The Australian, its contributors, and why we must respectfully decline to read their columns ...

(Above: Must insert AFL cartoon for no reason. More Nicholson here).

The anonymous editorialist at The Australian - who has thus far refused to expose him or herself to the world - is fast becoming a profoundly disturbing form of sick entertainment for the pond.

Today there's an attempt at humour which makes a bid to explain why the French are in constant existential crisis, under the header The real cause of Gallic gloom. The conclusion?

Of course there is another explanation for Gallic gloom. It must depress a proud people that after centuries making wine and cheese and cultivating the good life, they are now a distant second to the world's best. They should get used it. After all, not everybody is lucky enough to be Australian.

Oh dear, it would be pathetic if it weren't so bathetic, or perhaps merely tragic. Can we just return to the good old days of calling the French cheese eating surrender monkeys? Now there's genuine wit, or at least more wit than The Australian's anonymous editorialist can muster. Naturally however the wag found the usual time to explain why the French are so pessimistic about everything:

Pourquoi? The obvious explanation is France has always paid too much attention to intellectuals, who consider happiness a bourgeois construct and when it comes to national mood think black is the new black.

Oh go piss in your cliched pants, merde, c'est vrainment un con, stop wasting our time with your comedy stylings, and get out of those thongs and put on some decent black. Pourquoi pas?

Ironically in the very same edition Luke Slattery wastes an enormous amount of time and words explaining how Aussie rules has turned us into nation of losers. Sheesh, from beating the French at everything to becoming the world's greatest losers, and all in one click. Damn you AFL, damn you to hell, you take the very best, and turn them into parochial Victorians, and the next thing you know the intellectual perfidious French are beating us at tiddlywinks ...

Reading The Australian's column pages this digital day reminded me just how much it's always an exercise in watching boys fulminate and froth and foam and jump up and down, preferably on the spot. There's never much in the way of commentary from women (and yes Judith Sloan and Janet "Dame Slap" Albrechtsen don't count).

In this context, a masculinist "must" or some other kind of instructional verb is a must. People must do things, and follow orders hup one two three, or everything will fall apart.

Thus the anonymous editorialist also offers us Both sides must embrace a reform agenda, which explains how politicians must follow orders in immigration matters, while Barry Cohen offers up Stem refugee flow at source, and if that header hides the must - stem is a pretty feeble sounding verb, the tag delivers in spades: We must take on the autocratic regimes that asylum-seekers are fleeing from.

We must, must we?

Cohen then delivers statistics that notes the top three countries producing recent boat people arrivals in Australia include Afghanistan (46.2% of the total) and Iraq 11%, with the other Iran (18%). Must take on autocratic regimes, must we? Just what did we do in Iraq and what are we currently doing in Afghanistan then?

As well as being naturally stupid, Cohen is naturally full of bile:

The loony Left, ardent supporters in the past of Stalin, Mao, Ceausescu, Pol Pot and other mass murderers, now devote their energies and enthusiasm to Islamo-fascism that is doing its best to destroy Western society, and Israel in particular.

Must be paranoid as well as stupid, must we? Note to self: must stop reading loopy loony former ALP hacks, especially one so bemused as to round out a column thus:

Here are some of the 47 countries in the "not free" category that the Left ignores when human rights are being discussed: Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Qatar, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, China, Eritrea, Syria, Zimbabwe, Burma, North Korea, Somalia, Libya. Aren't they a lovely bunch?

These countries create the overwhelming majority of refugees. This is where our efforts should be directed if we want to stem the flow of asylum-seekers.

Australia is taking its share of responsibility for the refugee problem but we are not the cause. We should see that the problem is sheeted home to those countries that are responsible.

Yep, Cohen lists a whole bunch of countries, thereby conflating human rights issues (as in North Korea) with boat people, and concludes we must tackle them to stem the flow of asylum seekers by tackling said countries, while amazingly ignoring the elephant in the room. Or should that be the Australian troops in Afghanistan and once upon a time in Iraq?

Yes, yes, yes, we've done such a spiffing job in Afghanistan and Iraq, a bold approach should work well in stopping all those boat people fleeing North Korea (bugger all %).

Must stop reading delusional demented former ALP hacks?

Oh no, I can't help myself, there's Gary Johns gloating over the decline and fall of the ALP in Ranks of Labor's true believers thinning.

According to the disdainful Johns, it seems that soon the only heart and soul left in the union movement will be emergency workers.

Damn you AFL, damn you to hell for ruining the union movement and turning Australia into a nation of sore losers.

But of all the 'must' columns of today's date, surely the 'must read' header is the one provided by Chris Gardiner over at the punch drunk Murdochian Punch in We must not list brothels on the stock market.

We must not, must we?

I guess we must not also pay attention to history, and we must maintain a singular righteousness in the face of reality, or perhaps we must not read Brothel shares leap in value, as first published by Fairfax back in May 2003:

Investors embraced shares in the sex industry group The Daily Planet Ltd today, with the brothel more than doubling its value on its stock market debut.

The Daily Planet, with its core asset the eponymous Melbourne brothel, hit the Australian Stock Exchange boards at 70 cents - compared to the 50 cents issue price under its $3.75 million initial public offering.

But hang on a second, the Daily Planet is in Melbourne, and what's that I see - apart from the IPO turning into a dog investment?

Chief executive Andrew Harris, with his craving for legitimacy fulfilled, immediately said he wanted to expand sponsorship by the brothel from a V8 racing team to an AFL club.

The AFL again! Damn you parochial Victorians and your parochial sports, and now the malcontent depressive French can beat us at boules.

Well before I must stop reading, there's just time to make a special award for gibberish to futurist Mark Pesce scribbling for Fairfax a few days ago in The year when the future came to stay.

Along with announcing that he'd made a startling prediction that Apple would launch an iPad, long after it was a well known trade rumour, Pesce concluded thus:

Each year the pace quickens. Each year the gap between the future and ourselves narrows.

Yes, and every year the gap between gibberish and ourselves narrows.

Must. Stop. Reading. Now ...