WHOOOEEEE! MINDY SUE, WE'RE GONNA EAT LIKE KINGS TONIGHT!

[Whatever]

While I would love to put it off on the dear old lord of fire and brimstone that all of the evangelicals want us to fervently believe in.  And with that, it would also indicate (if one wants to believe Revelations) the end of times.....

I'm sticking with secret weapons testing.

I was hoping with enough publicity, they would come up with something truly hilarious to blame it on, but it looks like they are limiting testing to government agencies who will not tell the truth, more along the lines of the truth the government wants us to believe....

[the dreadful hours]

maybe theyre all part of a bird cult

[Whatever]

maybe theyre all part of a bird cult

And they shouldn't have drunk the kool-aid? 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's probably something to do with Monsanto.

[Fujikoma]

It's probably something to do with Monsanto.

This thought went through my mind, and you may be joking, not sure, but I didn't post it because I've already posted enough paranoid stuff today

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm not joking.

[Adios]

An estimated 500 red-winged blackbirds and starlings were found dead in Louisiana, a local newspaper reported – just a few days and a short distance away from where thousands more plummeted to their death in Arkansas.

The blackbirds in Louisiana littered a quarter-mile stretch of a state highway in Point Coupee Parish, near the city of Labarre, the Advocate reported Monday.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2011/01/04/fireworks-killed-ark-blackbirds/

[Fujikoma]

What are you suggesting? That they somehow ate some bugs that were eating monsanto crops? Or that they ate some monsanto seed?.. It just occurred to me that I have no idea what black birds eat. It might have hit the fish, too.

I was wondering also if it might have anything to do with the corexit stuff they used on the BP oil spill somehow working its way through the food chain, but I really need to read the articles more closely before I start talking about stuff like that.

EDIT: The article Charley just linked to theorized that a number of the carcasses might have been eaten by hungry dogs and cats... If those start dropping dead, then it'll be pretty clear it wasn't the fireworks.

EDIT EDIT: They said the redwinged blackbird in one of those reports, right?
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Red-winged_Blackbird

EDIT EDIT EDIT:

In winter, this species will forage away from marshes, taking seeds and grain in open fields and agricultural areas. It can therefore be a considered to be pest of crops.

EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Drum_fish

They are found worldwide, in both fresh and saltwater, and are typically benthic carnivores, feeding on invertebrates and smaller fish.

So it seems the fish that died were bottom feeders.

EDIT X5: So, something like this could be arranged to keep people's attention from what's REALLY going on... Julian Assange is being transferred, they're pulling out all the stops on this one, something else must be going on

Really though, they'd arrange a few celebrity scandals if they wanted to distract people, unless they decided to do something different this time.

[Triple Zero]

The fringe websites are speculating sonic weapons at the moment.  Which is at least somewhat consistent with the kind of damage seen in the birds.

Well I gotta say, after reading that bit about no other signs except acute internal bleeding, all at the same time, that's pretty much exactly the first thing that came to mind for me, as well. Don't need to be fringe to make that connection, weirder stuff happens. It's fringe when you start coming up with evidence why this MUST be the case, RIGHT NOW.

[Cainad (dec.)]

This makes me very sad. I am very fond of Redwinged Blackbirds.

It's probably something to do with Monsanto.

Guess who my university's current president used to work for?

[LMNO]

This, to me, qualifies as "weird shit".

My new short-term guru (whom I expect to kill at some later date) suggests that this merely means I do not have enough information.

So, given a spectrum of ass-pulling guesses, I'm going to say there seems to be a high probability that some new kind of jet engine or other stealth airplane technology is being developed and tested, which killed the birds (evidence of blunt force trauma suggests this).

I think that the fish kill, which is much more common, is coincidental.

[hooplala]

Read an article about this today... they said it was most likely fireworks. 

Seems to me Occam's Razor would agree that this is the easiest rational answer, given the time of year.

[Cain]

Read an article about this today... they said it was most likely fireworks. 

Seems to me Occam's Razor would agree that this is the easiest rational answer, given the time of year.

Sounds likely....only would the fireworks do damage consistent with the kind found in the birds?  From what I read, there were no external signs of injury, only internal....I guess it is possible, theoretically, that the burst of the fireworks could cause internal damage without external injuries, but I'd like to make sure.

Which means I'm off with a net and some surplus fireworks in an hour.

[LMNO]

Read an article about this today... they said it was most likely fireworks. 

Seems to me Occam's Razor would agree that this is the easiest rational answer, given the time of year.

The only problem being, why would this be the first time this had happened?  I mean, birds tend to flock/nest/migrate in predictable patterns.  If fireworks could startle them enough to kill, shouldn't we have seen this happen in Arkansas every New Year's Eve?

[hooplala]

Read an article about this today... they said it was most likely fireworks.  

Seems to me Occam's Razor would agree that this is the easiest rational answer, given the time of year.

The only problem being, why would this be the first time this had happened?  I mean, birds tend to flock/nest/migrate in predictable patterns.  If fireworks could startle them enough to kill, shouldn't we have seen this happen in Arkansas every New Year's Eve?

RANDOM CHANCE
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