Kremlin Orders 3,200 Mice. No One Knows Why
Thu, Mar 27, 2008
Environmental Graffiti Will be Changing Dramatically Soon. Get a Sneak Preview By Signing Up Here.
3,200 white mice have been ordered by the Kremlin guard: the elite troops who protect President Putin.
Red Square Moscow, Image by Bart Slingerland
The bulk buy has been shrouded in secrecy. Apparently all that is known is that the requirements were that the mice had to be female and weigh no more than 18 grams each.
An official from the service said “Everyone is wondering what they are for. But if they were ordered then that means they are needed.” The same official also refused to speculate what the mice were for, saying there were “more important things to think about.”
All of this is pretty strange. Of course, there are some plausible explanations: could an elite army of loyal rodents be the natural choice against the numerous threats issued by elephants against the Kremlin? Will the mice play a role in testing toxic and dangerous chemicals? Or are they there simply to feed the falcons, which are kept in the Kremlin to scare off crows?
Nonetheless, according to Reuters, the Kremlin has found a supplier and is going to be paying 475,776 roubles ($20,000) for the mice. Can anyone beat that?
Info from Moscow News
Environmental Graffiti is up for four bloggers’ choice awards. You can vote for us for best entertainment blog, best blog of all time, best geek blog and best animal blogger.
If you want to find out all the latest news on the environment, why not subcribe to our RSS feed? We’ll even throw in a free album.
You Might Also Like Our Friends' Posts From the Intertubes
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else.”
2 Trackbacks For This Post
-
MAKE: Blog Says:
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:23 amPuzzle – Kremlin orders 3,200 mice…
Ok gang, try and figure out what the Kremlin is “making” with 3,200 mice… via Evil Mad Scientists. My guess, they’re going to enter the M-prize or a mouse-mouse for each office worker…….
-
ajrowley.org » Blog Archive » Tuesday 30 December 2008 Says:
December 30th, 2008 at 8:42 pm[...] favourite story from this year. I defy you to find something better. No further commentary [...]
March 28th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
apparently this will be lab rats to conjure up some concoction against?
March 28th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
For food obviously, all the Russian politicians are all snakes
March 28th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Duh. Mice are very good biological agent detectors — small body mass means THEY DIE QUICKLY if something foul is about.
Of course, I’d just buy 500 and breed the rest, but whatever.
March 28th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
you don’t need that many to make a fully grown man to hide under an overcoat do you?
March 28th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
OMG the Kremlin leaders are all LIZARD PEOPLE! Just like that 80s miniseries, V !
March 28th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
They’re all female. Not sure how you’d make that work.
March 28th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Has anyone thought of the fact that April Fools Day is just around the corner, and maybe the Russkies are trying to pull something off? Or perhaps some lowly clerk in the accounting office decided to slip in the order for the mice, hoping that it wouldn’t be noticed until April 1…the Russian bureaucracy moves slowly, but maybe their timing was a little off.
March 28th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
I wonder if these mice have been declawed.
March 28th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I, for one, welcome our new rodent overlords.
March 28th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Did anyone see the Simpsons episode where they milked rats for the school milk program?
March 28th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Genetic experiments and the outcome on the off-spring.
Or an old Roman dish, mouse stuffed with pine nuts?
March 29th, 2008 at 4:24 am
There was a discovery a couple of years ago that found a way to control a mouses’ actions, a pleasure stimulating device was attached to the brain of the mouse which would give it positive signals if it followed the desired direction. A mouse was able to be guided through a maze using this device.
Couple years on who knows what sort of advancements they made to this device, if they attach it to a army of 3.2k one can imagine a few things you can do with that.
Just a radical theory :P
March 29th, 2008 at 4:26 am
Either that or they are gonna film a ‘mice on a plane’ movie.
March 29th, 2008 at 10:13 am
They are used for food for falcons.
“all the Russian politicians are all snakes” – LOL
March 29th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Is it just me or did this whole article seem to be talking about something wholly different from animals?
March 29th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Remember “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
Mice are smart enough to manipulate humans to purchase them and then take over
March 29th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Falcon food is the most logical. This explains the weight cap (saves weighing the mice before feeding them. Trust me, it’s a pain) As for the gender…well, it keeps them from breeding.
Also, lizard people.
March 29th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
$6.25 per mouse? That’s outrageous.
March 30th, 2008 at 1:03 am
the kremlin guard is trying to make super mice!
canada already has an army like this (link below)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/brianbogdan/root/october/SaskGopher.jpg
watch out guys WW4 will be fought with mice……not men
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:25 am
As I have pointed out before elsewhere. This is all Harry Huttons fault.
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 am
Perhaps to fatten the cats :-)fattened cats are then made part of a kind of exotic sausage meat eeewww
Joke:-)
Cheers!
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Actually, at 16 grams each you would need more….
April 4th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Lol at all you funny peeps comments but you have all overlooked the obvious. The rats will probably be used to create a plague which will be unleashed upon all humanity. That or they are training for a new pied piper.
April 27th, 2008 at 8:08 am
I think they want to cover their own Software market. Micerosoft… LOL
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
http://ariantv117.googlepages.com/better69-Optimized.jpg
please send this picture to mr pootin