Why such cynism? It might be good, we're talking X Files here not Indiana Jones. They haven't cast Shia LaWhatever.

"Most European countries are self-important, though."

Because America is not?

Reminds me of Georges Perec's book La Disparition, 300 pages written without the letter "e". Brilliant novel by the way.

About the guillotine, the inventor might not have been killed by his own invention but I think it's a historical fact that Louis XVI who was a better inventor than a king helped him perfectionate his creation by recommending a triangular blade with a beveled edge instead of a crescent one. And Louis XVI was beheaded by this guillotine.