Barners, Pearson, and hey mum a little Ruddster margarine will remove those stains in a trice ...

(Above: because we love cartoon pamphleteering on the pond. Click to enlarge and more First Dog here).

It's been awhile since we dropped in on Barners, now a mind-blown international jet setter and party dude with Bollywood stars, but the news that Gina Rinehart flew MPs to India for lavish wedding was too much to ignore.

It also led to this bit of graffiti at the bottom of Crikey's piece Two grand for Barnaby's 'mind blowing' India epic with Gina:

Like a Rinehart cowboy
Riding out on a plane to a star-spangled rodeo
Like a Rinehart cowboy
Getting cards and letters from people I don’t even know
And offers comin’ over the phone ...

No need to apologise to Glenn Campbell, Klewso, the lyrics are very singable, and so we spread them a little further in the hope that karaoke singers everywhere will be inspired .

We were so inspired, we immediately rushed off to Barnaby's website, only to see that Barnaby was complaining about ... mining and the detritus of mining ... under the header So Mt Morgan Mine does need to be fixed?

As I said back in April, it is problems like these facing the environment that we can fix and should fix immediately and leave alone the ones that are simply a spurious means of balancing the Labor party’s books by taxing the air we breathe.

Of course Australian Mining carried a contrarian view from the Queensland government, Joyce muddles mining: Hinchliffe, but really Barners is such a caring environmentalist, and provides such a succinct understanding of climate science, that we breathlessly await his plans for the redemption of the Liverpool plains and the Hunter valley.

Meanwhile, The Australian's anonymous editorialist also seems to have discovered that there might be some consequences to mining, no matter that they cheerfully drink the carbon to be found in coca-cola, as they let loose a flood of mock turtle tears in Parable for modern Australia:

Mr Beutel's refusal to sell out to a mining company has touched a real nerve because it is about much more than profit or compensation. It is about belonging, about the demise of a close-knit community. It is about a place where koalas feed in eucalypt trees planted by Mr Beutel's parents, where he still mows the gardens that helped Acland win tidy town prizes and where a cherished war memorial honouring local diggers who served their country will be removed. Nor is it surprising that Mr Beutel and many Darling Downs residents lament the potential destruction of prime farmland that has been one of the nation's most important food bowls for generations.

Dearie me, won't someone think of the koalas.

Well that's terribly sad, but after all, what's the point of retaining food bowls for future generations when we can all be eating solyent green, with extra layers of healthy carbon, spread on bread like a sustaining lump of margarine? Harden the fuck up, future generations ...

Mr Beutel is unlikely to save his beloved Acland, and the mining company has offered to relocate him. But, in making a stand, with the help of broadcaster Alan Jones, who grew up on a farm outside the town, Mr Beutel has drawn attention to a downside of the mining boom that has to be addressed. Individuals and communities matter. In these situations, compromises are not always possible any more than when local protesters want major dams or freeways stopped. Disenfranchised citizens, however, deserve to be heard.

Uh huh, individuals and communities matter. But bugger it, not too much or Gina and Twiggy will be ruined.

Well now Mr Beutel has been heard, thanks to the unerring sympathy of the anonymous editorialist. Can we consider the matter addressed, possibly by a thumb dipped in tar? Perhaps disenfranchised citizens should be allowed five minutes of quiet sobbing in The Australian's editorials, and then be silenced, as we all stand aside to allow Gina Rinehart sail on by in a queenly way, her wealth untouched and unsullied by filthy, evil mining taxes.

Yep, attention's been paid, by the anon edit, and possibly Barnaby and a few others, and now Mr Beutel can simply bugger off and be relocated (Glen Beutel yet to sell home as Acland coal mine closes in).

Ah, there's nothing like the smell of crocodile tears and humbug in the morning to make a human bean feel as alive as a jumping jack.

After all Barners loves a Bollywood wedding and China loves its coal, and really that's just generating more enriching air for us to breath.

Barners' take on climate science is also why we felt the need to put First Dog up top because the doggy seems to capture the zeitgeist for the week, and the political pamphleteering to be found in The Australian.

Speaking of political pamphleteering, today is of course Christopher Pearson day, but sadly it's all to boring and predictable, as he drags the spectre of former Chairman Rudd out of the closet and waves it around in Kevin Rudd slots into the role of once-and-future king, with loud "oooohing" noises, and clanking and rattling of chains off stage right.

Only one phrase caught the eye:

What matters is that it's unmistakeably Pearsonspeak and the tone is characteristic, too; pedantic and superior, staking out whatever might pass for the high moral ground.

Pearson was in reality referring to Ruddspeak, but truth to tell, it takes one superior high moral ground pedant to spot another, and the way Pearson writes, you'd swear he and Rudd were soul mates.

Pearson delivers some wonderful non-sequiturs as he fantasises about Rudd's return:

It doesn't matter that both the claim and counter-claim are the stuff of fantasies, just as long as some of the back bench (and Pearson and his readers) are beguiled by them.

Yes it doesn't matter if you lead a rich fantasy life, provided it's a rich fantasy life.

And speaking of borderline delusional, what to make of someone who believes whole-heartedly in the stuff of fantasies?

Even the suspicion that Rudd might be borderline delusional serves to rock the boat. MPs in marginal seats will continue to wonder: is he mad enough to pull the pin and bring down the government and, if so, when? They'll all remember that when he took over the leadership he said that it would be fun to mess with John Howard's head for a few months. Nowadays the heads he messes with are those of his colleagues, and Pearson and his readers.

Truth to tell, Pearson routinely fucks with the mind of the pond, especially when it seems likely that he's mad enough to believe what he writes.

Regular readers will remember that it was only in May that Pearson was fantasising about Rudd vacating his seat mid-term, with the Labor party losing the by-election and so government. (Time is running out for Gillard as PM).

Now in a single leap and a bound, Rudd's shifted from resigning entirely and bringing the house down, to pulling the pin so he can take control in opposition and returning in due course to rule the roost as revanchist PM .

Frankly, this obsession with former Chairman Rudd as the key to the meaning of political life is somewhat onanistic, with many words spilled like seed to the ground, and suggests Pearson needs to get a life, or at least get to junket around the world like the Ruddster, hob nobbing and big noting himself ...

Meanwhile, the endless fascination with the Ruddster continues in that mere political pamphlet The Sydney Morning Herald, as Peter Hartcher offers not just one, but two redemptive articles about the redeemed Rudd: A year on, Rudd would do things differently, and A transformer's sequel, in which the Ruddster is cast as a transformational leader who pursued a breathtaking activist agenda and has learnt from his mistakes.

This is Rudd, a moral politician, the penitent. He is asking for forgiveness and a second chance. Is a transformational leader able to transform himself? The polls strongly suggest that the voting public is ready to accept him. His caucus colleagues are a harder sell.

Dear sweet absent lord, has the pond stumbled upon a vast international conspiracy, which when unveiled will reveal that Christopher Pearson is secretly Peter Hartcher, or vice versa, that Hartcher has been moonlighting for that pamphleteering rag The Australian under the pen name Christopher Pearson?

Who knows, but in a single blow, Hartcher manages to remind us of all that was wrong with the former Chairman:

He is admitting his mistakes, he said, because ''my mum always said, 'You know, Kev, the truth isn't a bad strategy.' I think mum's right.''

Oh dearie me, the mum ploy ...

Suddenly life under the Ruddster came back with the hideous intensity of a 'congratulations mum' Meadow Lea advertisement from the eighties ...

Surely there are other ways to soften us up for the rule of Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce than this incessant babble about former chairman Rudd?

Now feel free to sing along. From Glenn Campbell to Mojo, and oh the suffering of humanity, the suffering ...