Quick Hits, Groundhog Day

You know, if a groundhog saw its shadow and could guarantee that we’d only experience six more weeks of winter, I’d be a happy man.

The meme of using a clip of Hitler’s epic rant from Download and using subtitles to link it to any sort of rant-worthy episode was getting old a year ago back when Hitler stood in for Stephen Harper on some issue. More recently, it’s been applied to the iPad, while violating the dramatic principle of the thing: anything Hitler rants against is clearly a good thing. If you intend to use the rant to criticize the device’s inability to multitask, you undercut your own point.

So it’s with considerable delight that I caught Nicholas Russon’s link to this parody of the Hitler rant parody. Can we officially call this meme dead now?

My prayers go to Newfoundland premier Danny Williams as he heads to the United States to undergo heart surgery. That’s never fun, and the recovery is pretty hard. One wonders if Mr. Williams won’t be stepping down, at least temporarily, while he focuses on his health.

The use of an American hospital to perform this life saving surgery will, of course, raise another debate on the merits of the Canadian health care system (which is pretty good, thankyouverymuch. We perform almost as many surgeries for Americans as Americans perform surgeries for us). Unfortunately, I suspect the presence of so many individuals with axes to grind will prevent the debate from being productive. Or, as the good folks at 37 Days in Ottawa put it:

What you will see: Emotional arguments based on anecdotal evidence, possibly calling people who disagree with you ‘Nazis’ or ‘communists.’ Possibly some non-sensical statements couched in ideological language about how this “proves” that we need to dismantle our current healthcare system.

What you won’t see: a look at exactly what procedure needed to be done and why it wasn’t available to Premier Williams.

Danny Williams deserves better than that, and so do we all.