I prefer to ridicule trolls. It's more fun.

I'm recommending just for the subject line - brilliant.

Other than ignoring a troll, I think the best weapon a TPM jedi knight can use against the vicious sith troll is an old jedi trick: snarkiness.

It seems to me that there are many many people here that have control issues. Which, considering that its a "Progressive" site, is troubling and interesting at the same time.

Louisville (no offense intended, Louisville) is an excellent example of what Billy Glad is saying here. When s/he first came online here at TPM, I had s/him pegged as a troll and s/his first posts seemed irrational and offensive. But since then, s/he's gradually transformed into a contributing member of the TPM blogosphere. I was shocked the first time s/he said something that wasn't just an insult/dis on another comment, but I did what Billy Glad advises and responded positively. And just look at Loiusville today!

In a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds," grackles, with their noise and defecation, are becoming a problem in Lubbock.

Lubbock Department of Animal Services Manager Fred Sanderson said the black birds migrate and become a nuisance, not only to Lubbock, but also to other major Texas cities.

"Homeowners can do lots of things (to help alleviate the problem)," he said. "Motion activated lawn sprinklers, fake birds of prey (can be used)."

Bird traps can be used, but the grackles will just come back, Sanderson said. But when the birds are gone, removing grackles' nesting areas can be helpful.

Businesses and municipal governments, have more of a dilemma eradicating the birds., Sanderson said.

"It's not legal to kill them; migratory birds are protected," he said. "You have to take each area site-specifically."

Some places use shotgun blasts, Sanderson said, but then the grackles just move to another area.

"We can disrupt their feeding patterns," he said. "Food, water, shelter - you have to disrupt one of those."

According to birds.cornell.edu, grackles eat insects, worms and small vertebrates like tadpoles, fish and lizards and plants and garbage.

On the other hand, the Aplomado Falcon, the red-tailed hawk and the burrowing owl are grackle predators, according to the Web site.

Leasing Consultant for The Heritage Apartments Missi Wilson said the birds have been a problem in the past.

"The problem isn't as bad as it was last year," she said. "It's always been a small problem, but it has never been complained about (by residents)."

The grackles do not cause much trouble, Wilson said, so no action has been taken to address the issue.

"They do poop all over everything, and they're loud and screechy," she said. "I don't like grackles."

To do something about the grackles, Wilson said, someone's to filing a complaint about the birds is necessary.

"We have other people that are more worried about bees, leaky toilets," she said. "(The birds) come a certain time each year. I think the problem was more a couple years back."

Kamesha Boldon, a Texas Tech student in the Health Sciences Center School of Nursing and resident at the Heritage Apartments, said grackles are annoying.

"They wake me up in the morning," she said. "That's all I hear is those birds."

Since trees are near almost every parking spot, Boldon said, birds frequently cover her car in feces, which is a major health concern, she said.

"One time it was like black poop on my car," she said. "You don't want to touch that stuff. I have to pay to get my car washed. It's costing me money."

A possible solution, Boldon said, would be to put some birdhouses on the perimeter of the parking lot.

Boldon said she has never told management about the problem because she did not believe anything could be done to solve the bird dilemma.

"I moved here in October, and pretty much it has been consistent until now, as far as them cackling every morning before sunrise," she said.

And I commend Billy for mentioning trolls in his title. Mentioning trolls = two thumbs way up!

(Mentioning trolls is the sixth of my ten tips for writing a successful TPM post.) See http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/ten-tips-on-how-to-write-a-suc.php#comments

Indeed, the Baby abused this hallowed principle by writing posts mentioning trolls every day until the board finally stopped recommending, because he conjoined troll-reference with something about William Henry Harrison, or maybe Nikolai Tesla, I forget.