[url]http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/276/metro/Boston_battles_a_surge_in_rats+.shtml[/url]

lol...

u know my school Boston University considered changing their mascot from
Rhet the terrier to Rhet the ratt.
They're everywhere on campus..and theyre HUGE!
Freshman year when i see them in big swarms moving across the darks streets at night, i thought they were some evil black mass..

Boston huh?  Not surprising.

Reminds me of a sea story.

About thirty years ago, early one very cold winter morning in Boston harbor, I was officer of the deck on my ship, then moored inport at what was then Boston Naval Shipyard.

It had snowed hard the during the night and everything was covered in a white blanket.

One of our seaman noticed a large wharf rat climbing up one of the forward mooring lines.  The rat tried but failed to navigate the large rat-guard around the line and returned to the dock.  I guess he could smell our food and feel our heat...because the brazen critter began coming up the damn brow (That's the "gangplank" for you landlubbers!).  My petty officer of the watch (POOW - The kid with the 1911 .45ACP.) saw the rat and pointed it out to me.

I told him to scare the damn thing off and make SURE it didn't get aboard...whereupon he went about 1/2 way down the brow and waved his arms and yelled.  No effect.  Now, its him and the big wharf rat in a Mexican standoff!  At this point the POOW began to unholster his weapon and asked if he can SHOOT the damn thing!  I allowed as how our captain and the shipyard commander might not appreciate us throwing .45 bullets all over the place and told him to holster his weapon and get a large broom from one of the seaman clearing the decks of snow...which he did.

Finally, after a couple of good swings of the broom, the rat got the idea he wasn't wanted and departed back down the brow.

I see nothing has changed in Boston.  I wonder which they have more of...Liberals or Rats?  Both are a plague!  [;D]