God bless alternative energy… 
Energy in America: Dead Birds Unintended Consequence of Wind Power Development
In your travels of Chicago, you will undoubtedly be drawn to such famous sites as Navy Pier, Michigan Avenue, Buckingham Fountain, and the Earwax Cafe. But no visit is complete without stopping at the Oriental Institute Museum, located conveniently in the middle of nowhere on a street not unlike the Bermuda Triangle on the campus of the University of Chicago on the city’s near south side.
We don’t know why it’s called the Oriental Institute, housing many artifacts large and small in random time periods in a big jumble from both ancient Palestine and North Africa, among others. We didn’t even think the term “oriental” was couth anymore, except when referring to rugs and lamps. Nevertheless, you’ll find many treasures to delight you as you explore ancient artifacts like a prehistoric stogy, a hair clip of no obvious utility, and the world’s first whoopie cushion (be careful, it’s sharp). But while you fight your inner urges not to touch the huge stone artifacts and the smaller plaster casts of real artifacts stored somewhere where you must actually pay to see them, a larger problem may exist for the typical Tuesday hater. Of course, the artifacts are littered with birds.
All is not lost, though, and happily apart from the giant bird with the golden beak and a few obscure references in carvings, the birds do not play a pivotal role in your “oriental” experience. Many super-glued glass and pottery items tell the story of Bible times, mingled confusingly with 2000 B.C. income tax receipts and an ancient schoolboy’s failing math homework. At long last, you will encounter one true bird – but someone has already thoughtfully taken care of things for you.
bird mummy
No doubt part of an ancient pagan ritual, one can truly appreciate the exquisite detail of this mummified waterfowl, preserved for “eternity” (as if birds will be in heaven! sheesh!) by a gratuitous smearing of resin, a linen wrap and a form-fitting little birdie coffin. While we don’t promote such extensive care for the departed of bird-kind, we can appreciate at least that this bird is – as all the best birds are – quite dead.
Overall filled with genuinely interesting exhibits and a lot of broken pots, you’ll find something to enjoy about the Oriental Institute Museum, if you can find it from your nearest public transit. We trust that all references in statues and reliefs to actually living birds was merely an oversight of the curator, soon to be corrected. Also on the plus side, artifacts with daisies (which Tuesday haters ardently support and admire) are at least as prevalent.
We think you will enjoy this visit even more than your perfunctory stops at the Sears Tower Skydeck (as it will continue to be known), the nation’s first multi-level parking garage, and the indian atop the cigar store on 63rd and Pulaski. But really, be careful not to lick things, even though the signs are limited to excluding you from touch. And if you must touch the cavernous nostril of the giant bull statue, be sure that nobody is looking.
It’s November, a Tuesday, and in the United States (for the benefit of our thousands of international readers), Election Day. Notwithstanding that it is an off-year and nobody knows who’s running for what, why, or where to vote, or care in the slightest, Tuesday Haters the world over are brushing off their civic consciousness in order to defend the most fabulous source of alternative energy known in our day – wind farms.
Wind farms, or multiple hellishly huge pinwheels in the sky as they are also known, provide one hundredth of one-billionth the electricity needed to light up our sullen autumn Tuesday lives. While perhaps something of an eyesore to naturalist beatniks and passing alien ships, their ranks are clearly divided over this technology. On the one hand, wind farms reduce (albeit completely insignificantly) our need for fossil fuels, and burning fossils is a tragedy of scientific proportion. On the other hand, some say, they contribute to the untimely death of lots of pigeons and crows and the like. Al Gore does not know if he should hug himself or squeal in horror like a rabid kitten at this apparent contradiction in eco-friendliness; consequently we can only assume he is able to do both at one time.
In defense of wind farms, we would like you to imagine the bird deaths that result from being hit by (or more frequently, throwing themselves into) cars, trucks, space shuttles, and the like. What about those killed by feral cats or power lines? Where is the demand for ornithological justice for these? No sir, there is none, and properly so. Say nothing of the birds that self-medicate by bashing themselves into countless office windows the world over.
We at the Tuesday Haters Club are penultimately consumed with issues of sustainability, protected ecosystems, gothic bracelets made from recycled bicycle inner tubes, and also ice cream. That’s why we strongly support wind farming as a friendly source of minuscule energy reserves and truly insignificant mass bird death. Our only grievance against them is the number of birds who will be less likely to die from the choking smog of coal plants – a compromise we are all only too happy to make.
As you go to the polls this morning, if you even remembered there were polls somewhere in your city today, remember to vote for those who would support the mass proliferation of wind turbines throughout our beautiful country tis of thee. Our path to energy independence is cut by these monstrous blades of the future. And then clogged by piles of migratory creatures we care nothing about. Perhaps large diesel-engine machines could be invented to suck up these piles and recycle them into useful bottles of household lubricant and fluffy feather boas to complete the circle of life. Vote early and often on this ever important issue to save our dear Earth.
logo is a blatant affront to Tuesday Haters
In another amazing grab at the premature destruction of everything we held dear in the English language, Twitter has filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to make “tweet” – arguably the sound of a perfectly living bird – a registered trademark.
If the initiative fails to successfully stop the hemorrhagic flow of senseless babble from the service, popular only among the offensively old (35-49 year olds), Twitter is expected to attempt trademark appropriation of various other bird sounds, such as “caw,” “hoo hoo hoooo,” “chick-a-dee-dee-dee,” and perhaps even “cockadoodle-doo.”
For more on this alarming story, read more at the L.A. Times.
In an exciting development for bird haters everywhere, a rare quail from the Philippines was photographed for the first time before being sold at a poultry market, experts say. Read more…
The word of the day is “snarge.”
A US Airways jet crashed Thursday in the Hudson River in New York City after birds struck two of its engines, but everyone aboard survived. Read more…
FOXNews.com – US Airways Plane Crash-Lands in New York City’s Hudson River, Everyone Survives