Lluís Foix, of all people, in La Vanguardia, of all places, blew the whistle on some absolute bullshit prepared by, get this, the Barcelona city government's Institute of Education for the purpose of, get this, using it in the schools. Impostor Enric Marcó was a major source for the book. It's called "Republicans and Republicanas in the Nazi concentration camps." From the chapter "The Nazi genocide today and other genocides," Foix quotes,

"Of all the problems that exist today, probably there are two that, at the moment of writing this educational unit, have many similarities with Nazi genocide and the ghettos which the German Nazis created to isolate the Jews from everyone else...they are the construction of the wall of shame in Palestine and the jailing of Taliban prisoners at the military base the United States has on the island of Cuba, in Guantanamo."

The Barcelona city government is going to pass this crap out in the schools, this explicit moral comparison between the Nazi genocide and current American and Israeli actions. Do I need to point out that my great-uncles Homer and W.B. and Zeb actually got dragged out of Texas and sent to Europe where they actually shot some Nazis, or that the Spanish Republican prisoners at Mauthausen were liberated by none less than the Americans, or that the Israelis are the children of those who suffered real genocide, not those Spaniards who were locked up because some of them were Stalinist murderers?

Find me a gas chamber at Guantanamo or a death camp in Israel, you shits.

Meanwhile a Catalan delegation went to Israel and behaved like a bunch of assholes. First they had an homage to Yitzhak Rabin, and the Catalan flag wasn't there, so separatist leader Carod-Rovira refused to attend it. Refused to attend a ceremony honoring a prime minister murdered precisely because he tried to make peace because his region's flag wasn't there! Then there was a ceremony in homage to the victims of the Holocaust, which the Spanish ambassador was at, and they only had a Catalan flag, which bothered the ambassador since his country's flag wasn't at an official government occasion. They played regional symbolic politics at an homage to the victims of the Holocaust! Then, get this, on Friday premier Pasqual Maragall and ERC leader Carod-Rovira paid a visit in the morning to the Holocaust Museum, the Wailing Wall, and the Holy Sepulchre. They were so deeply impressed with the solemn occasion that they bought a souvenir plastic crown of thorns and Maragall got a photo of Carod wearing it in front of everybody with a huge smile on his ignorant, arrogant face. And some people dare to complain about foreigners' inappropriate behavior in Spain! Gee, let's make fun of Jesus after visiting the most sacred sites of the Jewish and Christian religions and the museum dedicated to the real victims of genocide.

The Israeli ambassador to Spain's reaction was, "It is lamentable and inappropriate that a ceremony in which respect was to be shown to one of our heroes, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was marked by an incident internal to Spain." Duran Lleida, of Convergence and Union, the Catalan moderates, said, "It was an embarrassing show. Real clownishness, like Charlie Chaplin." Duran called for "respect toward Christians and for what Jerusalem signifies." The PP's Jorge Fernandez Diaz said he felt "embarrassed. More than an official visit of leaders of a country who have to show an appropriate image, this looks like a bunch of buddies on a trip behaving ridiculously." Pasqual Maragall said, "The visit was an exceptional success." I think they let Maragall start drinking again, because he sure has been acting like it recently. The guy is a notorious alcoholic.

Meanwhile, poor Victor Harel, the Israeli ambassador here in Madrid, also had to deal with the offensive history textbook the city government came out with. He said, "We feel very badly. It is shameful to include the issue of the Palestinian wall in a text about the Holocaust. The text shows a complete lack of sensitivity and the banalization of the Holocaust, and we cannot permit that, Comparing the Nazi era with Israel's current policies crosses the red line and becomes anti-Semitism. " Harel demanded "the text be retired immediately and its content be rectified, omitting all references to current Israeli policy." Meanwhile, the Israeli embassy has contacted the Spanish foreign ministry and Israel's president, Moshe Katsav, is going to call Maragall on the carpet and, I hope, chew him up one side and down the other.

Official reaction from the Barcelona city government? Socialist clown Marina Subirats, in charge of the municipal Institute of Education (why we need one I have no idea), said, "The sentence in which the Palestinian wall is mentioned is the opinion of the authors that the city government will not censor." Later, after being talked to loudly and clearly by somebody with a brain, probably from the foreign ministry, she said, "We don't want a diplomatic incident. Although this controversy is totally disproportionate, we will, together with the authors, revise the entire text before its distribution. This material has not yet been handed out and is in the process of correction because of its references to Enric Marcó."

Good job, guys. You managed to offend the Israelis, the Americans, the Catholics, the non-Catalan Spaniards, the Jews, and the memory of the dead. Not bad for three days. Not to mention looking like fools for swallowing all of Enric Marco's lies.

How long are Spain's voters going to let this go on?