Or deer. Yeah, you get some deer, but first you cover them in a nice cherry-mint sauce.

Oh that would be sooo cool!

On a more useful note, there is a company in Tanzania that uses a local species of rat to find landmines. THAT particular idea actually works. The rats don’t weigh enough to detonate the mines, and they do an excellent job of finding the mines (the get a goodie to eat for finding a mine). The idea is that once the minefield is identified and its perimeter determined (they are often already well mapped, as some army or insurgent group laid the minefield, usually using Russian/former Soviet mines and techniques–combatants of most every ilk keep a record of mines they laid, so they won’t walk into them, and many fields are laid to protect a paticular static position such as an ammunition supply point), so this is not really rocket science. The mines a usually laid in rows, so a string is tossed (actually shot) from one side to the other, and emplaced running over a line of mines. The rat is tethered to the strind, runs along it till he finds and alerts on the mine. His trainer is behind him, and gives him a goodie, and the process is repeated until the field is swept. Low-tech, commonsense, it earns money for a local company, and it works.

I hadn’t heard of this idea before, but I can’t say enough how stupid it is. Whoever came up with the “Lambs” idea –if it didn’t start as a joke or a hoax is a moron. I can’t imagine anybody who knows anything about mining/deminging taking this dumbassed idea seriously, other than to call its originator an “idiot” in every language he or she speaks. What a waste of perfectly good livestock.

Idiots. Idiotas. Duraki.

I have heard that Jerry Kilgore plans to use individuals on Death Row for this very purpose. Why waste an innocent lamb or kangaroo when a human being is available? Plus, think of all the money that could be saved.