1 I'd give the euro bird 6.5 overall. It's specked in winter but turns iridescent in the spring. They are gregarious and can mimic other birds with their chuckle, which I think earns them an extra point as well.

2 "I want an Audi TT convertible." Shake your moneymaker!

3 Re: #5 Sorry about that!

4 Thongs!

5 I reckon I'll second Victor's comment even though I respect Annika as a woman and shun viewing women as mere objects. You all have to beLIEve me.... Starlings are ugly birds that try to evict the better looking Martins and Blue Birds from their provided man-made homes. To me, they are merely pellet gun fodder. Does it smell like floor disinfectant or moldy air filters in the ventilation system? And, yes, you should go to class so that you can avoid the unpleasant fate of wasting your potential and becoming vulnerable to the influence of socialist promises.

6 Starlings suck. They are ugly and disgusting, and they produce surprising amounts of shite for such small creatures. When I was a teenager I used to snipe them with my air rifle in the back yard. The doggie door made a perfect gun port. Our local police used to go out each spring and summer and drive them out of town with bird bombs. The starlings would form massive flocks that would settle into one or two trees and heavily pollute the sidewalk and street with the aforementioned poop, arousing the ire of the property owners. Unfortunately, the touchy-feely, PC ninnies put a stop to this. I guess they preferred the bird shit. No accounting for taste. Crows and grackles, on the other hand, are just plain cool.

7 One bird's friendliness is anothers home invasion. Crows and grackle are pushy, mean and noisy and steal food from other birds.

8 I don't like crows, but here in Sacramento we have another corvid that is fabulous. The yellow billed magpie. I love those birds. I have seen its cousin in Salt Lake City, without the yellow bill, which i think is a subspecies limited to Central California. More on spectacular birds I've seen here.

9 That magpie looks cool - I haven't seen one before. On my last trip to BC, Northern Flickers became one of my new favorites. In flight the red shafted Flickers wings are a beautiful salmon pink underneath. And I have to reconsider my hearty endorsement above as I see the euro bird frequently evict Flickers from their nests! Also, while in Jesusland North I heard rumor that Tufted Puffins can be found on the northern coast of Vancouver Island.

10 So, what were you drinking?

11 All these comments, and only one second to my Fash-ism nomination. annika, I think they'd like a review John Galliano's Winter 2005 collection. My vote is still for thongs.

12 > 6. I want an Audi TT convertible. Those things are sweet. Peak Oil is a reality. Determine how you are going to change your lifestyle early on, instead of waiting with the sheeple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report http://tinyurl.com/dsl6n http://www.energybulletin.net/12362.html http://www.utn.uu.se/sts/doc/exjobb/0505_Soderbergh.pdf

13 If you go back about ninty years, every decade you can see some version of the "peak oil" hypothesis. Well, I guess eventualy they will be right.

14 >2. Is the starling an ugly bird or a handsome bird? Where are you standing when you ask the question? As most things in this world, the answer depends as much (or more) on the observer as the observed. Starlings are ugly in North America and handsome in Europe. That's because the starling is native to Europe, but not to N.A. They were brought here on a literary whim. In Europe, starlings are in their natural environment -- more or less. Starlings are birds of man-made areas; they like the same type of surroundings we do. That's why their numbers exploded from 100 birds to 200 million in only a bit over 100 years. But at least in Europe, the birds are in the environment they evolved for. In N.A., there were far fewer checks on their growth. That's why they've increased to the point of causing a decline in native N.A. birds. Therefore, in N.A., they're quite ugly because they destroy native beauty that can be found nowhere else. House sparrows are the same way. In Europe, they're declining drastically in number. In N.A., they almost single-wingedly wiped out the Eastern Bluebird. But in both cases, the animals are innocent. Humans brought them places where they didn't belong. </soapbox mode off>