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Mentally-Ill Mice to Be Mainstreamed After Experiments

by Scott Ott · 82 Comments

(2007-07-29) — In an effort to quell debate over laboratory mice genetically-engineered to have schizophrenia, scientists at Johns Hopkins University have promised animal rights groups that after their experiments, they’ll make every effort to ‘mainstream’ the mice into society.

“They won’t be institutionalized for the rest of their lives, surrounded by people in white coats,” said one unnamed researcher. “We’ve already hired social workers to help them adjust to life among the so called ‘normal’ mouse population, teaching them to do what others do, and controlling the symptoms of their mental disease with medication.”

Meanwhile, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) announced today that many of its members have offered their own brains to scientists investigating mental illness, hoping to jump-start the research by avoiding the time-consuming process of genetically engineering schizophrenia.

“Mice are precious products of unguided natural selection and therefore they’re worthy of our love and compassion,” said an unnamed PETA source, “and there’s nothing inherently different or valuable about humans, so experimenting on PETA members creates no moral dilemma. Who knows, perhaps scientists experimenting on humans will discover a cure for mental illness in mice.”

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Tags: Science · U.S. News

82 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Mentally-Ill Mice to Be Mainstreamed After Experiments - Right Mind // Jul 29, 2007 at 9:12 am

    […] Now this from Scott Ott over at Scrapple Face. […]

  • 2 Scott Ott // Jul 29, 2007 at 12:15 pm

    [Editor’s Note: ScrappleFace.com has just been updated to the latest version of WordPress blog software. During the course of the upgrade, several functions were shut down and restarted, including those affecting the comment function. All is well now, according to the management, who regrets any inconvenience in a sort of impersonal, aloof way.

    Love, The Management.]

  • 3 Ms RightWing, Ink // Jul 29, 2007 at 1:03 pm

    Phew, you had me scared. I figured while my half useless body was away at boot camp (returning to climbing civilian household stairs) my computer took on a mind of its own. I always figured my computer had schizophrenic tendencies as it was.

    Now understand, mice have have never been a problem here at the bunker, but the multitude of Democrats have become a pest that I find hard to deal with. I have placed bait all about the place but Limburger cheese doesn’t stink enough for them.

  • 4 Ms RightWing, Ink // Jul 29, 2007 at 1:40 pm

    anybody home?

  • 5 Ms RightWing, Ink // Jul 29, 2007 at 2:49 pm

    Maybe my mouse has problems. I shall remove it and go to Best Buy and see if they have “normal” mouses, or is that meeces. Perhaps mices?

  • 6 RedPepper // Jul 29, 2007 at 2:51 pm

    Now, this is just crazy

  • 7 RedPepper // Jul 29, 2007 at 2:52 pm

    Hello there, Ms RW! Did you get my note?

  • 8 SnakeDoctor // Jul 29, 2007 at 2:56 pm

    I am so glad to know that members of PETA are volunteering their brains for this important research. Perhaps in a partisan spirit of patriotism Pelosi, Schumer,
    Dean, Kerry, H. Clinton, that demented little Gollum, I mean Kucinich and their merry band of fellow travelers will follow suit.

  • 9 RedPepper // Jul 29, 2007 at 3:03 pm

    Ms RW #3: Have you considered using Warfarin ?

  • 10 RedPepper // Jul 29, 2007 at 3:08 pm

    SnakeDoctor #8: Do you suppose that sHillary is a member of PETA ?

    She would certainly be very effective if she were! I’m sure you are familiar with their tactic of nude protests? Can’t you just see her in that role?

    Deadlier than a land mine …

  • 11 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 29, 2007 at 3:17 pm

    God Bless America
    and
    You, too

  • 12 SnakeDoctor // Jul 29, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    Red Pepper re #10

    Are you insane? Just thinking thoughts like that can cause blindness, followed by hairy palms, insanity and death. Well… that’s the word on the street.

  • 13 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 29, 2007 at 3:21 pm

    Yeah. Those were some fine babes there the other day taking their shirts off.
    :shock:
    Egad.

    What’s up with that…..

  • 14 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 29, 2007 at 3:24 pm

    Tip:
    Invest heavily in psychiatry-related stock.

  • 15 ethanthom // Jul 29, 2007 at 3:43 pm

    Wit like that in the last sentence of this post is one of the things that makes life worth living.I cant even type right.ROTFLMAO

  • 16 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 29, 2007 at 4:21 pm

    Notice
    The moment I am sworn in as President of The United States of America I will Decree by Proclamation that NASCAR is The National Sport of The United States of America.
    That is all

  • 17 Ms RightWing, Ink // Jul 29, 2007 at 5:10 pm

    Why, jus’ because that sissy Tony Stewart won????

  • 18 Ms RightWing, Ink // Jul 29, 2007 at 5:14 pm

    Soory James-I’m just a sore looser

    Meanwhile back at the Mouse Ranch

    “Gee, George, I just want a mouse to call my own so I can hold him and pet him.”

    Next scene all the mice are running for their lives

  • 19 Ms RightWing, Ink // Jul 29, 2007 at 5:15 pm

    er sorry

  • 20 Darthmeister // Jul 29, 2007 at 5:31 pm

    Did the scientists at John Hopkins first experiment on Demoncrats before trying the mental illness experiment on the mice? I think more than a few of those schizophrenic Donks escaped into the general population and voted last election.

    BTW, when I’m having trouble with my mouse I bang it down pretty hard, that usually gets me another hour of operation before I have to disassemble it to clean off all the gunk on the little rollers inside.

  • 21 prettyold // Jul 29, 2007 at 6:47 pm

    Darthmeister,I think they got the schizophrenia germs they used to inoculate the mice with,from the Democrats.
    What I’m worried about is ,will the mice be able to vote ?

  • 22 conserve-a-tips // Jul 29, 2007 at 7:12 pm

    Did anyone else notice the efficiency of using PETA brains over the mouse brains? The scientists had to create the mentally ill mice. PETA volunteers would come to them already mentally ill! Think of the dollars saved. Ain’t PETA wonderful?

  • 23 RedPepper // Jul 29, 2007 at 7:35 pm

    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Igor, would you mind telling me whose brain I did put in?
    Igor : And you won’t be angry?
    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : I will NOT be angry.
    Igor : Abby someone.
    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Abby someone. Abby who?
    Igor : Abby Normal.
    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Abby Normal?
    Igor : I’m almost sure that was the name.
    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA?
    [shakes and grabs him]
    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE TELLING ME?

    ( from the 1974 Mel Brooks film, Young Frankenstein )

  • 24 camojack // Jul 29, 2007 at 7:58 pm

    Maybe they’ll evolve into “mainstream” media type…

  • 25 Darthmeister // Jul 29, 2007 at 10:09 pm

    This is an attaboy to the lefties whining about the purported “innocent” inmates at GITMO:

    AP - Washington
    AT LEAST 30 former Guantanamo Bay detainees have been killed or recaptured after taking up arms against allied forces following their release.

    They have been discovered mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but not in Iraq, a US Defence Department spokesman told The Age yesterday.

    Commander Jeffrey Gordon said the detainees had, while in custody, falsely claimed to be farmers, truck drivers, cooks, small-arms merchants, low-level combatants or had offered other false explanations for being in Afghanistan.

    “We are aware of dozens of cases where they have returned to militant activities, participated in anti-US propaganda or engaged in other activities,” said Commander Gordon.

    As LittleGreenFootballs noted: “Good work, lefties. How many people have died because of your bleeding-heart crusade to get the jihadis at Guantanamo released?”

  • 26 Darthmeister // Jul 29, 2007 at 10:24 pm

    When it comes to word association, whenever I heard the word “ACORN” I used to immediately think … “squirrel”. But after Scott’s post concerning mentally-ill mice, when I hear ACORN I first think of the scandalous left-wing voter registration organization ACORN then I think of mentally-ill mice which then segues into images of Democrats who have to lie and cheat there way to get elected. So now I’ll forever associate ACORN with crooked liberal Democrats which, ironically, precisely reflects the real world!

    BTW, John Edwards fawned over this nutroots organization despite their past problems with voter fraud. No accounting for taste on the other side of the aisle, is there?

  • 27 Darthmeister // Jul 29, 2007 at 10:24 pm

    … mentally-ill mice ate my post!

  • 28 camojack // Jul 30, 2007 at 12:14 am

    I wonder if they’re related to Kim Jong-Mentally-Il?

    Anyway, shouldn’t they be “developmentally challenged” mice, or some other such P.C.-ism?!

  • 29 Hawkeye // Jul 30, 2007 at 7:18 am

    It’s ALIVE! It’s ALIVE!

    I’m talking about the Comment Box :smile:

    Best regards…

  • 30 Ms RightWing, Ink // Jul 30, 2007 at 7:28 am

    Here I am to save the day-Mighty Mouse is on his way!

    Well he started out, but had to take a nap on the park bench along side his grocery cart.

    Never fear, he will get there some day

  • 31 Ms RightWing, Ink // Jul 30, 2007 at 7:35 am

    Actually Mighty Mouse suffers from visions of grandeur and has personality disorders. Most of the day is spent living inside a wall, sleeping and eating stale cheese.

  • 32 conserve-a-tips // Jul 30, 2007 at 7:56 am

    Hawkeye…what did you do to get it back? I still don’t have it. Have I been bad or something?

    Camojack - that would be “adjudicated mentally incapacitated”.

  • 33 conserv-a-tip // Jul 30, 2007 at 8:01 am

    Well, I reregistered and left the ‘e’ out of conserve (which looks really dorky) to see if maybe getting a new account would give me Live Comment Preview. Guess what it didn’t get me! Sighhh.

  • 34 conserve-a-tips // Jul 30, 2007 at 8:17 am

    Resuming former identity - Clark Kent in drag…

  • 35 Darthmeister // Jul 30, 2007 at 8:18 am

    A time when men were men and even feckless, limp-wristed American politicians didn’t dare embrace defeatism in the face of a determined enemy.

  • 36 GnuCarSmell // Jul 30, 2007 at 8:45 am

    Never double-click a schizophrenic mouse.

  • 37 conserve-a-tips // Jul 30, 2007 at 8:55 am

    GnuCarSmell: That was funny!! You realize that if you right click, you get multiple personalities!

  • 38 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 30, 2007 at 8:57 am

    RE: #32~~
    Conserve-a-tips~~

    If you will enable Javascript on your browser the Live Comment Preview will work.

  • 39 conserve-a-tips // Jul 30, 2007 at 9:01 am

    Heh Darthmeister - Here’s one for you:

    LEADERS ATTACK POLLUTION — FROM DEODORANT…
    That just stinks, don’t it?

  • 40 Just Ranting // Jul 30, 2007 at 10:36 am

    Seems we are missing critical details in this report. Were these American mice, or were these illegal immigrant Mexican mice come here on the pretense of taking jobs American mice don’t want to do? This would be another example of Illegal immigrant mice receiving free medical care while hard working American mice go without medical care at all. Where is Michael “the Sicko” Moore when you need him?

  • 41 Hawkeye // Jul 30, 2007 at 11:13 am

    Mice are precious products of unguided natural selection

    Funny line Scott. :smile:

  • 42 Hawkeye // Jul 30, 2007 at 11:17 am

    C-A-T #32,
    I was talking about the “Comment Box”. I tried to comment yesterday morning but got an error message. As far as “Live Comment Preview” I get it in Firefox, but not in IE. Will try JL3’s suggestion in #38.

    Best regards…

  • 43 Hawkeye // Jul 30, 2007 at 11:19 am

    Camo #24,
    Makes sense… their already “as timid as mice” when it comes to the war in Iraq.

  • 44 Hawkeye // Jul 30, 2007 at 11:20 am

    Uhh, the mainstream media types, that is. (Must remember to finish a thought).

  • 45 Darthmeister // Jul 30, 2007 at 11:52 am

    c.a.t., let’s bring back Irish Spring™ soap … no wait, that was too sexist!

    [Shot of Irish vixen looking longingly at handsome, hairy-chested young man stripping off his shirt to swing an ax] - “Manly yes, but I like it, too!”

    Of course this kind of imagery has been redefined by the likes of “Brokeback Mountain” and limp-wristed “progressives” who see dominant lesbians and metrosexuals as the ideal expression of their concept of manhood.

  • 46 Darthmeister // Jul 30, 2007 at 11:54 am

    Examples of liberal metrosexuals … John Kerry, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, ad nauseam.

  • 47 Darthmeister // Jul 30, 2007 at 12:02 pm

    Sheep, wolves, sheepdogs and the New Republic’s Private Beauchamp.

  • 48 conserve-a-tips // Jul 30, 2007 at 12:15 pm

    Darthmeister: Re #46 ~ nauseated ~ I am that.

  • 49 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 30, 2007 at 12:26 pm

    I can’t get it to work in IE.

  • 50 conserve-a-tips // Jul 30, 2007 at 12:43 pm

    James, I am just wanting it to work in Oklahoma (yuck, yuck, yuck) :-)

  • 51 RedPepper // Jul 30, 2007 at 12:47 pm

    JL3 #49: I use IE, & I do not have Comment Preview either.

    It just doesn’t work with IE. Firefox, fine - but not IE.

    If you are on IE, you don’t rate. Bill Gates has the kind of popularity ratings that even Karl Rove & Dick Cheney don’t envy. You might as well be a caveman - and if you’ve seen those GEICO ads, you know how the cavemen rate … right, JL3?

    I think I’ll go have an existential meltdown, now …

  • 52 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 30, 2007 at 1:26 pm

    Okay, so it’s an IE issue, I see. That’s too bad but par for the course. Well, I tried.

    I like to figure stuff out, which is why I looked into it in the first place even though I don’t use IE.

    You’re right, RedPepper, when it comes to web design innovations that did not originate with MS, you’re pretty much out of luck (until they decide enough time has passed so they can pretend that they were their own idea-like tabbed browsing or add-ons, for example).

  • 53 woodnwheel // Jul 30, 2007 at 2:28 pm

    I really need to check this site more often. Once again I miss a great post until the day after it’s posted, and end up with my first comment being in the 50s. Oh well, c’est la vie…

    On a (somewhat) personal note, I live not too far from PETA’s HQ, so this one hits rather close to home! Thank you, Scott, for another EXCELLENT post!

  • 54 woodnwheel // Jul 30, 2007 at 2:30 pm

    RedPepper, re. #51 “existential meltdown” — ROFL!

  • 55 da Bunny // Jul 30, 2007 at 2:58 pm

    What about gay mice?

  • 56 RedPepper // Jul 30, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    da Bunny #55: What about gay mice. Are you implying that mice would be mentally ill simply because they’re gay? Hmmmmm?!?

    /(Bigoted!Racist!HomophobicMus(a)-ophobic!NeoCon!*%$&*#!?!

    Note (a) : (a)

  • 57 Just Ranting // Jul 30, 2007 at 3:23 pm

    Da Bunny re:55

    I’ve always had my suspicions about Mickey Mouse. He has that really high voice like Michael Jackson sucking on a helium balloon, you know? Speedy Gonzalez and his slow motion side kick seem just a little too chummy too. It is hard to say what goes on under somebody else’s sombrero. Then there is Mighty Mouse…a classic case of denial by over accentuating his masculinity to disguise his latent tendencies. It seems like he could spend years in therapy trying to come to terms with his feminine side. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

  • 58 Darthmeister // Jul 30, 2007 at 3:29 pm

    I can see it now next to the I personally don’t agree with NAMBLA but… and the Kerry/Edwards ‘04 bumperstickers, “Mentally-ill Mice Need Love, Too” …

    … or was that rats?

  • 59 Darthmeister // Jul 30, 2007 at 3:29 pm

    …doh!

  • 60 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 30, 2007 at 3:39 pm

    They aren’t gay or, even, happy-those aren’t smiles on their faces, they’re grimaces.

  • 61 conserve-a-tips // Jul 30, 2007 at 4:01 pm

    I’m wondering where Chip and Dale fit in here (Darthmeister meaning absolutely no pun on your Irish Spring commercial in the manly version):

    “You’re just too, too kind.”
    “No, no! You’re just too, too kind!”
    “Oh no. I must say that you go beyond the realm of being kind.”
    “No - no…you are most certainly the kindest of us both!”

  • 62 Just Ranting // Jul 30, 2007 at 4:07 pm

    And Donald Duck walking around with no pants on all the time…what’s THAT all about?

  • 63 Just Ranting // Jul 30, 2007 at 4:13 pm

    We know the Teleltubbies are gay, especially that purple one. Pat Robertson outted them. It just makes me want to go join the NRA and shoot my TV!

  • 64 EXT // Jul 30, 2007 at 4:37 pm

    If Ted had been gay the young lady might be alive and an old lady today. See, there ARE good things to be said about…….

  • 65 Maggie // Jul 30, 2007 at 4:51 pm

    da Bunny…re#55
    Gay mice?….Not that there’s anything wrong with that……
    …and also ,what’s up with the “farmer’s wife?”
    What did she do with their tails and where did she hide the carving knife?
    Were the 3 blind mice receiving disability insurance?
    Did they receive cheese thru the WIC program?

  • 66 Maggie // Jul 30, 2007 at 4:54 pm

    Pushing post thru….

  • 67 Maggie // Jul 30, 2007 at 4:59 pm

    Is anyone else having difficulty posting?
    Of course,if you are, you couldn’t say because you are having trouble posting.

  • 68 conserve-a-tips // Jul 30, 2007 at 5:36 pm

    I’ve had trouble all day Maggie. As per those blind mice, they were adjudged “vision impaired” and joined the Democrat party with those of like mind.

  • 69 Darthmeister // Jul 30, 2007 at 6:33 pm

    I bet there are some left-wing, anti-war, moonbat haters out there who hope Chief Justice John Roberts dies since he’s had a seizure.

    It will be interesting to monitor the barking moonbat bloggers the next couple of days.

  • 70 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 30, 2007 at 6:58 pm

    You’re all under arrest for felonious rodent-hate speech.
    No bail, either.

  • 71 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 30, 2007 at 7:10 pm

    RE: #69~~
    Darthmeister~~

    Yes, and especially considering the boycott the despicable Democrat party has been planning (and talking about, even as of today) for any future Bush nominees.

    The press is not going to be pretty, that’s for sure.

    As an aside: I suspect the Stock Market will be interesting tomorrow.

    Meanwhile, the buzzards and hyenas hover with flared nostrils on the periphery, salivating.

  • 72 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 30, 2007 at 7:21 pm

    I’m not going to mention their name or post a link but there’s already one leftist blog that has expressed a desire-in the form of a puerile joke-that Chief Justice Roberts had, in fact, died.

    Dear Heavenly Father, make us all human beings again? Please?

  • 73 da Bunny // Jul 30, 2007 at 8:17 pm

    Re: my #55 post about “gay” mice, I was just wondering if they’ve been “mainstreamed.” I have loved reading all the comments my question stirred up…:lol:

    Maggie, #65…we’ll have to look into this, eh?

  • 74 conserve-a-tips // Jul 30, 2007 at 9:10 pm

    Buzzard and Hyena, James? Would that be Nancy and Harry?

  • 75 Gotcha // Jul 30, 2007 at 10:11 pm

    Testing, testing. I am using IE and I have Live Comment Preview. Now what’s your theory as to why mine works?

  • 76 RedPepper // Jul 31, 2007 at 12:07 am

    Gotcha #75: Curiouser and curiouser! Thank you for that piece of information!

    Another item that is also pertinent here ; I’m assuming, until people tell me otherwise, that all of the folks with IE whose Live Comment Preview is no longer working were also on IE back just a short while ago and their Live Comment Preview was working just fine! Anyway, that’s my situation … so , if I may ask , what changed?!? ‘Cause it sure as [bleep!] wasn’t me …

  • 77 RedPepper // Jul 31, 2007 at 12:10 am

    Sorry for the run-on italics. A perfect illustration tho of an error that would have been easily caught if my Live Comment Preview was functioning …

  • 78 Darthmeister // Jul 31, 2007 at 4:12 am

    Some general observations:

    What do you call it when the U.S. sits idly by as the Soviets invade Afghanistan and a newly radicalized Iran holds Americans hostage? Mentally-ill mice call it “keeping the peace.” Figures.

    From James Taranto:
    Over the weekend the New York Times published a long piece on a series of letters Hillary Clinton (then Rodham) wrote to a high school friend, John Peavoy, while the two were in college in the late 1960s. There’s nothing terribly juicy here; Mrs. Clinton comes across as a bright young adult struggling to figure out her place in the world. But one quote gave us a chuckle:

    “Can you be a misanthrope and still love or enjoy some individuals?” Ms. Rodham wrote in an April 1967 letter. “How about a compassionate misanthrope?”

    “A compassionate misanthrope.” What a perfect description of the contemporary liberal. As Dick Armey observed, borrowing from Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Liberals love humanity but hate people.”

  • 79 Darthmeister // Jul 31, 2007 at 4:23 am

    In a 2003 speech to San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, popular science novelist Michael Crichton described the religion of environmentalism, predecessor to the Church of Global Warming:

    “Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists … there’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability.

    “Facts are irrelevant because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It’s about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation or on the side of doom, whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.”

  • 80 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 31, 2007 at 7:37 am

    Hercule Poirot [aside]: Is everyone who is using IE, and is experiencing the aforementioned “quirky” behavior, using the current version?

  • 81 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 31, 2007 at 7:50 am

    Sam Spade [aggravated]: Hey, Herc. Don’t you think you ought to ask if those who are not experiencing any of the aforementioned “quirky” behavior in IE are using the current version?

    Hercule Poirot: Hercule.

    JamesonLewis3rd [perplexed]: But…..but, alas! I’m using the current version and experiencing the aforementioned “quirky” behavior.

    Perry Mason [singing tenor]: Incompetent! Irrelevant! Immaterial!

    Sherlock Holmes [blows a smoke ring]: I say, curiouser and curiouser.

  • 82 Darthmeister // Jul 31, 2007 at 8:33 am

    Yep, I was right. The left-wing nutroot moonbats were out in force barking their veiled and no-so-veiled death wishes for Chief Justice Roberts. You can view some of the tamer stuff here. What cretins.

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