Disturbing black and yellow things.

1. Hornets on an apple (in Horicon Marsh today):



2. On the federal side of Horicon Marsh, a makeshift sign:

How will this shutdown end?

A stalemate in a game that cannot end.

"Once the government reopens and we get the debt ceiling settled, we’ll be happy to talk to them about anything they want to talk about." (Reid.)

"This isn’t some damn game. All we want is to sit down and have a discussion." (Boehner.)

Okay, so it's not a game. But "game" is at least an apt metaphor. Or, no, it's not, because in games, where there is a true stalemate, a rule ends the game, and the players can stop playing. They don't continue to sit at the chessboard until someone concedes.

Talking and having a discussion is also a metaphor. The 2 parties in Congress are not a couple on a date that's turned into a staring contest. Or maybe Boehner is the woman endlessly imploring her man to talk about their relationship, and Reid is the taciturn man who's waiting for her to give up and do what the junior partner in a marriage is supposed to do: what he says.

Alternatively, Boehner is the man who relentlessly pursues his ex-girlfriend asking only for a chance to talk to her, and the woman — Reid — curtly informs him that there's nothing to talk about.

We instinctively turn away. And yet, the 2 sides are, it seems, waiting for Us the People to assign blame to one side or another. We're supposed to decide, and when we've conveyed our feelings, the party that anticipates losing in future elections will cave so our loathing for it doesn't grow any deeper.

But are we still watching? They need us to watch. It's their only way out. They're trying to make it interesting, with war monuments and children dying of cancer, but... look: gigantic hornets are killing the Chinese and Sandra Bullock is floating in outer space!

Thirsty?

I could go for a nice big glass of hornets... after a rough day of paddleboarding...



... on Lake Wingra.

"The Sunshine State, already home to man-eating sinkholes, invading Burmese pythons, swarming sharks, tropical storms and other disasters..."

"... can expect to see an explosion of shaggy-haired gallinippers (Psorophora ciliata), a type of giant mosquito...."

"It's about 20 times bigger than the sort of typical, Florida mosquito that you find... And it's mean, and it goes after people, and it bites, and it hurts."...

The term "gallinipper" isn't recognized by most entomologists, but over the past century, the word — and the insect — entered popular legend through Southern folktales, minstrel shows and blues songs....

The earliest description of the pest comes from 1897 by a writer who called the insect "the shyest, slyest, meanest and most venomous of them all."

"Gallinipper" is in the Oxford English Dictionary, meaning "A large mosquito." Three old examples are given:

1818 Sporting Mag. 1 261 Smaller flies from the gallinipper to the moschetto, began to muster in all directions.
1838 T. C. Haliburton Clockmaker 2nd Ser. iii, He jump'd up..a snappin' of his fingers, as if he wor bit by a galley-nipper.
1867 A. L. Adams Wanderings Naturalist India 59 That prince of gallynippers, the sandfly, whose bite produces a painful..swelling.

This reminds me... whatever happened to killer bees?

And if gallinippers are so horrible, why does Missouri have a Gallinipper Creek State Wildlife Area?

"I got it because we got drunk and it was just a really funny idea and my friend said he’d do it for free."

"I sat on it for a couple days and was finally like, 'Man, I’m gonna get a butthole tattoo that says "Let It Be" with a bumblebee flying out!'"

She sat on it for a couple days and now she will sit on it for the rest of her life.

She's not even a Beatles fan. Well, no. If she were, she'd have a beetle crawling out.