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From: wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Canadian Rats--Boo
Message-ID: <554@pyuxa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-Feb-84 14:49:31 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxa.554
Posted: Mon Feb  6 14:49:31 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Feb-84 03:09:18 EST
Organization: Central Services Org., Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 53

What Canada needs isn't a good five-cent cigar, a chicken in every pot, or
even a late night talk show with an opening monologue as funny as Johnny
Carson's.  What it needs is a hardier breed of rats.

Canadien rats, for example, are absolutely the puniest, sickliest, the all-
around crummiest rats in the entire world.  Stuff a Canadian rat with the
equivalent of 400 tins of diet soda pop a day and what does he (or she) do?
Keel over, that's what, and develop bladder troubles.  It's the same story
if you ask a Canadien rat to puff three packs of non-filter tips a day, heap
cyclamates on its din-din, take it out on the town for 10 or 12 martinis
before beddy-bye for 500 or 600 nights running.

In fact, you can't seem to do anything with a Canadien rat without its going
belly-up, coughing its lungs out, or wandering around with a liver that's
in tatters.  As a result, we all suffer.  Every time a Canadien rat comes
down with the nasties, or has its nose fall off, some scientist comes along,
attributes the trouble to something the rat has done, and wants to take 
away from us another of life's little pleasures.

So far, we know the Canadien rat can't handle saccharin, butter, Bloody
Marys, excessive tv watching, homemade blueberry pie with ice cream for
dessert, fried eggs for breakfast, bacon, and heaven-kmows-what-else.

Why is the Canadien rat such a limp-wristed, party-pooping drag?  Why
can't he enjoy a double order of lasagna, some artificial sweetener, a
good smoke, or anything else without whining about a sore stomach or
dropping dead?  Is the Canadien rat really that frail, or is he a 
hypochondriac?  Is he in such sickly health because of misspent youth
in the garbage dump, or is he faking to make life miserable for human
beings?

No one can say, but obviously Canadians must develop a sturdier strain
of rat before there is nothing left in life for us but rats, berries,
and mush made from the bark of trees.  We need a rat with a stomach
like cast iron, one that can toss back junk food and wash it down with 
a big beer without so much as a burp...a rat with clear eyes, teeth that 
are impervious to decay, and a system that can handle the pill with
no ill effects.  Is that too much to ask of our scientists?

Instead of feeding banana cream pie to a rat that looks as if it would
fall over if you blew on it, let them come up with a lab animal that can
stand up to the stress and strain of modern life.  If the rat can't
handle whipped cream, get rid of the rat, not the whipped cream, I say!

If my future is in the paws of a rat, I don't want it to be swaybacked,
knock-kneed, and narrow chested.  What I want going for me is a rat
built like Bobby Hull, not Don Knotts, especially if something
as important as T-bone steaks or sex is involved.

Courtesy of Honorable Kevin Stewart, M. P.
Minister for Health
New South Wales, Australia