If you haven’t heard, the Rapture is coming on Saturday.

Specifically, the Rapture is coming at 6:00 PM local time on Saturday. (Apparently, God respects time zones!) So it’ll start in Kiribati and sweep westward across the globe, I guess. Some folks are planning Rapture Parties. Others are making contingency plans for their pets. (No, really.)

Meanwhile, those of us in the ranks of the Unsaved are getting ready for… nothing to happen. Or, just possibly, getting ready to witness the spectacle of our Saved compatriots being suddenly sucked up into the Great Fairy Story in the Sky, leaving us heathens here on Earth to deal first with the FlashForward-like aftermath of the Rapture itself, followed by the coming Apocalypse, presided over by President Hillary Clinton (c’mon, you know she’s arranged with God, or Satan if necessary, that Obama, Biden, Boehner and Inouye will all be Raptured).

Personally, I’m mostly just excited for the beer & broads party I’m going to throw on Sunday for my good tweet-friend Zach, a devout Mormon, who has agreed with my suggestion that, if the Rapture happens, thus disproving the tenets of his faith (Mormons don’t believe in the Rapture), it’s time to live it up.

Anyway, as you can tell, I’ve been having some fun with this on Twitter, as have many folks. For posterity — you know, so after the Rapture happens, I can remember how I foolishly made fun of it beforehand — I just thought I’d share a few of my tweets about it…

UPDATE: On a related note, Salon ponders scenarios in which Newt Gingrich can become the GOP nominee. Possibly the most plausible:

The Rapture does happen this weekend, but only Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush ascend to heaven.

In this scenario, most of the GOP candidates and would-be candidates will be in the clouds with Jesus. Gingrich, a recent convert to Catholicism, probably takes an Amillennial view of Revelations, and will remain on Earth with the sinners. He’ll still have to defeat Tea Party favorite Herman Cain, who may or may not be a charming antichrist figure, but Gingrich will probably be able to take advantage of the fact that most Tea Party-affiliated Republican primary voters will have already raptured.

Heh. More of my Rapture tweets (including some new ones added Friday morning) after the jump.

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Heh.

Deadspin’s list of 10 Things That Christmas Would Be Better Off Without (warning: profanity!) is very, very wrong — for instance, #1 is Jesus — but also very funny in parts. My favorite is number 3:

Christmas Cards That Do Not Include An Awkward Family Photo
The only reason to send me a Christmas card is so I can look at your family and pick apart each member’s looks one by one. Did you get fat? Why is your child wearing that john-john? Are you really that much of a snobby prick? Is that your living room? Looks like it was designed by a blind heterosexual. This is Christmas. It’s my season to JUDGE YOU. Don’t send me some Christmas card that has no picture in it. You may as well be sending me a FiOs direct mail piece. Into the fireplace with it. AND NO PICTURES OF JUST YOUR DOG. If there’s anything people care about less than your kids, it’s your stupid f***ing dog.

LOL! Also, number 6:

Gift Guides
Gawker proper has always railed against magazine gift guides featuring products you can’t possibly afford. And yet, they continue to thrive, even multiply. “Hey! Your Dad would love this $800 turntable that converts all his vinyl records to mp3s!” That’s true. You know what else Dad would love? A F***ING HELICOPTER. A f***ing $30 million Huey helicopter with f***ing double missiles on each side and a special cloaking device. And the Raiders! He would love the Oakland Raiders, and he’d also love a hovering sail barge, and this special Vuitton-designed Kindle carrying case that costs more than the original product! All perfectly realistic. F*** YOU AND DIE.

Heh. As for the “Dora the Explorer version of ['A Christmas Carol'] with Swiper the Fox standing in for Scrooge,” I haven’t seen it yet, but I suspect it’s in my future. #PANIC!

Guest post by Tim Stevens

Friendly’s currently offers a menu item called “Bacon Cheeseburger Soup.” Again, that is Bacon Cheeseburger Soup.

...Yum?

Inspired by Daniel Radcliffe’s shout-out to Tom Lehrer, I posted video of “We Will All Go Together When We Go” earlier. But actually, that’s only my second-favorite Lehrer ditty about nuclear war. Here’s #1 — “So Long Mom”:

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.)

Here’s loyal LRT reader Jim Kelly, representin’ #PANIC!!! at the Colbert & Stewart Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear‎ on Saturday (my birthday):

Heh!

South Park aired a parody of Inception last night. I haven’t seen the whole episode yet, but based on this clip, it looks like I should:

Pollster: “There’s not a lot of point in breaking down feelings toward Blagojevich along demographic lines because pretty much everyone in the state hates him about the same.”

Heh.

He’s got 8% favorable ratings, 83% unfavorable, which is apparently the worst rating for a politician that Public Policy Polling has ever seen. And you know those 8% are either family members, close personal friends, or people he personally paid off when he heard PPP had called them. A response to an opinion pollster is a f***ing valuable thing, you know! You can’t expect these poll respondents to give it up for f***ing nothing!

As for Blagojevich’s planned “triumphant political comeback,” I’ve got some free advice for the ex-governor: forget politics. Entertainment is your future. I’m thinking either a sitcom titled “Everybody Hates Blago,” or a reality TV show in which a group of housemates competes for a monetary prize through a series of challenges in which Blago is the judge. The judging would be scrupulously fair, I’m sure. If CBS can have a sitcom called “$#*! My Dad Says,” why can’t Fox have a reality show called “It’s F***ing Golden!”?

Guest post by Tim Stevens

Well, summer is done and fall is here, so it’s time to take a look back at how I kept myself busy this summer. I’ve been advised by my attorneys (of which I have legions) that I cannot discuss any matters pertaining to investigations in progress, so that leaves…books. Other stuff, too, but for the sake of this piece, let’s just focus on books, shall we?

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Ole Miss really should have gone with Admiral Ackbar as its new mascot. He could have warned them that paying Jacksonville State $300,000 for a guarantee game in Oxford was… A TRAP!!!!!

Ever since the 4th of July, when we listened to a some patriotic music in the car while driving to a fireworks show, Loyette has been obsessed with, as she adorably calls it, “pay-pee-otic” music.

For a while, her favorite was “God Bless America” (which she now has memorized, and will sometimes sing in its entirety when she feels randomly inspired to burst into song). Then, for a time, her favorite was “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” Then, “Anchors Aweigh.” Now, it’s this song, from the 1957 Disney movie Johnny Tremain and the Sons of Liberty. She calls it the “Tree Song,” as in, “Can we hear the Tree Song, Daddy?”

Wow, I haven’t watched that scene since… seventh grade, maybe? I’m pretty sure we watched that movie in some history or social studies class in middle school. Heh. Anyway, God Bless YouTube.

If I remember correctly, the singing patriots are coming back from the Boston Tea Party as they march through the streets, singing about the “Liberty Tree.” Which, in turn, makes me realize what’s missing from all these Tea Party rallies: they need more showtunes! Get Disney to write a snappy song about how Obama sucks, then they’ll really have something. :)

On an unrelated note, Loyette has also memorized the “Notre Dame Victory March,” and will sometimes sing it all by herself. I’m hoping to get a video, before the season starts, of her singing the whole thing. Then, Becky says I should publish it, with a tipjar, start a “Send This Girl To A Notre Dame Game” fundraising drive, and hope it goes viral. Heh.

Heh.

Guest post by David K.

Today’s XKCD reminds us that the biggest rip off is not texting fees, baggage fees, or even the price of gasoline. It’s graphing calculators: