If you give a mouse E. coli

Be on the lookout for diseased NYC mice. They’re somewhere out there.

Who among us hasn’t cried watching An American Tail? (It’s OK, the Internet can’t see you nodding.) Fievel Mousekewitz, a young mouse from Russia, emigrates to America to escape Cossack cats and ends up separated from his family in New York City. Of course it’s sad — because Fievel is an illegal immigrant carrying superbugs.

A study of mice throughout New York City reveals that Fievel’s great-great-great-great-great … (mouse generations are ridiculous) … great-grandchildren are carrying disease-causing bacteria, including a few antibiotic-resistant germs.

Three percent of the mice carried Salmonella bacteria, 14 percent carried disease-causing Shigella, 12 percent carried the food poisoning germ Clostridium perfringens, 4 percent carried enteropathogenic Escherichia coli and 4 percent carried Clostridium difficile, a notorious cause of often-fatal chronic diarrhea.

“Often-fatal chronic diarrhea.” Clearly, crying our lungs out at their songs wasn’t enough for these Trojan mice.

If you see signs of mice in your domicile, it is critical to take steps to either catch or kill them and clean up all possible surfaces with bleach to disinfect contagion due to urine and feces. And we have to act fast before these vermin go west.

It was in their name the whole time

As any medical drama will resort to when the ratings get low, the scariest murderers are doctors because, as protectors of human life, they know every off-switch (like our susceptibility to grillbrush bristles). Or how, according to police dramas in a similar pickle, cops make the best criminals.

Well, it was only a matter of time before firemen — or firepeople, as they’re called nowadays — lived up to the ironic double-meaning of their name. It turned out they were both flammable and inflammable this whole time.

… What? Those words mean the same thing? Then what do you call things that can’t be set on fire? Forget it. This is just a rehash of our old argument that somehow “pervy” isn’t the opposite of “impervious.”

There’s no infestation like a New York City infestation …

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that, despite the city’s best efforts, you just can’t kill off a New Yorker infestation. “Babies born in New York City in 2009 can expect to live on average 80.6 years, roughly 2-1/2 years more than the most recently reported national rate of 78.2 years,” the mayor told members of the press, ruefully shaking his head.

It was hoped that, by shortening human lifespans, this research would lead to a cure for the city’s bed bug problem — a plan that animal rights activists hailed as a fun exercise in role reversal. Alas, all of the Mayor Bloomberg’s initiatives, “including bans on public smoking and the use of trans-fats in restaurants,” have only resulted in more New Yorkers living longer neurotic lives.

“If you want to live longer and healthier than the average American, then come to New York City,” the mayor said before distributing cyanide capsules and pistols to his staff. “Me? I want off this merry-go-round, and I’ll do the same for anyone else.”

NYC’s digital gloryholes

German artist, Aram Bartholl has installed five USB ports on the sides of buildings in New York City.

His hope is that users will use them as “spy drops,” posting pictures, videos or other media to share important ideas with others who visit it.

Would someone like to show Herr Boo Radley ChatRoulette now?

(With special thanks to Alexis.)

NY Gov has reservations about mosque

In an effort to compromise with Muslims looking to open a cultural center in New York City and white Americans who fear anything 9-11y sounding, New York Gov. David Paterson has offered up government land somewhere further away from Ground Zero.

The idea is to remove the offending sample of Muslim culture to some unused, unwanted piece of government property where they can remain out of sight and mind and, more importantly, out of the way of any future white development … like, say something other than a hole in the ground?

It’s a novel idea, and if history has proven anything, it’s that government relocation always works. Even if “works” means “keeping them away from where history books are written.”

Saving the poor from (further) bad decisions

Sometimes it’s tough to ignore homeless people. It’s a burden to pretend they don’t exist, imagining the situation that could put us in their position, and they aren’t helping with gaudy, out-of-season clothes. Penniless and attention-whoring is no way to go through life, son.

If you’re looking for a solution to the homeless problem described above, then New York would be the best place to start. Proving that miracles still happen on 34th Street, clothing store H&M refuses to donate unsold clothing and even cuts or hole-punches them before throwing the items away.

Bravo, H&M! It’s bad enough that poor people ride our buses and breathe our air, but the last thing we need is for them to offend our sense of style. If they want to wear designer clothes, then maybe they should get a job and buy the latest items that consumers actually want, hm?

And, of course, they’ll be able to throw those clothes away after a year of use.

Bonus Quote: “H & M, which is based in Sweden, has an executive in charge of corporate responsibility who leads the company’s sustainability efforts. On its Web site, H&M reports that to save paper, it has shrunk its shipping labels.”

You can’t fake that kind of philanthropy, people.

(Courtesy of Chris S.)

New York: One tough town

New Yorkers are “annoyed — furious is a better word” — that the Air Force One flyover of NYC was not a terrorist attack. Though the plane and its F-16 escort veered frustratingly close to the site of Ground Zero, the plane was not piloted by terrorists and did not crash into any buildings.

Enraged and traumatized to be teased with what could have been a very painful and scary moment, New York politicians like Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Senator Chuck Schumer want to know why New York wasn’t informed and whose head will roll for not killing several thousand of their constituents.

Even the therapists can’t handle the influx of tramautized patients. Social worker, Linda Garcia-Rose complained about being inundated with calls from patients who survived the tantalizingly-close calamity, many of whom live three blocks away from the World Trade Center.