare the porn they're bringing into the country to customs agents. The Prison Island government is actually asking you to declare illegal porn, but as you can imagine, there has been some confusion: "According to the Australian Sex Party spokesman Robbie Swan, one case involved a couple on their honeymoon, who thought they had to declare naked iPhone pictures of themselves after reading the incoming passenger card. They were made to display a nude photo of themselves in a line with all these other people; they were so embarrassed." Nobody tell Brett Favre!

This is a strange and sudden turn for the New Yorker's poetry section: it's Australian week! There's a tribute to the Australian auteurs of "Who Can It Be Now?" and a weird old one-line joke from David Musgrave. (Which, really? Um? You sure? Seriously? Okay!)

A drunken Australian, having been ejected from a pub in Broome, Western Australia, for being intoxicated by even the heroic standards of Prison Island, decided to visit the local crocodile park, where he scaled the fence and attempted to ride a giant saltwater crocodile named Fatso. Fatso, however, was reluctant to be ridden, and took a chunk out of the man's leg. Deciding on reflection that it might not be the most propitious occasion for an excursion atop a crocodile, the fellow returned to the pub from which he had been cast out, "with bits of bark hanging off him and flesh gouged out of his limbs." He was [...]

Three Australian muggers were mugging a German medical student outside a ninja training school in Sydney. The ninjas, dressed in all their ninja finery, temporarily halted their ninjery and emerged from their ninja academy to advance upon the muggers, who, seeing the approaching horde of menacing ninjas, chose to abandon the mugging and flee from the ninjas. You can read more details here, but the piece ends with the word "Cowabunga," which, you know.

Prison Island's Pirate King is incensed at remarks made by Robin Williams about his nation of convicts. Responding to a series of jokes Williams made on David Letterman's show (sample: "The Australians are basically English rednecks," "If Darwin had landed in Australia he would have said: 'I'm wrong, I don't know what I was thinking,'" etc.), Prime Minister/blackout drunk Kevin Rudd suggested that the comedian "should go and spend a bit of time in Alabama before he frames comments about anyone being particularly redneck." Which, you know, fair enough. Also, I don't really expect Kevin Rudd to know this, but nobody over here really thinks Robin Williams is [...]

"If he's a ratbag, he's one of our ratbags. He's done the crimes and he's paid for the crimes. This is quite an inhumane punishment, far beyond the treatment he deserves." —Stephen Kenny, attorney for Clifford Tucker, objects to Australia's decision to deport Tucker to Britain "over a series of crimes, including attempted murder." (Tucker, 47, moved with his family to Prison Island when he was 6, but never claimed citizenship.) The irony of Australia sending its own miscreants to Knifecrime Island aside, consider this statement from Tucker in mitigation of his offenses: "I'm not a career criminal, I haven't committed any crimes since 1999 other than a minor [...]