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		<title>Pesky the Rat</title>
		<link>http://www.peskytherat.com/pesky/</link>
		<description>Commentary from a rodent&apos;s perspective on the pressing issues of the day.</description>
		<language>en-us</language>
		<copyright>Copyright 2003 Susan McNerney</copyright>
		<lastBuildDate>Thu, 20 Feb 2003 05:48:55 GMT</lastBuildDate>
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			<description>&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif color=maroon size=5&gt;Pesky the Rat has moved!&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=3&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;All new stories from Pesky the Rat will be published only at&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=3&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;A href=&quot;http://www.peskytherat.com&quot;&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=3&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.peskytherat.com&quot;&gt;http://www.peskytherat.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/A&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=3&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;Please update your links, or Janet the Snake will eat you.&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;</description>
			<guid>http://www.peskytherat.com/pesky/2003/02/19.html#a173</guid>
			<pubDate>Thu, 20 Feb 2003 05:48:37 GMT</pubDate>
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			<description>&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif color=maroon size=2&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;Osama Bin Laden working at Virginia mall&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;As the nation turns its weary eyes to Iraq, mass murderer/former rich guy Osama Bin Laden has decided to use some of his newfound free time to earn extra money. &lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Bin Laden, who used up most of his inherited fortune buying bombs, kalishnikovs, and low-quality video equipment, says he needed the extra money. &quot;Yes, God came and spoke to me, and he said, Osama, you must earn extra money to vanquish the infidels. He said I must work at Hot Dog on a Stick. But they weren&apos;t hiring. So I went to work at Uncle Salty&apos;s Seafood on a Stick instead.&quot;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;As part of his duties at Seafood on a Stick, Osama sells shrimp on a stick, octopuses on a stick, squid on a stick, and tuna on a stick. What is perhaps most surprising is that Osama Bin Laden could work openly so close to FBI headquarters and not&amp;nbsp;find himself on a stick.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;&quot;They know I&apos;m here,&quot; said Osama, &quot;they sent me a nice Christmas card.&quot; Osama says entering the country wasn&apos;t a problem. &quot;I told them I was Swedish. They weren&apos;t looking for Swedes.&quot;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;A Seafood on a Stick customer, Rodney the Human, says he&apos;s not worried about buying seafood from Osama Bin Laden.&amp;nbsp; &quot;Now if that was Saddam Hussein, well, I&apos;d shop somewhere else,&quot; he said. &quot;but I&apos;m sure this guy&apos;s all right. President Bush even said so.&quot; &lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Osama likes to offer his customers a special experience. He calls it, &quot;Service With a Death Threat&quot;. As he rings each customer up, he says, &quot;I will get you in your sleep, evil American imperialists. I will get you when you least expect it. You are numbered.&quot; It is speculated that he means &quot;Your days are numbered&quot;, but some have pointed out that each customer receives a numbered sign to put on their table for service.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;The Bush administration says it&apos;s not concerned. &quot;That Osama Bin Laden down at the mall, well, he&apos;s just a Swedish guy with a funny name,&quot; said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. &quot;Who would be worried about a Swedish guy?&quot; When asked if the administration could look into it, just to be sure, Fleischer replied, &quot;like we have the time. I mean, really.&quot;&lt;/FONT&gt; &lt;/P&gt;</description>
			<guid>http://www.peskytherat.com/pesky/2003/02/18.html#a172</guid>
			<pubDate>Tue, 18 Feb 2003 14:47:11 GMT</pubDate>
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			<description>&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif color=maroon size=2&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;The Rat relocates&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Pesky the Rat has relocated to &lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;A href=&quot;http://www.peskytherat.com&quot;&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.peskytherat.com&quot;&gt;http://www.peskytherat.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/A&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;. If you see this url somewhere in your address bar, you&apos;re already here. Remember to update your links. Janet the Snake will come and eat you if you don&apos;t.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Arial size=2&gt;Here&apos;s Susan the Human&apos;s &lt;A href=&quot;http://www.peskytherat.com/pesky/stories/2003/02/17/movingFromSalonToYourOwnDomainForDummies.html&quot;&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;for dummies&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/A&gt; guide to how she moved my weblog to this location, for those of you contemplating this yourselves.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;</description>
			<guid>http://www.peskytherat.com/pesky/2003/02/17.html#a171</guid>
			<pubDate>Tue, 18 Feb 2003 01:38:10 GMT</pubDate>
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			<description>&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif color=maroon size=2&gt;Bush changes name to &quot;Captain Neo&quot;, starts wearing &lt;BR&gt;one white glove on his right hand, moonwalks into &lt;BR&gt;Jell-o sculpture at White House party&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;In what my be a symptom of the President&apos;s growing stress levels, George Bush today announced he is changing his name and will commence wearing a white glove on his right hand. Bush has chosen the name &quot;Captain Neo&quot; as a nod to his neoconservative roots, his love for fish, and his obsession with Michael Jackson (otherwise known as The Trifecta).&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Immediately after the announcement, Bush threw a massive party in the west wing, inviting most of his close friends, including Tony Blair.&amp;nbsp; While the President did not imbibe, being off the wagon as he is, rumor has it that brownies provided by a California Congressman were of the garden variety.&amp;nbsp; Under influence of the brownies, President Bush reveled in his status as &quot;Captain Neo&quot; and started doing Michael Jackson moves in a drawing room.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;After a few crotch grabs and a smattering of head jerks, the President, in a lurch of confidence, moonwalked at an unadvisable speed. Right into a giant phallic Jell-o sculpture.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;The sculpture, which had been the painstaking work of Dick Cheney, engulfed the President&apos;s head and caused him to jiggle like a bobble-headed doll.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Tony Blair&amp;nbsp;spent the better part of the evening hosing down the President and periodically feeding him lots and lots of cookies.&amp;nbsp; &quot;This is getting out of control,&quot; said Blair. &quot;If I have to hose him down or wash his car or give him a pedicure or be his personal shopper one more time, he&apos;s on his own on that Iraq thing.&quot;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;</description>
			<guid>http://www.peskytherat.com/pesky/2003/02/16.html#a170</guid>
			<pubDate>Mon, 17 Feb 2003 05:52:06 GMT</pubDate>
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			<description>&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif color=maroon size=2&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;Saudis offer to take direct payments from Americans, &lt;BR&gt;eliminating the need to drive around in ugly SUVs&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;The Saudi monarchy offered&amp;nbsp; a new option to Americans and others&amp;nbsp;who have tired of driving around in massive, inconvenient, hard-to-park SUVs: convenient direct debit from your checking account.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Prince Faisel of Riyadh says he came up with the idea after traveling to America and witnessing a 5&apos;1&apos;&apos;, 200 pound Pennsylvania woman nearly kill herself attempting to climb into a Humvee. &quot;She kept flailing around, and then she got stuck, and then, with a sudden pop, she came loose and bounced twenty feet through the parking lot. I thought, we must help these poor Americans. We must help them now, while we still can.&quot;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Prince Faisel has established the Saudi Monarchy Lifestyle Maintenance Trust just for this purpose. Now Americans who wish to assist the Saudi monarchy in building private movie theaters, purchasing gold-plated toilets with surround sound, and acquiring fleets of expensive European cars can do so without the inconvenience of driving an aircraft carrier on wheels. &lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Special accounts are also available for those who wish to contribute to questionable causes, including one which aims to replace every public school in California with a Madrassa and another simply labeled, &quot;Drop Box in Damascus&quot;. &lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;All westerners are invited to participate in the new program. Betty Sue of St. Louis, Missouri, says she&apos;s excited. &quot;Before, I ran over my son&apos;s teacher three times in the Hummer. But now I drive a Civic Hybrid and have the money I save conveniently deducted from my checking account every month. Thank you, Prince Faisel!&quot;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;FONT face=Arial color=maroon size=2&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;Public Health Warning&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Arial size=2&gt;Susan the Human&apos;s cynicism has reached danger levels. If she reads one more article about the Bush administration she is likely to strip naked and run through downtown San Jose yelling, &quot;WHY! WHY! OH CRAP WHY!&quot;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;FONT face=Arial color=maroon size=2&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;Odds n&apos; Bits&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Arial size=2&gt;--Tariq Aziz, Iraqi Foreign Minister, sounds like a computerized voice. This supports my theory that he is in fact a computer-operated suit run entirely by felines.&lt;BR&gt;--The Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco today helped drive evil spirits out of the city. Suggestion: ditch the peace marches. Just have the world&apos;s biggest-ever Chinese New Year parade in Washington DC, continuously, until all the right-wingers flee back to their ancient haunts.&lt;BR&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;FONT face=Arial size=2&gt;--Susan the Human muses on the future of Salon &lt;A href=&quot;http://blogs.salon.com/0001293/stories/2003/02/15/theHumanMusesOnTheFateOfSalon.html&quot;&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;here&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/A&gt;.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;</description>
			<guid>http://www.peskytherat.com/pesky/2003/02/15.html#a169</guid>
			<pubDate>Sun, 16 Feb 2003 07:11:58 GMT</pubDate>
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			<description>&lt;P align=left&gt;&lt;EM&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif&gt;&lt;FONT size=2&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;Disclaimer:&lt;/STRONG&gt; I, Pesky the Rat, hereby disavow every foul-smelling letter written by this overrated, conniving, armless, fork-tongued garden hose. My agent and manager, Susan the Human, continues to force me to give her space on my weblog&amp;nbsp;for &quot;balance&quot;.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Somebody please make her into a purse.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/EM&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif color=#800000 size=2&gt;Janet the Snake, SuperSexy Reptile Pundit,&lt;BR&gt;&amp;nbsp;on why the UN are a bunch of weenies&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/P&gt;&lt;IMG height=354 alt=&quot;janet_green (5k image)&quot; src=&quot;http://www.mackerelstreet.com/weblog2/archives/janet_green.gif&quot; width=150 align=right border=0&gt; 
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Ooooooh the poor little rodent is wetting his pantsss again. If he even wears any, the little sissy thing.&amp;nbsp; It musst be ssso hard being a rodent, always worrying about being snatched up and digested by a sssuperior form of life such as myssself.&amp;nbsp; Little snack.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Sso Friday the United Nations proved why they aren&apos;t worth a thing these dayss. Itty bitty Mr. Blix showed up and ssaid some rotten unhelpful thingss, and nobody cared, and the Frenchies and the Germans and the people from those other little countries jumped up and down and threw pastries. Thatss all they do over there, you know, is make passtries. Here in America we make guns and rocket launchers and tanks and nukuler warheadsssss. Lovely, sssexy, subssstantial nukuler warheadsss. I love nukuler warheadsss. I like to ssslither up against them and rub myssself on them for hours.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;What the rodents can&apos;t see is the appeal of weaponsss like these. Their isss a certain thrill I get when I curl my tail around a Sssmith &amp;amp; Wesssssson, or when I go out to the local elementary sssschool to practice with my rocket launcher. The power. The forward thrusssst. The boooooomb. Very sssexy. And as you already know, I am SuperSexy.&amp;nbsp; Sssometimes, when my little friend Ssean Hannity (SuperSuperSuperSexy)&amp;nbsp;isn&apos;t charming me on television, I sssneak away and throw grenades at little plassstic models of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.&amp;nbsp; The rodents don&apos;t underssstand this. They lack the gonads.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Ssso remember: the UN are a bunch of weenies. They didn&apos;t grow up flinging explody things at the neighborssss. In grammar sschool, they didn&apos;t built fortsss with anti-aircraft batteriessss to keep out the third graders. They have never ssslept lovingly wrapped around the barrel of a Winchester rifle.&amp;nbsp; Infidels.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif color=maroon size=2&gt;The human requests assistance&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Susan the Human has decided to move my weblog to her own server, with the domain &lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;A href=&quot;http://www.peskytherat.com&quot;&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.peskytherat.com&quot;&gt;http://www.peskytherat.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/A&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;. In theory, she knows how to do this. In practice, however, she fears the worst. If any of you have actually done this, and have any pointers, please oblige with a note in the comments--or email susan directly.&amp;nbsp;The blog will&amp;nbsp;still be hooked into Salon Blogs rankings &amp;amp; updates, but&amp;nbsp;Susan will have a bit more control.&lt;/FONT&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/P&gt;</description>
			<guid>http://www.peskytherat.com/pesky/2003/02/14.html#a168</guid>
			<pubDate>Sat, 15 Feb 2003 06:39:39 GMT</pubDate>
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			<description>&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif color=maroon size=2&gt;White House concerned North Korean missiles &lt;BR&gt;might eventually target states that voted for Bush&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=left&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;White house&amp;nbsp;policy analyst Ron the Echinoderm&amp;nbsp;said today he&lt;IMG height=200 alt=&quot;ronechinoderm (9k image)&quot; src=&quot;http://www.mackerelstreet.com/weblog2/archives/ronechinoderm.gif&quot; width=241 align=right border=0&gt; and others in Washington are concerned about the growing threat from North Korea, and are worried that North Korean missiles might eventually reach Republican-leaning states. At the moment, the CIA believes North Korean missiles may have the capability to reach California and Hawaii.&amp;nbsp; So far, however,&amp;nbsp;no states that voted for Bush are considered in serious danger, as Alaska is an unlikely target and Nevada exists in an alternate quantum universe.&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=left&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;&quot;As long as those &lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;A href=&quot;http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/0213korea13.html&quot;&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;Dongs&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/A&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt; are aimed at the commie pinkos on the coast, we&apos;re all right,&quot; said Ron, &quot;but the second they aim those suckers at Idaho, there&apos;ll be hell to pay.&quot;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=left&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;California Senator Barbara Boxer replied, &quot;That&apos;s the problem in the world today. Out-of-control Dongs.&quot;&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=center&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif color=maroon size=2&gt;The Rat moves about the furniture&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=left&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;As a result of Susan the Human&apos;s new job&amp;nbsp;responsibilities, the Rodent News Service, which carried rodent-related news stories, has been put on hiatus. You can still read all RNS stories by clicking on the link in the left column.&amp;nbsp; &lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P align=left&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;In addition, the &lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;A href=&quot;http://blogs.salon.com/0001293/stories/2002/12/13/archives.html&quot;&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt;archives page&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/A&gt;&lt;FONT face=Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2&gt; has been reformatted and updated. You&apos;ll find all the Pesky the Rat stories you&apos;ve missed, listed in categories for your convenience.&lt;/FONT&gt; &lt;/P&gt;</description>
			<guid>http://www.peskytherat.com/pesky/2003/02/13.html#a167</guid>
			<pubDate>Fri, 14 Feb 2003 04:42:26 GMT</pubDate>
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