I had to pick up my college transcripts the other day, and in reviewing them, I discovered something I'd long forgotten: in my first semester, when I was living la vida loca and dropping classes and skipping classes and generally flunking out, I still managed to pull an A in deductive logic.

This despite the fact that I wasn't straight or sober for much of that first semester. University of Miami, 1972. Yeah, right. Like anyone there at that time was. But I digress.
I bring this up because all these years later, faulty logic still rings like a gong in my head whenever I hear it. Here's a sample:

A. The PR department says that our historic patient base doesn't use computers.

B. The PR department says that we shouldn't advertise our private doctors' office on the web because if they saw it, our historic (charity, non-paying) patient base would try to access care there.

If our "typical" patients don't have or use computers, then what difference does it make if we advertise a private patient office on the web? If we are attempting to attract more private pay patients to our health system (and in theory, these people do use/own computers) then why wouldn't we advertise our specialty office on the web?

See? Faulty logic. It just drives me crazy. And at this point, it isn't so much of a drive as a short putt.

I received an unsolicited e-mail the other day, and because it eventually gave me such pleasure, I give it now to you, in it's entirety.

From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 20:29:39 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: More False Documents

RatherGate proved that bloggers are the best fact checkers. That is
why we are writing to a few bloggers asking for help.

Yes Bush Can has collected several documents that are clearly suspect.

But we need your help to prove they are fake:
http://www.yesbushcan.com/falsedocs.shtml

Let's spring to action before these documents needlessly tarnish the
reputation of our Commander and Chief. You know the drill: analyze the handwriting, search for factual errors, and post your discoveries.

And keep us posted by sending email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Thanks in advance for your help.

YesBushCan
Oh, gentle readers, you just know where this is going, don't you?

Here is my reply, in its entirety.

No Bush Can't. Lying sack of shit. Please remove me from your
mailing list, as I am a Yellow Dog Democrat, and an Anybody But
Bush supporter. Lying sack of cowardly, stupid, bigoted, bought
and paid for by the devil, shit. I will never vote for George W.
Bush, nor for Jeb Bush, nor for any other member of that
corrupt, stinking family.

For what ever reason, they have not chosen to reply. But then, to my complete satisfaction, they haven't asked for my help again, either.

Yeah, so you know how I feel about politics. Time to rant about something else for a while, I think.

Today I'd like to talk about this article. An artist was commissioned to create a mural for a library in California. The concept was enlightenment. The artist is a former school teacher here in Florida. The finished mural contains 11 misspelled names, including Shakespeare, Van Gogh and Einstein.

The artist is furious with the public for focusing on the mistakes, and not the big picture, which, she says, is that if you follow the words into the library, you can learn something.

Huh? A mural advertising enlightenment and education has eleven mistakes (a mural, I need to remind you, that was produced by a former school teacher) and the public (who paid for that artwork) is supposed to just say: OK. Kewl.?

I just want to bitch slap that woman into next week. And I can't even tell you what makes me crazier: that she can't spell, that she didn't even think to look up the names if she wasn't sure of the spelling, that she thinks her mistakes are negligable, that she is so arrogant in her ignorance, or that her whole attitude buys into the popular myth that artists are inferior intellectually.

Mistakes don't matter? I shouldn't have to correct them, because someone else should have seen them? (Well, she has a point there, someone should have seen them, but that doesn't relieve her of her own responsibility.) The point isn't about spelling, but about art?

Am I the last person in America with a sense of pride in my work?

Lying sack of shit. Lying sack of shit. Evasive, lying sack of shit. Smirking, evasive, stupid, lying sack of shit. And there are people in this country with the right to vote who are stupid enough to believe his lies, and not notice the shit.

But let me tell you how I really feel.
Lying, thieving, smirking, squinty-eyed, orange-colored, evasive, fundamentalist, cocksucking, did I mention lying?, cold-blooded,sociopathic lying sack of good for nothing shit.

A "culture of life"? when he'e sending our youth to Iraq and Afganistan to die? For oil? For his fucking friends and patrons' millions?

I hates him, my precious.

Read this. Read this out loud every time you hear someone say "Liberal" like it's a dirty word.

I just may have found the one person in America with a fouler mouth than me, and the bad sense guts to print their opinions. I keep saying this, and I hope I don't turn into a stalker, but the Rude Pundit is my political idol. I love him. I want him to come and visit me so we can go out and drink ourselves into a coma as we screech invective against the Bush cabal and the filthy running dogs who call themselves journalists.

Remember this entry? From back in June, when I told you the story about my Senior VP telling us that the hospital was losing a trillion dollars a day, but that there weren't going to be lay offs?

And I said it was like the old joke about the cat on the roof? And our jobs were on the roof?
Yeah. And then there was three months ago, when they said there would be layoffs, but not in our department. Then last month, there was the announcement that there would be layoffs in our department, but only managers.

Today, the Veep announced that we were beginning to research outsourcing the entire department in an effort to save all our jobs.

Yes, you read that right. They'll outsource the entire department to some firm that will then hire us to do our jobs, so we won't lose them at all!

Repeat after me: These are not the droids you seek.

Or, if you prefer that I keep the same metaphor I started with (and you know how much I love consistency) The cat has now fallen off the roof, and broken many bones. The cat has gone to the vet. The vet has done everything it her power to fix the cat, but...