"You Be Careful with that Nail Gun Stevie, ya Hear"

House and Senate via impolitical beat us to it, but we couldn't not comment on Harper's clumsy handling of the nail gun photo-op on budget day.

You can tell that Steve was having a hard time making it work properly (it's tricky Steve - maybe try sticking your tongue out some more).

The video footage (haven't located a clip yet but this is funny) was even worse - Harpo is clearly severely power tool-challenged. We could almost hear his poor mother screaming at the TV.

What a pathetic display of manliness by our so-called Prime Minister!

Better stick to stuff you are good at like cat-cradling and lying.

And, hey Steve, remember: a good carpenter doesn't blame his tools!

Budget 2009: Harper's Heartless Shitting Machine

Cloaca 5 (at left) turns leftovers into shit. Upon seeing this art story last week we two arseholes naturally thought: "hmmm, art we can relate to." A "heartless shitting machine," one reader called it. Predictably, commentators whined about wasting taxpayer dollars (a $30,000 Canadian Council grant). Are you kidding?

$30,000 for the Perfect Metaphor for Harper's Budget 2009? It's a pittance!

Called "neither blue, nor red" by CBC's Mansbridge, Budget 2009 is a spending budget brought in by a fiscal and ideological conservative to save his political ass. Pure and simple.

Needless to say, we have a different colour in mind for it and Harpo...and you don't have to be a colour wheel expert to figure it out ("take some blue, add some red, a splash of orange, a pinch of green and squeeze").

Stephen Harper and the Conservatives: Priceless.

Dear Freep: Heal Thyself (Please)

Never ones to let being informed get in the way of a good editorial, the Freep has reached new heights of irresponisbility and stupidity in this ill-informed shot at Manitoba's smoking ban:

Why are smoking rooms not allowed everywhere...isolated from the pure-of-lung, they can do no harm and would offer smokers a degree of comfort, instead of the government-imposed pain that outdoor inhaling involves

What the hell were they thinking - or smoking - when they clumsily (albeit perhaps inadvertently) invoked the physician's creed "first, do no harm" (primum non nocere*) to champion smoking rooms? How could the Freep even allow the appearance of using that phrase to support smoking of any kind, anywhere?

And, do they do any research on a subject before putting pen to paper? Like, for example, the fact that second-hand smoke is bad for smokers.

Advice to Freep editors: Cura te ipsum.

*The creed is a sacred reminder - "a hallowed expression of hope [and] humility" - to physicans and health care providers to consider possible harm before intervening with care.

Feed Don't Fail Me Now

Talk about Inauguration Frustration! Anybody else try and watch today's "historic moment" online?

A historic day we were told. A day for the ages! One of those events that will forever beg the question "Where were you when?"

Well, for many of us, the anticipation turned out to be greater than the lived realization. Apparently, too many 'we' were trying to be 'there then' all at once in real time. And, just like on 9/11, the infernal 'Intertube' failed miserably.

Guess this is what happens when too many global citizens care? No access to the moment.

If you were chained to a desk (like me) during the precious moment, you were damned! ISP, IP, live-feed, no feed... arrghh, better we should read?

Damn technology failed us today. Intertube, you boob!

Geebus! Wish I could'a been 'there'!

Well I'll Be Flushed!

We're late getting to this.

We Two Arseholes freely admit to having a special interest in this story, not the least of which is, because the "Crown" is where we think best. As such, it is important you know where we stand/sit on this story.

"What's that Fat Arse? Oh, just great!"

Well readers (surprise-surfuckingprise), turns out, we two arses are again divided on another issue!

Fat Arse, being Fat Arse, is pissed. He's mad, saying he will never realize the promised water savings of the 1/2 flush.

"Christ," he bellowed, "You know I only piss outside as is! How the fuck is this newfangled crapper going to save me water? PLUS, when I CRAP, I need all the FLUSH I can get!"

Well readers, Fat Arse, is an idiot. Firstly, no intelligent man should be whizzing outside into a -40c windchill. Secondly, the planet needs us to save water. Face it everyone, 'Dual-flush' crappers are the wave of the future. Embrace them now! I know I do ...

Stop the Presses: Blogger Discovers New Superbug

The Black Rod has struck again with his scoop on the latest public health threat to Winnipeg. And this time it's not pork. Rather, a new deadly strain called HRSA??

How did MSM miss it? What is it?

It's MSRA (as in Methicillin*), not HRSA, you dope!

For all his bluster about MSM's incompetence, you'd think one of its most ardent critics would at least take time to check his facts.

We don't wish to be petty - typos are typos - but clearly in this instant this is not the case.

Fact is, The Black Rod has no real interest in the difference between MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and HRSA (e.g. Health Resources & Services Administration) or in facts generally. He's only interested in cheap political shots - in this case at the WRHA/health care system. MRSA, HRSA, WRHA, MDSA - what does it matter to the intrepid slayer of MSM?

Seems to us The Black Rod could use a shot in the ass. Of something strong. Or maybe just a large dose of humble pie?

Surely the health care system will pay for it.

*Methicillin, from the penicillin family, is a beta-lactam antibiotic. Bacterium that is resistant to it is a serious problem - everywhere. It reportedly now kills more Americans than AIDS.

ARSE-O-theWeek: The Minister of Grotesque Tourism

We apologize to our faithful readers for the delay in posting this week's AOW. It was unavoidable.

We 'd love to blame the ubiquitous "technical difficulties," but unless you call 37.5 hours of rancorous name-calling between Fat Arse and me a "technical" problem, we cannot. Sadly, we failed to reach "consensus." Sad too, is the state of liquor* cabinet.

In the end, we retreated to our two respective corners: Fat Arse to his football and beer, me to my D&D and Pink Ladies.

So, I have decided to go it alone this week.
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I/we have refrained from commenting on the events in Gaza, but this week's PR offensive by Israel's Foreign Minister was, well, offensive. Of course, this is nothing new for Tzipi Livni. Turning the Israeli Foreign Office into the "ministry of grotesque tourism" is her principal achievement as Foreign Minister.

Following the 2006 war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which was less than sanguine from a PR standpoint, Livni and the Israeli regime have been wary of repeating those mistakes. Since then, Livni has been keen to attack the the world's press corps with "a constant, imaginative, heart-rending display of Israeli misery," as this blog dedicated to parodying the farcical actions of a farcical state correctly points out. One can easily imagine Livni saying:

This simple tactic has worked admirably for the Palestinians and there is no reason to think that it won't work even better for us. After all, the Jewish people invented suffering and guilt so the least we can do is to make them work for us, instead of against us.

This week the Israelis once again gathered the media, who of course cannot enter Gaza, in the border town of Serdot to touch the still-hot metal of a stray rocket and deliver key messages to captive journalists such as: "What would America do if Mexico was launching rockets at Texas every day?"

Indeed.

The question is in fact illustrative of the degree to which Israel is out of touch with the rest of the world and with history. For you would think that knowing that Texas was once part of Mexico but lost it in war to the hands of the expanding American empire might lead one to reach for more contemporary, more salient comparisons. Not these jokers.

This kind of thing is problematic for Israel, of course, because where is a decrepit, morally bankrupt, colonial-settler state to turn for meaningful shared histories? You guessed it. Doesn't work so well.

I guess I take solace in knowing that they really only "want to influence Palestinian thinking," as government spokesman Mark Regev put it.

But what better way to influence thinking than by driving home the message with clear and unambiguous action? Actions like the ones that led to this.

Now that's what I call grotesque.

(Fat Arse is gonna be pissed when he recovers from his two-day bender and sees this).

*Kudos to Yellow Snow for keeping this old saw alive.

The Manitoba Metis: Forever the Whipping Boy

Great news for Chartrand and the fight for Metis hunting rights in Manitoba.

But we feel obliged to try to answer the question posed of Mr. Goodon, the successful plaintiff, on CBC's noon show: why was the province so hell-bent on fighting this?

It's a good question. Sure, there's probably a good mumbo-jumbo legal answer - legal precedents around rights etc, but the real reason is political.

Why would a Premier who has so steadfastly avoided even the hint of disagreement (never mind the picking of fights) with almost any group he has ever encountered, allow a fight like this to go on for almost five years?

Because the Metis are the perfect whipping boy. As one visitor commenting on the local CBC story wrote, summing up the prevailing sentiment of the dominant culture: "The Metis were not here first, don't forget [they] ... are half white."

Mr. Doer is no dummy. Being neither Indian nor "white," the Metis constitute the perfect "Other" for the Premier. A trusty wedge he can introduce when courting the support of those two much larger constituencies that begat the Metis. And Mr. Doer has done so brilliantly. Don't believe us? Find another significant lobby group that Mr. Doer has given the finger to like he has Chartrand in the last ten years.

Don't bother - you won't find one.

Despite today's legal victory, this will not be the end of the legal friction between the Manitoba Government and the Metis.

Knowing there is little sympathy among either Indians or whites for the cause of the Metis - Doer will continue to use the Manitoba Half-Breed as his political whipping boy because he has judged there is no electoral downside - and because he thinks he can get away with it.