And scene: "Britain's oldest pet dies as tortoise that survived two world wars passes away aged 130 after being bitten on the leg by a rat"

"I'm not worried about an imminent invasion of 'rat multiborgs'."

"Those aren't squirrels at all."

"Absolutely no one likes a rat, a city official said on Tuesday, demanding $1.5 million be restored to the budget to be help control what he called Manhattan's horrific rat problem. Seeing vermin running amok on city streets and in subway tunnels is a turn-off for tourists, said Manhattan Borough president Scott Stringer." —Uh, those of us who live here aren't exactly thrilled by it either.

Uh oh, dude: Having sisters makes you less attractive to other women. Okay, this is actually just the case for rats, but as Science always says, "The results… also have implications for humans." So sure, go with it. It's your sister's fault that you're not getting any.

Not only do Britons have to deal with the horrors of the NAZI COW INVASION, they're also forced to contend with this disgusting ad from pharmaceutical company Pfizer. The Viagra manufacturer insists that it's alerting consumers to the dangers of buying medicine on the Internet in an effort to save lives, but, quite frankly, I don't think I'm ever going to be able to take a penis pill again without worrying that a rodent will scurry out of my wang. I mean, not that I need those pills or anything.

"How many rats does it take to put together a sheep?" —Before you click on that link think long and hard about why someone might want this information.

It's time for "America's National Holiday," which means watching your favorite animal vermin on video! There is an actual "rat bowl," but it's so disturbing—it features three oiled baby rats, all sliding around and being weird, plus it is really a bowl of old cooking oil in someone's filthy kitchen—that we cannot put it on a family publication such as The Awl. Plus, the "embed code" is turned off. So enjoy this "rat bowling" instead. Do you know the difference between a common rat and a pro football player? The rat has never been arrested for assault or torturing dogs! Also most rats are not homophobic, and none [...]

Robert Sullivan is almost certainly the only man in the country with a holiday greeting card from Anna Wintour on his fridge and a bestseller about rats on his resume. The former exists because of his 20-year gig as a contributing editor at Vogue; the latter comes as a result of the year he spent observing and chronicling the urban creatures as they lived their lives in an alley near Ground Zero.

In the Brooklyn apartment he shares with his preschool teacher wife and two teenage kids—one who recently took off for college with most of his father's drum set in tow—Sullivan explained how a life spent crisscrossing [...]

Local man makes $3850 in media licensing fees for video of rats crawling on man on subway. It's a living!

Welcome to Collect Pond Park downtown, which Awl contributor Paolo Mastrangelo describes as "a fucking rat zoo." You know the "double rainbow" video? This is pretty much the exact opposite of that.

I can't wait til I can just think "Okay, rats, bedtime!" and my team of rat slaves will follow my wordless commands to take off my clothes, put on my pajamas, pull down my blankets and tuck me in for a good night's sleep.

"A plague of mutant 'super rats' has invaded the upmarket town of Henley-on-Thames, the host of the annual Royal Regatta, a new study has disclosed. Researchers found the picturesque riverside Oxfordshire area has been inundated with dozens of the pests, which carry a poison-resistant gene. Having migrated from parts of Berkshire and Hampshire, the brown rats, and their life-threatening diseases, are spreading after being found on several unidentified farms."

When in doubt, always blame people: "Rats weren't the carriers of the plague after all. A study by an archaeologist looking at the ravages of the Black Death in London, in late 1348 and 1349, has exonerated the most famous animal villains in history. 'The evidence just isn't there to support it,' said Barney Sloane, author of The Black Death in London. 'We ought to be finding great heaps of dead rats in all the waterfront sites but they just aren't there. And all the evidence I've looked at suggests the plague spread too fast for the traditional explanation of transmission by rats and fleas. It has to be [...]

Ugh, the 4 train, of course.

Will New York soon fall victim to an infestation of sharp-toothed vermin? (Or, I guess, a greater infestation.) "The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is slashing the number of pest control aides in an effort to save $1.5 million. 57 out of 84 full-time pest control aide positions will get the axe," reports the local Fox affiliate. A department spokesman claims that the staff reduction will actually "enable the program to more effectively target properties contributing to neighborhood rat infestation," because, you know, that's always how things work. Anyway, find out more about the rats in your neighborhood at the city's Rat Information Portal, [...]