I hate to defend a Liberal, but...

... the attack on this guy seems unwarranted:

Controversy is swirling around B.C. Liberal Ron McKinnon after he evoked Nazi policies in criticizing the Conservative government’s plan to deal with Tamil migrants.

His own party is distancing itself from him. In fact, they are now referring to him as “this individual” amid calls from senior Harper strategists for Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff to apologize for his remarks.

Mr. McKinnon is president of a federal riding association in British Columbia and a former candidate. In a blog post entitled “An Evasion of Duty,” he wrote: “This brave new policy is sordidly familiar, akin to collaborating with the Nazis to stop the flight of Jews.”

“So they propose to stop on the high seas vessels carrying such persecuted souls, and turn them back well before they get to Canadian waters,” he wrote. “If we build the wall high enough, and make it impossible for refugees to actually get here, we can bask in our warm pious glow and never have to actually face them.”

From the Globe. And what's so outrageous about this? Well, the Cons think it's obvious:

“There are some issues which should never be politicized,” the Tories said in a memo to supporters and MPs on Thursday. An “Ignatieff Liberal Association President ... crossed the line when he likened our Government’s determination to tackle human smuggling at its source to the Nazis' treatment of Jews.”

Right, except he isn't doing that. He's likening the government's policy to the policy of previous Canadian governments, who turned away Jews who were fleeing the Holocaust. I suppose one can understand why the Cons would sooner forget that nasty bit of history, but it is indeed a part of our history, and a part that I for one would sooner not see repeated.

Italy starts mass fingerprinting of Roma

It seems incredible that something like this would happen in modern Europe, but it's happening. I suppose the brown triangles are the next thing in line...

Fingerprint the lot of them: the idea had the satisfying smack of firm government. Now the Italian government was doing something tough; something long overdue.

The Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, a leader of the rabble-rousing Northern League – close allies of Silvio Berlusconi on the government benches – has explained his next step in his assault on the "emergenza di sicurezza", the "security emergency": fingerprinting all Gypsies.

It was the only way, he told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, for Italy to guarantee "to those who have the right to remain here, the possibility of living in decent conditions." For this purpose the Roma – those with Italian nationality and those without, EU citizens and those from outside the Community – will all have their fingerprints taken. And the rule will even apply to Gypsy children – for reasons that to many of Mr Maroni's supporters must have sounded obvious: "to avoid phenomena," as he put it, "such as begging". The new measures, he said, were indispensable "in order to expel those who do not have the right to stay in Italy".

From the Independent. The Globe also covered the story here; while less comprehensive, this story is instructive for the comments left by some readers, which have to be seen to be believed. It's interesting that the comments weren't removed; somehow I doubt that similar comments about other Holocaust victims would have been tolerated.