The crowds are incensed because Morrissey has compared US immigration officers to the SS.

The crowds are foolish. A large proportion of good immigration officers [*], whether in the US, the UK, India, or anywhere else, would make good SS men – and nearly all SS men would make good immigration officers. The two jobs share some very important traits: the willingness to follow immoral and nonsensical orders without question, and the ability to take pleasure in inflicting suffering upon others.

Many immigration officers would creditably refuse if asked to shoot the unfortunate would-be migrants themselves, instead of merely sending them abroad to be shot by whichever vicious regime they’re escaping from. I’d be surprised, however, if this ‘many’ were much more than 75%.

It’s easy to write Nazi Germany off as a place full of uniquely evil people, and the developing world off as Not Europe. It’s also foolish. The world is depressingly full of horrible, horrible bastards who take great pleasure in fucking people over. The difference between civilised and Nazi society is that the Nazis celebrated immigration officers and other vicious, petty-minded thugs as heros.

While civilised people’s opinions may differ on such groups’ necessity, it’s vitally important that we remain agreed that they’re scumbags.

[*] I’m aware that many immigration officers take no pride in their job and try and avoid causing trouble and general badness. I have no quarrel with these people.

Remember the Iraq oil-for-food scandal? The one that meant, in the eyes of the pro-swivel-eyed-lunacy brigade, that France was deliberately trying to avoid enforcing inspections in Iraq because French companies were cleaning up on the (presumably pork-inflated) work?

Two of the largest French companies involved – accounting for 20% of total payouts to French-registered firms under the scheme were, err, General Electric and Halliburton. But the cash went via their French subsidiaries, so it was clearly the cheese-eating surrender monkeys who were to blame.

Hooray! Hunter S Thompson has taken a break from writing his incomprehensible sports column to comprehensively dismember George Bush. This piece should be compulsory reading for everyone before November 2, whether or not they have a vote. But especially if they do.

(via Blood & Treasure)

From the Google News front page: "Doctors to consider sending ailing Palestinian president to…" (it links to this boring article, which has a full headline).

The best suggestion for filling in the blank wins some kind of award. And this isn’t LGF, so responses along the lines of ‘hell’ are acceptable only if funny.

Perhaps lest Guardian readers attempt to eSsassinate him, the White House has blocked all traffic from outside the US from visiting georgewbush.com.

I guess the real logic is that the postal votes from Americans overseas are in by now, so there’s no reason to waste bandwidth on people who doesn’t get a vote next week. Still seems a bit against the spirit of the Internet, though. I’m sure Al Gore would never have done such a thing…

Update: if you’re a filthy furrner and you’re desperate to check out the Prez, then this link gets you in just fine.

It’s good to know that some Americans also have things in perspective. Not, admittedly, the ones who run the Smoking Gun website. Nonetheless, good work to Messrs Kilborn and Letterman.

Just a quick one: if you missed the notorious Charlie Brooker piece, it’s here, hopefully indefinitely.

And if you want to join Fridgemagnet and me in writing to the Guardian to protest their craven cowardice in pulling the piece, but are too lazy to work out how to phrase the letter, then he has some suggestions.

It’s also worth pointing out that as with all Charlie Brooker/Chris Morris work (although the great man himself probably wasn’t involved here), the more fuss that people make about the piece, the funnier the whole affair becomes. Which scientifically proves that the article is, indeed, funny.

Very sad news indeed, in fact: the great John Peel has died in Peru. May he rest in peace, and *general emotional things* to everyone who knew him. Now there was a proper fucking hero.

Even more tragically, Vernon Kay is still alive.

Unsurprisingly, Mark Steyn has joined the Charlie Brooker pile-on. His column is as tedious and xenophobic as always, but he does hit on rather a good point: "Brooker and the Guardian seem to be protesting no, don’t worry, we were just talking the talk, there’s nothing we’re prepared to walk the walk for."

Yes. That’s why we’re better than you, you bloodthirsty moron. We don’t want to run around killing people. We’d rather sit around making ironic jokes about how much of an idiot George Bush is. Because, oddly enough, we think that sitting around making jokes about George Bush is *fun*, while running around killing people is *bad*.

Oh, and as if this case weren’t proof enough that the Bushites have lost all sense of perspective, Powerline is now busy claiming that an attempt by some rowdy youths to pelt Ann Coulter with pies was tantamount to an assassination attack, rather than an attempt to pelt an irritating nutcase with pies.

Shortly before I was born, the town where I grew up was attacked by terrorists of a certain religious/ethnic group. Only five people were killed, more by good luck than anything else. Fifty more were injured as they drank. The country was horrified, and demanded revenge.

Immediately after the attack, and another similar one, the government passed a law allowing it to counter the Evil Certain Religious/Ethnic Group Terrorist Menace by detaining suspected terrorists without the normal legal safeguards.

The police made good use of the new law: only three days after it was signed, they arrested four young people from the relevant religious/ethnic group and persuaded them to confess to everything. A year later, the four were convicted of murder.

15 years later, a different court accepted that the police had beaten them into confessing, and that they lied in court to secure a conviction. The four were acquited. Civilised people across the country and the world hoped that this would be the last time the desire for revenge against the Evil Certain Religious/Ethnic Group Terrorist Menace drove the country to lose its senses.

Of course, nobody ever learns anything.