“Yes, the Agriculture Department said Thursday, it did have a hand in the recent mass killing of starlings in South Dakota. According to the USDA, the birds were poisoned in Nebraska to help farmers who had complained about starling flocks defecating into livestock feed troughs. The birds dropped dead en masse after migrating north.” [Yahoo]

Me and flippin’ eck about 3 beers in at my favorite watering hole:

“As the morning drew to a close, though, major airports were humming along normally, and most travelers seemed more interested in getting to their destinations than in making a political statement.” [NYT, via Yahoo]

So there’s the Strip-Searched Boy at the Salt Lake City airport (which the TSA disputes), the Broken Urostomy Bag at Detroit, the Removed Prosthetic Breast, the— fuck it. It’s an arms race out there for the best TSA Horror Story, and we just can’t keep up.

“Rahm Emanuel kicked off his campaign for Mayor of Chicago with a homecoming video, filmed in front of a bookshelf with a vase and a family photograph. ‘I was born here and my wife Amy and I raised our three children here,’ he says. ‘I’m glad to be home.’ But an Emanuel spokeswoman, Lori Goldberg, confirms that the video itself was actually filmed in Washington, D.C., in the offices of AKPD media, the firm founded by David Axelrod.” [Politico]

We’ve lost count of the number of things Wrong with this story. Perhaps you can help!

Dr. Frank Ryan, plastic surgeon to Heidi Montag and other celebrities, was sending a Twitter message about his border collie just before his fatal car accident, his ex-girlfriend tells PEOPLE.

“He lived up in Malibu on a tiny street and he was texting while driving and he accidentally went over the cliff,” Charmaine Blake says.

Blake, a celebrity publicist, says Ryan’s family was told by investigators that the Tweeting caused the wreck on Monday.

The dog, whose name is Jill — Blake’s middle name — was in the car at the time of the crash and survived injuries to the head, eye and paw.

We’re very happy Jill survived. Makes the Darwin Award nomination much easier to submit.

Plastic Surgeon Was Texting in Car Before Fatal Crash [People, via Daring Fireball]

[ Flickr Flash slideshow not available. ]

JNOV reports:

These are pictures of the 9th Ward: The levee where it broke and flooded the street, and houses with the graffiti that shows the date the house was searched — about a month after the flood.

All the open fields were neighborhoods that basically reverted to nature — there are only a handful of homes, plus some of those Brad Pitt solar homes. Everywhere you look is tall grass for blocks and blocks and blocks. Who knows what sort of wildlife is living in that grass?

The road near the levee is still not paved. Fats Domino still lives in the 9th Ward.