Wonkette
The most widespread form of "life" in Washington is the common Norway Rat, which completely owns the miserable District. Like most stunned bumpkins forced by bad luck or weird morals to the nation's foul capital, the new editor of Reason magazine is horrified to find that dog-sized vermin live in every home, even the White House.
The editor in question (Matt Welch) hates his pregnant wife so much that he moved her from a beautiful palm-lined street in Southern California to a rickety "row house" in the rat ghetto. Here are some of his terrible observations.
"Some time soon after the beginning of the Chinese Year of the Rat," he writes, "my pregnant wife walked downstairs and reached for her bag on the couch, and out jumped a plump young rodent."
Other fun facts about the D.C. Rat:
* "Rats carry as many as 35 diseases, including ratbite fever, salmonella food poisoning and leptospirosis, a flu-like illness. During the past 1,000 years, disease specialists say, the rapidly reproducing rodents have caused more deaths than all the wars and revolutions combined."
* "The National Zoo has such a bad infestation that two adult pandas were killed by rat poison a few years back."
* "Dozens of rats run through Dupont Circle park, day and night. Sitting on the park benches, particularly on the outer perimeter, can be a horrifying experience. There are tremendous rat holes around the grassy outer perimeter of the park, especially in the quadrant closest to the Sun Trust Bank, housing entire families of rats. In one particularly traumatic situation, a rat jumped into an infant's stroller, possibly to get at the formula in the baby's milk bottle."
City of rats [Reason]
Rats as big as cats [Washington Post]
Dupont Circle Rats [PDF]
Comments
Two Carville photos in a row? Wonkette's in a rut.
I'm on the west coast, still trying to eat my breakfast at my desk. Thanks to that image, I'm no longer trying to eat.
@tunamelt: I'm in LA. Nothing was ever meant to live here, so I don't have a rat problem.
Are you talking about the four legged variety or the two legged variety?
Ever walk along C street behind Rolands and the Tune Inn on Capitol Hill? The rats are so bad there that the sidewalk is collapsing form all the burrows underneath. I used to live a block from there and the rats were everywhere.
...question! How the HELL do rats kill 2 full grown Pandas?!
Get traps, kill the rats. Block the means on ingress to your house. Pour those poison pellets down the rat holes so they take it back to the next. Don't leave trash around. Pick up the crud folks throw in your yard.
This isn't brain surgery, folks.
I was so excited thinking this story was going to be about Mark Pig Penn. What a buzz-kill.
Can we start eating on the metro to bring the rats down to the subways where they belong?
I guess the rats had to go somewhere after being chased out of the DC Metro subway.
@AngryBlakGuy: ...oops correction, guess that is what happens when I dont read the entire sentence
@AngryBlakGuy: The rat poison killed the pandas.
@AngryBlakGuy: I think the poison put out for the rats killed the pandas. Unless "rat poison" means poison emitted by rat bites. Which would be awesome.
They were probably dumb-ass pandas anyhow.
@AngryBlakGuy: nevermind.
if they would let us have guns we could shoot the damn rats.
[news.yahoo.com]
speaking of rats
Bin Laden is behind this somehow, and Al Qaeda is his profit. These ALLAH rat terrorist are here to destroy our values, our freedom, and most importantly, our pandas. WHO will stand up against these pagan intruders?
@AngryBlakGuy: Ha ha...that'll teach you to read all of the words...
i'll still take dc rats over dc people any day ...
@graceless: you accidental troll, ha, ha. ha...
please tell me those are fish or lizards or something
Rats are cute, furry, smart, clean, little creatures. All rat haters, please calm down.
Who else is going to clean up the vomit from the Smith Point/LNS crowd?
The rats are bitter, and clutch their leptospirosis germs.
@PeeJay: Do those idiots still exist? I have heard nary a peep since the Repubes and their staffers started diminishing on the Hill. Then again, the only point-of-contact I had to those people moved to Austin, and I don't venture out in Georgetown after dark, ever.
One way to curb the rat population in D.C. is to not offer them any more pay raises. They'll (eventually) return to their home states with their tails between their legs.
@RaptorAvatar: Oh, there are rats. But they are content and full feasting on the homeless in downtown, and so don't trouble the rest of us very much. Also a lot of squirrels and giant fucking raccoons near fucla and USC.
@Senator Boomdog: they are very prevalent in Georgetown, apparently, because so many people have bird feeders. The rats just sit there under the feeders and gorge. Though that might be the high-food-price answer: get out your .22 and get yourself some seed-fed rat. Rat kabob.
Wait a sec....is "Reason" magazine some sort of mouthpiece for the Heritage Foundation, the Moonies, or some other kind of organization I don't like?
Because the name seems just too Orwellian to actually be reasonable.
Therefore, I hope the fucktard whose house got invaded by rats moves post haste back to LA or wherever he came from.
Whatever, this is another good example of D.C.'s cooler neighbor to the north getting the shaft. We here in Baltimore have bigger, meaner rats than D.C. could ever dream of, but rather than whining when they menace our pregnant women in their own homes, we call them "city bunnies" and celebrate them as part of our social fabric.
I'm looking forward to hearing Reason's libertarian, market-driven solution to city sanitation problems that give ride to Rat Kingdom USA down there.
@bitchincamaro: This is no place for Hillary supporters.
Rats usually get to Washington two ways:
1. right after law school as Congressional aides or,
2. as Members of Congress via an election.
Then, as they age, they migrate to an are of the city known as the Lobbying Planes. Rats who move to this area do so either by starting their own lobbying colonies or by joining established ones. Their migration patterns have been widely studied by scientists and amateur zoologists alike and the common conclusion is that rats, like most animals, migrate in search of resources. In this case, they go after D.C.'s native crop: money. Some rats feed exclusively on the green kind known as US Dollar. Others, especially those living in the lobbying planes also feed on imported varieties such as Euro and other subspecies of money.
Among the many diseases affecting rats in the D.C. ecosystem, the most fatal is the Congressional Investigation (CI), which has in a few cases wiped out entire tribes and lobbying colonies. Nevertheless, evolution being what it is, rats have found that sharing their money stashes with other rats, particularly those infected with the CI virus, usually spares them from the disease. If a potential victim of CI gives enough money to a potential transmitter of the disease, the latter will usually move on and leave the former untouched.
@NotNotLickingToads: Maybe the rats ate 'em.
Oh goddammit. I used to like to go to Dupont Circle when I was in DC, now I'll never go back. Thanks a lot, Wonkette.
@DudeLooksLikeALady: It sort of sounds like something the Jehovah's Witnesses would pass out.
Yet I saw no stray cats when I visited DC.
i can sellz cats? I think I just found a free-market solution for the problem, which will mean stray cats everywhere, but whatev'.
Is it just me or does Rudy Giuliani bear a striking resemblance to a Norway rat?
@dxh: there was an article a few years ago in the WaPost about the City's rat eradication chief and his Jack Russell terriers. No joke, they are apparently very effective ratters.
Love the Gridskipper tag.
I can live in DC with the rats or the suburbs with the Wal-Marts? I'll take the rats.
Moral dilema: which picture is creepier--the one with this post or the one of Marc "hawaiian pizza" Dann?
Over an hour of comment and not a single gag about law schools turning out too many lawyers?
@WadISay: I just took my last law school exam last night and as soon as I'm done studying for the bar I'm going to sue you for that comment.
I heard Hillary's pretty good at taking potshots after her grandfather taught her every Sunday before church. Maybe she can help her Indiana/West Virginia votes by proving it with a few well-aimed publicity shots. Her gun could have that double set trigger she's so fond of to show she really means business.
@Lymed: file in DC or MD. In VA you won't get any emotional distress damages.
wait 'til the coyotes move in. then the rats will move out of the parks and into the houses.
@qwerty42: ooh, they are here already, at least in the Alexandria area. They just need to get across the 14th Street Bridge and the rats will be hiring moving vans. There are foxes in DC already, though. They hang out on the Hains Point golf course.
@AngryBlakGuy: Also, they weren't giant pandas, but their smaller (but also endangered) red panda cousins. Which are still really cute.
@Doglessliberal: depending on the size of the rats, they will probably eat the foxes first. then the cats and dogs as they spread into the neighborhoods.
Jumpin' jehosaphat! Is that some kind of fish/rat hybrid?
[www.phillyhistory.org]
We in Philly have been on the case since at least 1914.
@dxh: There are two or three fierce-lookin stray cats that like to hang around my neighborhood (Mt. Vernon Sq/Shaw). They pretty much leave everyone alone, and I've never seen a rat anywhere near my house.
@TEAM HEIDI:
What'd I say about taking it easy on the rats?
@graceless: ...reading all the words are for ELITIST !!!
As spokesperson for BARN (Benevolent Association of Rattus Norvegicus), I would remind you that DC has fewer mice than many other US cities. Rats eat mice. Rock Creek Park and other urban havens would be overrun with nasty little Mickeys and Minnies were it not for the vigilance of our loyal Rat Patrols. I thank them for their service.
PS: We'll announce dates for the annual Fun Run and Awards Banquet soon.
wtf? Ratfish in red plastic basket? We are devo¡
Damn pollies letting their family run wild around the place
Mein Gott, the caption looks like a still photo from that movie, The Eternal Neo-Con.
@Rob_Peter_to_Pay_Paultard:
Are they sure the pandas didn't die from eating tainted imported Panda food from China?
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