'Murder Hornet' Meme Inspires Stupid Americans To Kill Pollinators En Masse (latimes.com) 169
An anonymous reader writes: You really can't make this stuff up, but Americans across the country, out of fear of "murder hornets," have begun killing all kinds of bees en masse. According to Doug Yanega, senior museum scientist for the Department of Entomology at UC Riverside, a national panic has led to the needless slaughter of native wasps and bees, beneficial insects whose populations are already threatened...
"Folks in China, Korea and Japan have lived side by side with these hornets for hundreds of years, and it has not caused the collapse of human society there. My colleagues in Japan, China and Korea are just rolling their eyes in disbelief at what kind of snowflakes we are..."
"I don't want to downplay this — they are logistically dangerous insects. But having people in Tennessee worry about this is just ridiculous. The only people who should be bothering experts with concerns about wasp IDs are living in the northwest quadrant of Washington (state). And really, right now, nobody else in the country should even be thinking about this stuff," he continued.
"The facts are, experts said, two dead hornets were found in Washington last December, a lone Canadian live nest was found and wiped out last September and no live hornets have yet been seen this year," reports the Associated Press.
And when they spoke to the Washington Agriculture Department entomologist working on the state's response, he issued an additional correction for all the journalists covering this story. "They are not 'murder hornets.' "They are just hornets."
"Folks in China, Korea and Japan have lived side by side with these hornets for hundreds of years, and it has not caused the collapse of human society there. My colleagues in Japan, China and Korea are just rolling their eyes in disbelief at what kind of snowflakes we are..."
"I don't want to downplay this — they are logistically dangerous insects. But having people in Tennessee worry about this is just ridiculous. The only people who should be bothering experts with concerns about wasp IDs are living in the northwest quadrant of Washington (state). And really, right now, nobody else in the country should even be thinking about this stuff," he continued.
"The facts are, experts said, two dead hornets were found in Washington last December, a lone Canadian live nest was found and wiped out last September and no live hornets have yet been seen this year," reports the Associated Press.
And when they spoke to the Washington Agriculture Department entomologist working on the state's response, he issued an additional correction for all the journalists covering this story. "They are not 'murder hornets.' "They are just hornets."
Not surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
We're talking about Americans, after all. The same group of people who keep believing if you give tax cuts to corporations that money will trickle down to them in the form of higher salaries, or who are worried about the lazy, drug dealing, rapist illegals taking away their jobs.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Funny)
He's too lazy to work and lives off benefits, while at the same time taking away your job.
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Funny)
And he does either oddly only when you're not looking.
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trickle is a perfectly acceptable and meaningful word in econ; if you inject money anywhere into an economy it will trickle out from there. If you tip your waiters more, they will buy more clothes, if you buy more clothes, the tailor will go out to dinner more, it's unavoidable.
so while I endorse all snarkiness on emotional grounds, on a rational basis you are actually completely wrong: trickle down is the correct term for what happens when you cut any taxes.
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How is that different from anyone who was born here?
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Since immigrants need housing, food, health-care, clothing, etc, the number of low-paying jobs taken by immigrants is roughly replaced by a similar number of new, higher-paying jobs in various service industries. Also, the per-capita government benefits paid to citizens is far higher than that paid to immigrants.
But this is easy to check. Compare the economies of states with high immigration and low immigration. If the high immigration states have generally worse economies, then you're right. If not, we
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Just chill the fuck out and demand immigration be put to a national public vote at the next election, a range of immigration packages, how many, which countries, what qualifications etc make it up and the people can choose which one they prefer.
Re: Not surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
You are wrong. Wasps and hornets are very important pollenators.
Re: Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
The person to whom you're responding was correct in his assessment of the story. I just read it, and it provides absolutely no evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that the stated premise of the story is true.
The closest they come is to say that beekeepers in Tennessee are setting out traps to monitor for the things. Yes, that's still unnecessary - but there's quite a logical chasm between that and "Americans are killing millions of native bees and wasps".
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that the stated premise of the story is true.
People are setting 5G mobile phone towers on fire, and the worlds most retarded TV boss is running the most important country in the world. At this point "intelligence" is the extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence, and people themselves are utterly braindead meaning a story about braindeadedness is automatically given the benefit of doubt.
Re: Not surprising (Score:2)
Yes, California figs are self-pollinating but wasps still climb in and die.
Bug-eating's for Europeans.
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That's hilarious, you get cooties so easily you can't even eat figs! LOL
Re: Not surprising (Score:4, Informative)
Only a few hunt bees and then they drag them back to *their* nests. Bee hives that fail afterward do so because of number depletion if anything. Most hunt caterpillars and spiders. The vast majority of wasps are indeed pollinators (typically the male) and some plants rely on them exclusively.
So no, you don't know as much about wasps/bees as you believe you do.
Re: Not surprising (Score:4, Informative)
You could at least post to something besides *statements*.
https://schoolofbees.com/do-wa... [schoolofbees.com]
TLDR:
- bees do 90% of pollination
- wasps / hornets do some pollination, especially of certain particular species as you noted, but those species from what I read in that article aren't anywhere near where people put hornet / wasp traps.
Can we try to be sensible, or should we just call people stupid ?
You are all stupid.
Also, the actual article is behind a paywall, but I can only assume it doesn't say anything close to what the summary implied, and is much closer to *putting up wasp traps*
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Liar Alert! Link does not contain purported statistics, or support any of the claims made. (and a beekeeping website wouldn't be a good source of data anyway)
You are all stupid.
You don't even know what numbers are.
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Asian giant hornets will kill the majority of the workers in a nest, efficiently biting their heads off. The don't eat them. Instead, they raid the now defenseless nest for the brood, which they take back to their own nest for food. This effectively "kills" the nest.
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Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
In fairness, the people voting for this are only doing so because they are being reliably told that they are the real America, and better than "those people."
Seriously though, I saw a protest in England and people were calling for the arrest of Bill Gates because he is paying to develop a covid vaccine which some apparently believe will contain a microchip etc. There is a lot of uncertainty and people are reacting to a narrative that makes the situation that makes sense to them. "I can get things under control by killing these bugs." "I can express my dominance over current events by taking a bazooka Subway and eating it in an imprudent manor."
There is a news item going around about some boys from Tonga who were shipwrecked for 15 months in the '60s and survived without devolving into a Lord of the Flies situation. But their entire world of concerns (food, water, shelter, etc.--other than rescue) was within their control.
In a complex society you will never have that level of control, and I see the appeal of stocking up and being a prepper for WTSHTF. But it turns out that when a bad fart hits the fan, these people don't want to wear a mask and get take out, but instead demand a return to normalcy without a long-term strategy, because predictability (and comfort/convenience) have been a substitute for control since the days of bread and circus.
Re: Not surprising (Score:2)
We're talking about Americans, after all.
Simpletons preyed upon and riled-up by the media; no one with a brain is surprised.
"Yellow journalism" and all that.
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Some other commenter summed it up quite well, the story is bullshit: https://science.slashdot.org/c... [slashdot.org]
Making it more of an example of people falling for fake news because they want to feel smug and superior over others in political rants based on notions fostered by even more fake news.
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Speaking strictly for myself, I could not even read TFA. All I got to see was a frontal pic of some insect's head. I don't know if the LA Times don't like my browser, my regional settings or whatever, but that stupid headline was all I have to go on.
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Learn how to internet. It is a major site, and it isn't actually paywalled.
Just use the eye-dropper in your adblocker to block all the overlays. Done. Now the website works in that browser forever!
You can probably also just turn off style sheets and it will show, because ADA.
Re: you fell for fake news click bait (Score:5, Informative)
There is ZERO EVIDENCE presented of ANYONE killing anything that wasn't already going on before so-called murder hoernet stories started appearing.
The article itself and the
You're exactly the kind of gullible sheep that makes things suck.
If you were really concerned about dumb asses doing really stupid and VERIFIED dumb ass shit then look at the morons in the UK destroying cell phone towers because "5G, corona virus, Bill Gates, yeah man!"
Again, there is ZERO EVIDENCE that anyone, American or otherwise, is killing anything because of silly murder hornet stories.
The idiot here is you for falling for it.
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There is ZERO EVIDENCE presented of ANYONE killing anything that wasn't already going on before so-called murder hoernet stories started appearing.
People are setting 5G towers on fire, and Donald Trump is president of the USA. At this point it would be better to simply provide evidence that people aren't going to do something incredibly stupid when faced with a dumb meme.
Re: you fell for fake news click bait (Score:2)
Have some more faith in people. They're not as stupid as the self appointed elite class of pompous assholes would like you to believe.
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Wow, you must be an all seeing deity to know what 8 billion people do al all times.
Re: you fell for fake news click bait (Score:3)
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And yet there are more than enough stupid and evil people out there.
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What do you expect when your population is bombarded by sensationalist stories about invading "murder hornets".
Why criticize the people and let the media completely off the hook? Is everyone supposed to be sophisticated enough to know their mainstream news are lying to them about everything to push fear so they'll tune in?
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Re: Not surprising (Score:2)
Yeah, we're talking about people who believe absurd vaccines and flat earth conspiracies and go around destroying cell towers because of conspiracies about 5G and COVID-19. It's not surprising in the least. What surprises me more is that these people live past the age of 40 without dying due to some Darwin-award worthy stupidity.
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These days "the media" is taking its cue from social media. They see a trending topic and they try to generate content that will reach people looking at the topic so they can get clicks on their online site's ads and won't be accused of "covering up" whatever bullshit is circulating online. They are just a reflection of our own communal stupidity.
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Re: Not surprising (Score:2)
I have been murdering all the bees I can for weeks.
If I kill enough of them I dont have to listen to hubris of random morons from across the pond.
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That's a very bad idea, because you just know that if there is ever such a thing, it's going to be made by a company named Umbrella Corporation.
You got the wrong poll numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
> That more than half that voted Trump were in favor of attacking Agrabah (Disney's Aladdin IMAGINARY CITY).
Anyone can find a handful of idiots by interviewing them, but you've managed to misrepresent the poll numbers. It was actually 50% of those who identified as "somewhat liberal" who supported bombing Agrabah [snopes.com], those Trump voters were significantly less than this "somewhat liberal" group. The actual poll is here [publicpolicypolling.com] to avoid cherry picking more stats on a silly poll. And they only asked for yes or no, so it's not clear how many people understood the joke and answered anyway. Maybe some parents really hate Jafar after begin forced by their kids to watch it one too many times?
> A University there suggested to combat Global Warming to put an UMBRELLA IN SPACE.
That sounds like a bad description of some serious proposals [wikipedia.org] to combat global warming by controlling solar flux.
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No, it's not 'self-identified republicans', it's 'republican primary voters' as it says on almost every page at the bottom. It doesn't ask how people identify anywhere I can find, except for the liberal/moderate/conservative question that came up and tactical voting is a thing, so there are perfectly sensible reasons why people might register for the party that does not represent the in order to vote in the primaries, not that there are enough of those in this sample to mean much. I don't think you can fa
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He only won because of skillful manipulation of the Electoral College.
Ah, you mean that he campaigned in States that voted for him. Amazing how well that works when your opponent doesn't.
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fact is all time high crime rates were in the 1920s Ã" when there were no illegals
[citation needed]. Do you know the origin of the racial slur, "wop"? It stands for "WithOut Papers", and was applied to Italians, but could have been applied to a lot of people. According to wiki, Prohibition brought a lot of that crime, and along with smuggled alcohol there were smuggled immigrants.
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That contained such a barely connected explanation to wop as to be laughable. And the only proof wop isn't from with out papers, which was literally stamped on papers? There were many other immigrants?
Italians were singled out right around that time on the illegal immigration train, everything from Dago, lower wages than whites and blacks, lynchings, etc.
"Wop" (in the variant form "wap") as derogatory slang for an Italian or Italian-American first appeared in New York around 1912, and, far from being an E
Re: Not surprising (Score:2)
Don't sell yourself short.
Donâ(TM)t put this on us (Score:2)
There are ignorant paranoid humans everywhere, I bet if some new species were to be reported as invading China they would be just as needlessly paranoid. Blame the nature of some humans. Frankly, and I say this as a human myself â" though not a paranoid or emotional one, humans in general can be stupid and easily riled up.
Re:Donâ(TM)t put this on us (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd be willing to bet that the same people expressing their bigotry about "Americans" would not consider themselves bigots.
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Is it bigotry, if it is statistically true?
Yes. If you think that believing the stereotype is accurate makes it reasonable to stereotype people, then you are both a moron and a bigot.
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Bees yes.
Snodgrass had a saying: All bugs are insects but not all insects are bugs. Same for hornets/wasps. All hornets are wasps.
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What you said is like saying all seals are dogs.
Seals are Dolphin's dogs. They're cute and stinky just like dogs. Dolphins need pets too!
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Wtf are you even talking about? Most people kill wasps / hornets around their house, and no one "hunts" insects.
Here's what I know - if this headline was "Stupid -insert other country here- citizens do X" - everyone would be all a titter at such xenophobes calling a group of people stupid.
The worst part of our divided nation is people actually *believe* the shit that the media posts as clickbait to be real. (Where real is just more than a random dude/lady blowing themselves up with a bbq)
If you can't see t
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Do you really think they just fly up to you and sting you because they are assholes? No, that is how *humans* are!
Yeah, wasps are assholes because they're aggressive and will challenge you in your own space - at least where I live (where some are about 2-3 times the size of those hornets). They may get used to you being around but they'll still sting you if you accidentally get in their territory.
Since it's my house and it's *my* territory I kill them because they sting people when they're in an asshole mode. I tolerate them because they kill spiders. As for hornets, I'd kill those little fuckers because they k
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Especially the kind of ignorant human that believes a headline when the article has zero proof or incidents of people suddenly actually mass murdering things with stingers.
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Blame the school system. Blame a school system where regurgitating and rote learning are taught and rewarded, and questioning the authority is frowned upon and punished, and you know why people accept any kind of bullshit with zero proof as long as it is said by someone that they established as an authority. Whether that's some cult leader, some TV outlet, some influenza, sorry, influencer or anyone else who appears like he knows more than these people (which is admittedly pretty easy to pull off).
These peo
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Blame a... system where... questioning the authority is frowned upon and punished, and you know why people accept any kind of bullshit with zero proof as long as it is said by someone that they established as an authority... These people have been taught to shut up and believe what they're told, not to learn enough to be able to question what they're told, weigh it against what they know and thus be able to tell right from wrong.
That applies equally to many religious institutions in the United States.
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Blame a... system where... questioning the authority is frowned upon and punished, and you know why people accept any kind of bullshit with zero proof as long as it is said by someone that they established as an authority... These people have been taught to shut up and believe what they're told, not to learn enough to be able to question what they're told, weigh it against what they know and thus be able to tell right from wrong.
That applies equally to many religious institutions in the United States.
That's true even without the final four words. Why did you add them in?
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There are ignorant paranoid humans everywhere, I bet if some new species were to be reported as invading China they would be just as needlessly paranoid.
Sparrows [wikipedia.org]
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There are ignorant paranoid humans everywhere, I bet if some new species were to be reported as invading China they would be just as needlessly paranoid.
Sparrows [wikipedia.org]
Bwahahahahaha - oh the irony!!!
Simple solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell these idio^Wpeople that all the latest 5G masts use a frequency that kills hornets.
Win-win.
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Don't be silly, I bet Hornets love to make nests on cellular masts. The truth is the 5G activates the corona vaccine chemtrails being released by Bills Gate and Ben Gassy from Killary drones.
A real downside to clickbait (Score:3)
It's not too far from yelling 'Fire!' in a theater just to get some attention.
The irresponsibility of those intentionally using yellow tactics just to get eyeballs on their ads..... disgusting low lifes.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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aphids?
Best non-chemical way to deal with aphids outside are ladybug larvae in my experience. Spraying them off has always only been a temporary solution for me but those larvae are voracious. Luckily we get them naturally but you can also order them online.
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This isn't really a reason not to get rid of wasp nests on your porch.
You went way overboard with spraying poison all over your yard, and equated it with never killing a wasp / hornet.
This is nonsense.
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Wasps and hornets can definitely be pests when they start nesting near a house or sidewalk or especially near something like a car or a boat; they tend to be much more aggressive than bees, for example; I don't know any way to deal with that other than exterminating the offending nest. But if they're nesting someplace away from normal traffic they're usually not a problem.
The main problem with the Asian hornets is that they're a significant threat to the native bee population, or secondarily if they're near
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The buzz around town.... (Score:2)
Subsidize the cost of sending each american (Score:2)
a bag full of praying mantis egg sac's.
Sheeesh...
As a gardener, I *NEED* bees to pollinate my food producing plants, as does every living person on this planet.
Disclaimer: I *AM* an american, And I'm sorry for all the stupidity exhibited by people who can't critically think and see past the tendency of media outlets and law enforcement leaders to give catchy/treacherous "names" to dangerous people or animals to help them sell stories or to "stick" in the public consciousness (aka "Golden State Killer"
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Hmm... come to think of it, as a California resident why not call these wasps the "Golden State Killers"?
Wait, wait. I'll let Florida adopt that name.
Bidding is now open for claiming that name...
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Calm your tits, the article has actually zero proof or incidents of people mass murdering pollinators. Just clickbait trash.
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Thanks for the tip.. I was getting sensitive there. :-)
I (admittedly) didn't even bother to read the article because it didn't even seem worth reading.
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And yet if you go to facebook and check any of the entomology groups they're full of posts of random wasps and hornets that people killed and they want to know, "Is this a murder hornet? Did I get one?" Some have pics of traps full of various wasps. Also people with pictures of all sorts of beetles, bugs, everything with orange on it, asking about what chemicals they should use on their yard to kill the suspected "murder hornets."
They were found on Vancouver Island, and in 4 locations in one small area in C
Deceitful Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
The linked article mentions some people setting out traps, which it also cites Washington *entomologists* as recommending so they can find and destroy nests. There is not a single number or other hint of magnitude stated which would indicates people are going to town murdering pollinators "en masse" across the country.
Nor is there any indication that the 'murder hornet meme' is connected.
Maybe there are some other sources of those facts the editors thought best to keep secret from our plebeian eyes, but as stated, this Slashdot article seems like sensationalist clickbait.
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There is not a single number or other hint of magnitude stated which would indicates people are going to town murdering pollinators "en masse" across the country.
The Washington State Department of Agriculture trap instructions [wa.gov] states that the bait used for murder hornets also attracts beneficial insects. But from the instructions on the above web page, it appears that the trap the recommend has been designed to allow bees and 'standard sized' wasps to exit the trap. So if the instructions are followed, the impact on beneficial insects* will be reduced.
*Of course, everything is a 'beneficial insect' in one way or another. Fitting in to its special place in the ecosy
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rice wine
Coming to theaters near you: Drunken Master Murder Hornet.
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Bizarro World (Score:3)
Putting out traps for (Score:3)
vs
Stupid Americans slaughtering bees!!
One could think with this headline was written by a professional editor in todays main stream media.
Just my 2 cents
Irresponsible Media (Score:2)
France (Score:2)
Just found out that these things have been in France for years. Saw an (pre-covid) documentary about it where they were pulling a nest (it was huge) out of a tree. They certainly were not killing other insects, most of the documentary was showing the murder hornets flying around the entrance to bee nests and catching bees flying in, and talking about how this is necessary to save bees. Not much mentioned about them being dangerous to humans either, except a warning that their stingers can get through the be
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Not the same thing. The Asian Giant Hornet makes its nests in the ground.
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Thanks, interesting. That would explain why they did not call them "murder hornets"
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I live in Washington state, which is where they found a couple of the wasps last year. I must admit there's a part of me that wants to see one (and only one!) of these hornets... although I realize my actually seeing one would be a bad sign.
Painfully Flawed Logic (Score:2)
"Folks in China, Korea and Japan have lived side by side with these hornets for hundreds of years, and it has not caused the collapse of human society there."
Same people living side by side with virus-carrying bats did bring us close.
Inflammatory headline, EditorDavid (Score:2)
Not sure why editor David felt the need to write "stupid americans" instead of "misguided people". Yes the story is happening in America, but to spotlight "stupid Americans" in the headline is rather tone deaf and, IMO, bad editing seemingly bent on dividing people.
The rise of stupid editors is becoming a problem. (Score:2)
Well at least the grammar and spelling makes sense this time.
Stupid AC posts paywalled source (Score:2)
Lack of a readable source means we can`t evaluate this post.
Headline is dumb, not Americans (Score:2)
'Murder Hornet' Meme Inspires Stupid Americans To Kill Pollinators En Masse
No. That's not even close to what is going on.
First, I'm not sure where the 'Stupid Americans' part comes from. These are state officials simply being proactive. Is it overkill? Maybe, but the headline makes it sounds like dumb hillbillies are running out and shooting bees with their AR-15 rifles. They are just laying out a few traps, which is something they routinely do anyways.
Second, at no point in the article was it said that ,"have begun killing all kinds of bees en masse."
Finally, the statemen
Anti-American deceitful headline (Score:3)
i.e. Fake News.
The title implies that stupid American hicks are going around decimating whole populations of insects just to get a few Murder Hornets. Just like rednecks were going out and hunting down Muslims after 9/11. In reality, the trapping is at the request of government agencies strictly to monitor for the presence of these hornets and the traps, at least in WA, are designed not to attract benign species.
TFS reminds me (Score:2)
When I got close enough, the car was parked in the street with the headlights shining on the sidewalk in front. The guy who had been doing the driving was walking toward his car and said to me proudly, "I just killed a dangerous snake."
A few more steps and I saw the s
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And moreover, when your primary legacy is anti-semitism and millions of dead because of a demented wallpaper installer, you really don't need to be calling anyone STUPID.
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Funny. Over here they're called centrists because from an Euro point of view, all the US has is a radical right wing party and a moderate right wing party.
With a few bloc parties strewn in between. If you don't know what a bloc party is, ask anyone from a former communist country, they know.
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It's because the American Left considers the American people to be The Other. This is the best explanation I've ever heard at this link. A bit long but worth reading every word because it answers SO many questions. http://archive.is/QRJ6m [archive.is]
They hate Americans, thus anyone who is in opposition to Americans is by default the good guys. This leads them to consort with the world's worst people, just so that they can avoid being on our side. Remember two years ago when they repeated literal North Korean propag
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Precisely. I think the *reason* is that the
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Maybe we won't have to [wikipedia.org].