In light of the recent eradication of rats on an island near Alaska, I gotta say I'm pretty disgusted. For a while I was on the fence about this: on one hand, these rats were not actually native, they were brought here on a crashed ship, and they were pretty terrible to the natural habitat of the island. On the other, each one had a soul, a life, and maybe even a family. Make no mistake, this is no mockery. Part of my somewhat limited pro-life stance includes my belief that every life, no matter how small, is special, which is part of the reason I simply relocate small critters from my house rather than kill them. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and take a hypocritical measure, but that doesn't make it right.

I understand there are definite benefits of ridding the former "rat island" of the rats, but I wouldn't want any of my tax dollars paying for it.