dinosaur extinction

Carlisle Metropark, LaGrange Ohio

There have been many 'theories' on the cause of the extinction of the many dinosaur species. Occasionally one becomes popular at the moment and it is presented in various school textbooks, and then time passes, and another one is trotted out. So a claim of certainty is preposterous. Here are some popular ones:

•     Asteroid impact
•     Climate change
•     Disease
•     Volcanic eruptions
•     Supernova
•     Egg eating mammals
•     Smarter mammals

Some say dinosaurs did not go extinct. The current dinosaurs are birds.

And there are some ridiculous ones. It would seem there are notice seeking kooks out their inventing theories, or reporters just sensationalising the findings.  As flower bearing plants superceded ferns and conifers, a source of oils and other digestive laxatives were disappearing. Translation: the dinosaurs died of constipation. 

Somewhere years ago, i read a German poem*, and i spent an half  hour just now going through books trying to find it. Well, this period ending 65 million years ago is called the Cretaceous period, after the chalk layer that marks the end of it in geology. 'Creta' is Latin for chalk, and 'Kreide' is German.

So what happened in this Kreidezeit? Well, saloons used to chalk up tabs of the drinkers; so chalk dust ended up on the bar room floors. The dinosaurs were drunks and suffocated under the chalk. The dinosaurs drank themselves to death.

The Simpsons remains the best, and brightest thing on Fox television; and the most honest.

So with all these alternatives, one can not be surprised that "Fox" can say "dinosaurs died from over-taxation". Since Fox always hammers its agenda into stories, facts and logic do not apply.
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* found it: Josef Viktor von Scheffel. »Der Ichthyosaurus«. 1868.
the seventh of eight quatrains:

    Es starb zu derselbigen Stunde
    Die ganze Saurierei,
    Sie kamen zu tief in die Kreide,
    Da war es natürlich vorbei. 

They died the same hour
All the dinosaur eggs,
They became so deep in chalk,
That it was naturally over.

Yes, there is Teutonic humour.