Respect Authority

Now that Barack Obama’s presence in the Oval Office is sure to keep his Middle Eastern pals from blowing up any more American buildings, it’s high time we as a nation turned to the next group of wanton terrorists, hell bent on unpatriotic destruction. Yes, I’m talking about birds.

Ever since a flock of rebel suicide-bomber geese took down a US Airways commercial jet last week, safety investigators have been going back over radar data to see if readings indicate the presence of birds in and around the area when the flight took off. Indeed, what authorities are anticipating will be a year-long probe into the plane’s emergency landing is kicking off by searching for answers to the most difficult question first: At 3:45 p.m. on Friday January 16, were there birds in the sky?

There’s certainly a facet to this answer that I haven’t seen explored to full capacity – namely that the geese in question were not “in the sky” so much as “in the jet engines.” Or that newspapers and authorities alike are calling Flight 1549 pilot Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger a hero at the same time as a national safety board investigates his claim of a “double bird strike.” A claim that’s fairly un-investigatable considering birds register as mere “blips” on radar, if that.

But worry not. In-depth probes into the presence, or lack thereof, of birds in the airways will be a moot point once state Sen. Hiram Monserrate has his way. The Queens Democrat, who practiced his anti-bird aggression by hitting his girlfriend with a bottle (New York swore him in anyway, what’s a little domestic violence among friends?) is calling on the Port Authority to “eradicate the threat of geese at area airports.”

Along with Sen. Eric Adams, Monserrate plans to introduce legislation to force the Port Authority into action, that is, if the agency doesn’t want to go duck huntin’ voluntarily. And since it’s not yet clear what exactly Monserrate plans to do to keep birds at bay, he’s commissioning his own senate committee to undertake a study to “determine the options and potential costs of bird migration.” Because New York state has so much extra money laying around for useless studies.

So hear that, geese. In America, no one flies nothing into anything.