Mr Shakeshaft thought it was a serious political issue that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a US government souvenir coffee mug on his desk in Calgary, more than 3,000 km away from where he normall drinks his coffee.
Today, we explore the equally-tragic case of Jeff Merklinger, who Tweets under the handle @JeffMerklinger, aka "STOP HARPER" (Merklinger apparently engages his capslock to attract maximum attention).
Judging from his Twitter account, Merklinger's flagship political argument is to accuse Prime Minister Harper and the Tories of being Nazis.
There really isn't much of a story with Merklinger -- just another intellectually-impotent left-winger relying more on bombastic sleaze than on anything even remotely resembling a factual or rational argument. The real story with Merklinger is who appreciates his work.
In examining the list of Merklinger's followers, one finds something remarkable -- the Catch .22 Conservatives:
The Catch .22 Conservatives are essentially a collective of left-wingers determined to defeat Tory candidates in targetted ridings. They applied for, and received, third party status from Elections Canada, meaning that they're allowed to spend money campaigning for or against candidates in this election.
Merklinger isn't the only borderline-certifiable individual involved in their campaign.
Also involved is CK, the basketcase chickenwanker behind Sister Sage's Musings -- a blog better described as "Sister Spiteful's Musings".
CK even produced this poster for the campaign, a poster she displayed on her blog with all the pride of a six year-old showing mommy and daddy their most recent finger-painted etchings.
Among the complaints listed in the poster is "secretly wishing Sarah Palin could join their gang". So among all the vapid complaints in the poster -- tailor-designed to appeal only to the far-left base -- is one argument that literally holds zero relevance to Canadians.
This among various racially-tinged comments from CK, as well as from some of her co-bloggers.
Simply put, the Catch .22 Conservatives would really like Canadians to take them seriously. Unfortunately for them, between their Twitter activities and their secret membership, there's no reason in the world for anyone to do so.
There is truly nothing more frightening to the freedom-loving mind than the idea of having your country occupied by an oppressive and hostile force.
In Homefront, Kaos Games teams up with Red Dawn director John Milius to present a "what if?" scenario in which the emergence of a ruthless and competent North Korean leader intersects with a disastrous Iran-Saudi Arabia war (and accompanying oil price shock) combines to lead to the rise of a terrifying new global power: the Greater Korean Federation.
The game presents a chilling -- but historically familiar -- scenario in which North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong-Un reunites with South Korea and begins to annex countries around the Pacific rim, including Japan.
In the face of the rising threat, the United States has long since retreated from the Pacific rim while the western economy collapses. A bird flu endemic claims the lives of six million Americans while the Koreans slowly creep across the Pacific.
Although the threat grows on their very doorstoops, the "future history" of Homefront suggests that China and Russia do absolutely nothing to prevent it. Indeed, perhaps they make some plays of their own, using the growing power of the Greater Korean Federation as cover for their own moves (think a Chinese annexation of Taiwan, possible Russian seizures of Ukraine, Georgia and other former Soviet Republics).
If this sounds familiar one shouldn't be surprised.
During the 1930s and '40s, Adolph Hitler took advantage of a massive economic upheaval to creep across Europe entirely unopposed until it was nearly too late to stop him. When the allies finally decided to stand up to Hitler it was already too late; France fell quickly.
So humanity already knows the human cost of retreating from tyranny. It led to the costliest war in human history, one that claimed some 16,000,000 lives.
If any such threat really existed in the world today, it has become clear that President Barack Obama would not be equipped to deal with it. Like the fictional United States presented in the fictional Homefront game, Obama has made a habit of abandoning US allies, to the extent that they actually handed British nuclear secrets over to the Russians.
It's that kind of international disloyalty that contributes to the "America alone" scenarios that Milius so frequently presents. It's a rather simple and intuitive idea: when weak leadership renders the United States a liability rather than a reliable ally, its friends may decide to just stay home.
In the face of an enemy like the fictional Korean foe presented in Homefront -- one so indifferent to human rights and the laws of war that they would irradiate the Mississippi River in order to keep US forces divided -- the abandonment of one's allies can come with a steep cost:
It's the high and intolerable cost of retreating from tyranny.
In part two of The Century of the Self, Adam Curtis outlines how the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud were applied in an effort to try to prevent a mass movement like the one present in Nazi Germany from ever emerging in the United States.
Ironically, the progenitors of these efforts wound up seeking precisely the kind of total control that the Nazi Party had sought in Germany.
Sigmund Freud believed that psychoanalysis could, at best, help people understand the internal forces within their own minds. His daughter Anna Freud, however, had different ideas entirely: she believed that people could learn to control these internal forces.
Of course, if an individual could learn how to control these forces, it isn't unthinkable that other people could learn how to control them on the individual'a behalf.
This at least partially seemed to be the impetus behind the National Mental Health Strategy introduced by Harry Truman's government in the post-war years. It mixed a demonstrable actual need -- the need to find ways to effectively treat the post-traumatic stress disorder, known then as shell shock, that many American veterans had returned from the war with -- with the desire to manipulate peole for economic or political gain.
The focus of these efforts was on identifying psychological barriers to certain acts, and removing them.
Political authorities turned the techniques of psychoanalysis toward creating a stable American society -- toward building a common identity that would lead toward constructive collective action.
But this is exactly what the Nazi Party had sought to do in Germany. They recognized a German society that had become unstable under the dual strains of the Great Depression and post-World War One political instability, and sought to establish Nazism as the means by which stability would be restored to Germany.
In some regards, they succeeded. The irrational behaviour of the German masses under Nazism were directed toward rationed -- if not rational -- ends.
To this end, the efforts of Anna Freud and her contemporaries were potentially self-defeating.
Warning: the following post contains significant spoilers about the movie District 9. Those still interested in seeing this film should consider themselves forewarned.
Films as deep and uniquely thoughtful as District 9 come along very rarely.
District 9 is such a deep film that it's difficult to decide where, precisely, to begin with it. The film, essentially a Harry Turtledove-esque alternate history of South African Apartheid in which an alien spacecraft appeared in the sky over Johannesburg in approximately 1981 -- at the height of the international controversy over Apartheid.
The aliens, referred to by the derogatory epithet "prawns", were eventually segregated into a slum outside of the city. The government is now planning to forcibly move the aliens -- who seem listless and purposeless in the wake of the apparent death of their leadership -- to a refugee camp 200 miles away from the city.
Multi-National United (MNU) is the corporation that eventually wins a contract from the South African government to manage alien affairs. MNU employee Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is put in charge of the operation, and immediately puts his pencil-pushing skills to work, much to the infuriating chagrin of the mercenaries MNU employs to forcibly move the aliens.
But an opportunity quickly presents itself to MNU -- one of the world's foremost weapons manufacturers -- in the form of the bumbling Wikus.
When Wikus manages to expose himself to a chemical that begins to alter his DNA -- replacing it with alien DNA -- he suddenly becomes the missing link in the company's efforts to unlock the secret of the alien weaponry. The alien weapons, it turns out, can only be fired by the aliens. They feature a sort of DNA trigger lock.
When it's discovered that the transformation Wikus is undergoing has enabled him to fire these weapons, the MNU science division -- which has been undertaking some rather horrific experiments on the aliens -- quickly decides to remove Wikus' organs while he's still alive in order to find out how human and alien DNA can be combined.
Wikus' father in law himself hands down the decision without so much as the first hint of moral difficulty.
Sadly, history is full of examples that show us how quickly scientific ethics can break down once scientists commit themselves to developing new methods of destroying life.
The shocking history of medical experimentation in Nazi Germany shows how quickly science's ethical rules can be discarded -- especially if one has subjects that are deemed to be not human or less than fully human to experiment on.
The sheer power of the alien weaponry in District 9 only adds to the terrifying dilemmas that emerge once science is committed to creating weapons.
Greed and ruthlessness have rarely combined well in human history, especially not when the arms industry is involved. The black market trade in weapons has enabled many civil and ethnic conflicts to continue unabated. In many cases, arms manufacturers have used black market dealers to keep these activities at an arm's length.
If MNU successfully unlocked the secret of using the alien weaponry in District 9, one would imagine they wouldn't hesitate to sell those secrets to the Nigerian gangs hiding out in the alien slum -- some of whom have resorted to eating alien body parts in an effort to gain their powers and use their weapons.
District 9 reminds us of why the arms industry has to be monitored and regulated very closely. Even those who favour minimal levels of government regulation of anything must admit that giving this industry a free hand to develop and sell arms is a terrible, terrible idea.
Some historical events can only really be understood with the perspective that comes with time.
World War II -- with its broad range of incredibly complex issues and events -- is certainly one of those events. One of the widely-disputed topics is the level of involvement of the German populace.
Books such as Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners dispute the notion that the German citizenry participated in atrocities such as the holocaust only under the duress of government coercion.
Even if the German populace's level of participation in the war was greater than previously estimated -- and according to Goldhagen's work it certainly was -- this doesn't overshadow the direct resistence that many Germans offered to Hitler's machinations, and even to his rule of the country.
Valkyrie is the story of the last of more than a dozen plots to depose Hitler and bring as peaceful an end to the war as possible.
The film opens with Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise), serving in Northern Africa, protesting the execution of the war. Germany has lost Northern Africa, and the forces deployed their could be better deployed in Germany's defense.
Upon being wounded in an allied attack -- he loses his right hand and two fingers off of his left -- Stauffenberg is reassigned to Germany, where he serves as a staff officer.
Stauffenberg becomes widely known for his criticism of the war and is quickly approached by a group of dissidents led by retired General Ludwig Beck about deposing Hitler. In a bombed-out church, Stauffenberg confesses his distress at the current state of Germany.
The only way for Germany to recover its soul, Stauffenberg concludes, is for Hitler to die and be replaced.
He hitches a plot in which Operation Valkyrie -- Hitler's plan to use the reserve army to quell a potential civilian uprising -- would be used to frame the SS and the Nazi party for a coup d'etat after the planned assassination of Hitler.
Stauffenberg quickly gains Hitler's confidence, but finds navigating the rest of the web of intrigue surrounding the Fuhrer's inner circle to be exceedingly difficult. As should be expected with any such plot, the eventual failure of the plot hinges on Stauffenberg's inability to control his fellow conspirators and sway the necessary individuals to his side.
As one would expect in a movie about a coup d'etat in a police state, a mood of fear hangs heavy over the entire film. As afraid as most of the characters seem of Hitler and his regime, they seem even more fearful once the coup begins. As frightening as Hitler and his cohorts were, most of the characters are even more afraid of what may replace him.
Whatever else it may be, it could be expected that a coup d'etat against Hitler and the Nazi party will not go entirely peaceably.
Yet even as Operation Valkyrie goes off without a shot, so nearly does the Nazis'$ counter-coup.
The film takes the audience from the thrilling triumph of deposing a despot to the dejection of a decisive defeat -- worse yet, a decisive defeat when the stakes are the highest, when the conspirators are fighting to redeem their entire country.
On the journey, the film even makes a brief stopover with bureaucrats deciding which orders to relay -- those coming from Stauffenberg in Berlin or from Hitler at his private residence -- and with a reserve commander trying to figure out which side of the conflict is the coup and which side is legitimate.
In the end, it takes direct communication with Hitler for the commander -- a "committed National Socialist" to, sadly, support the existing regime.
Valkyrie shies away from none of the terrible consequences of the defeated coup. Stauffenberg tells General Olbricht to look his executioners in the eyes as he is shot.
He does so, as does Stauffenberg himself after him. Simply, it isn't enough for the viewer to understand that the conspirators died for their principles. The film forces the audience to witness it, and know in unequivocal terms the price these brave men paid for their courageous act.
Valkyrie serves as a powerful and important reminder of the role the German resistance played, and the price they paid for it.
Sadly -- and perhaps even necessarily -- Germany still lives under the shadow of Hitler and the horrors perpetrated under his regime. The preoccupation with preventing a repeat of the events of the second world war -- especially the holocaust -- continues to permeate German politics to its very core.
Movies such as Valkyrie should serve as a reminder to the German people of the oppressive environment that Hitler created in the German state and used to perpetrate his historical acts. Even if the holocaust should never be forgotten, the war should one day be forgiven.
Most importantly, however, the German people have to someday forgive themselves.
