http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnhd5HougzM

A man runs into the vet’s office carrying his dog, screaming for help. The vet rushes him back to an examination room and has him put his dog down on the examination table. The vet examines the still, limp body and after a few moments tells the man that his dog, regrettably, is dead.

The man, clearly agitated and not willing to accept this, demands a second opinion. The vet goes into the back room and comes out with a cat and puts the cat down next to the dog’s body. The cat sniffs the body, walks from head to tail poking and sniffing the dog’s body and finally looks at the vet and meows. The vet looks at the man and says, “I’m sorry, but the cat thinks that your dog is dead too.”

The man is still unwilling to accept that his dog is dead. The vet brings in a black Labrador. The lab sniffs the body, walks from head to tail, and finally looks at the vet and barks. The vet looks at the man and says, “I’m sorry, but the lab thinks your dog is dead too.”

The man, finally resigned to the diagnosis, thanks the vet and asks how much he owes. The vet answers, “$650.” “$650 to tell me my dog is dead?” exclaimed the man…. “Well,” the vet replies, “I would only have charged you $50 for my initial diagnosis. The additional $600 was for the cat scan and lab tests.”

I was about to steal a joke from the Forum side…

I take it you are having problems with the human element?

I don’t know whether they let infection control specialists near the dogs, or indeed near the machines, but Western cultures like to believe that the 18th century not only liberated us all from the tyranny of superstition, but heralded the bright dawn of the Age of Reason.

We put a man on the moon so we can make documentaries about how we didn’t put a man on the moon, and we have mind-blowingly wonderful technology to let us watch Mystic Meg telling us what the numbers on the Lottery won’t be.

Papers like the Grauniad publish long and concerned articles about the belief in magic in Africa, apparently oblivious to the fact that half of their classified ads are aimed at people who believe in magic in England.

And people in Melbourne think that radiotherapy machines can be polluted by taboo objects otherwise known as dogs…

We were unfortunate enough to witness the average Saturday at the local ED, and people complain that animals are allowed in?

Galling