PSA: Trolling

Astute observers, or now anyone, will note the appearance of a new box to the right., entitled "Comments"-->

It will intimidate something less than 1% of anyone who reads this or any other blog, or comments thereon, based solely on my own research.
The terminally stupid less than 1% who most need it will completely ignore it.

I blog for my entertainment, and a sanity release valve. That it elicits anything from a laugh to an "amen" from others is icing on the cupcake. That it may occasionally cause someone to disagree surprises me not a whit.

But if you haven't got the balls to identify yourself, even with an Internet alias (seriously, did you really think my parents named me "Aesop"??), and a trackback to yourself, but still think you can run in here, crap the floor, scoop it up, and fling it on the walls or at me with all the glee of a spider monkey on crack, think again.

If something I write twists your tail, have at it. I rarely lose a debate on the merits, but feel free to have a go, if you can stay on topic, rather than go all ad hominem. I recognize on most of what I write here, I'm handicapped by only having nearly twenty years' experience doing what I do and seeing about a paltry million patients, out of eight billion people on the planet, so it's inevitable that somewhere someone may have learned something beyond my ken. I'm not omniscient.

But when someone chooses to start with rudeness and insulting comments, any possible intellectual validity has just been sacrificed. So has my toleration or patience. Any screed that follows will thus be shipped out with all the warm and tender feeling of Ripley sending the titular foe out the airlock of the Nostromo's lifeboat in Alien, and with all possible dispatch. Take bets on this.

When you start out by being rude and/or insulting, and as a bonus are demonstrably retarded and ignorant, you may possibly hear the word "Fore!" just before the #3 iron arcingly descends into your ass and sends it straight down the fairway of Life.

In all the known universe, this is the one corner of it where I am entitled to wave my magic wand and send refugee flunkouts from Etiquette School where they belong, with a pull of the handle of the Internet's flush tank.

Happily, in a year, I doubt I've had to do that even five times. I'd be even happier not to improve those stats, but not to the point of foregoing the pleasure when the need arises.

I fire abusive patients and eject jackassed visitors all the time in the real world; if you came here from under a bridge, I will return you there faster than you got here, and you won't even elicit a tiny internet virtual tear. It may come as some shock to learn I, like 500,000 of my ER colleagues, tolerate none of anyone's bullshit whatsoever.

If five minutes reading what I write here hasn't made my glee at using the "delete" option apparent, "Go ahead, make my day." 

And of course, if I'm bored, I reserve the right to make you an example, because even steak knives need sharpening from time to time, and sometimes I appreciate you volunteering to be the cadaver for today's anatomy lesson.

The 99+% of you to whom this note doesn't apply, go back to having a pleasant day.