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Policy

Stink Bugs on the Rise; Can We Blame Bush?

Nick Gillespie | 3.25.2011 8:08 AM

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From USA Today, the one essential news source left in a post-Andrew-Breitbart-on-the-front-page-of-Huffington-Post world, comes news of a plague that got cut from the final version of the Old Testament for lack of seriousness:

Stink bugs, the smelly scourge of the mid-Atlantic, are hitch-hiking and gliding their way across the country. Officially known as the brown marmorated stink bug, sightings of the pest have been reported in 33 states, an increase of eight states since last fall.

"I would say people now regard them as an out-of-control pest," says Kim Hoelmer, a research entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Newark, Del.

More here.

As a proud New Jerseyan, I'd like to point out that "smelly scourge" of the mid-Atlantic is in fact my home state, the damn best state in this whole misbegtten experiment we call America and the great producer not just of blueberries, cranberries, tomatoes, the sweetest corn, and the tartest broads but pound for pound the chief producer of libertarians (from Milton Friedman to Tyler Cowen to English Tim Cavanaugh to Gene Healy to Judge Andrew Napolitano and many more).

And because it's Friday and because I originally misread the stink bug headline as "stink bomb," here's a Reason.tv Rewind featuring former Sen. Alan Simpson rapping about stink bombs in the garden and the Snoopy Poopy Poop Dogg and the Enema Man and the grandkids not writing thank-you notes and saving Social Security, the most immoral entitlement out there.. Trust me, this is the best 1.08 minutes you'll spend all morning:

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NEXT: Friday Funnies

Nick Gillespie is an editor at large at Reason and host of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie.

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  1. sasob   14 years ago

    and the tartest broads

    Or broadest tarts?

    1. Nick Gillespie   14 years ago

      Note: Snooki is not from or even of New Jersey!

      1. Guidos   14 years ago

        Yeah, and maybe Muhammed wasn't FROM Mecca, but the bitch knew where his shit belonged...

        ...represent baby

  2. Barely Suppressed Rage   14 years ago

    As a proud New Jerseyan, I'd like to point out that "smelly scourge" of the mid-Atlantic is in fact ... the chief exporter of libertarians.

    Note: "exporter." Because anyone who lives there long enough under that overweening fucking liberal government either just learns to suck it up and live with it, or realizes there is at least some degree of greater liberty to be found elsewhere. Like, say, Virginia, where I currently reside, after spending the first 35 years of my life in New Jersey.

    So yeah, exporter is right. If you realize you're libertarian, NJ is no place for you.

    1. Nick Gillespie   14 years ago

      After posting, I immediately changed it to producer, because you never know where you're gonna end up. I don't disagree with you about New Jersey government and that the state's libs are born to run, but let's not pretend the Old Dominion isn't exporting the best of its produce either.

      1. Barely Suppressed Rage   14 years ago

        Sure - but if I've got to live somewhere in this general geographical range, as between VA and NJ, it's a no-brainer to go with VA.

        Hey! There's VA's new tourism slogan:

        "Virginia - We're not New Jersey!"

    2. Wind Rider   14 years ago

      If you realize you're libertarian, NJ is no place for you.

      Hell, all ya gotta be is someone that wants to check their own damned motor oil at a gas station, and Jersey is the last place you want to be.

      1. Eiki Martinson   14 years ago

        Damn right. This libertarian is not from Jersey, but I remember driving through on the Garden State Parkway every summer, where my father would let loose some choice words at the intolerable full-service monopoly. Surely some of them took root in my proto-libertarian brain.

        That makes me think: if we lived in a state of perfect liberty, would anyone value it enough to preserve it, without formative experiences like these?

  3. Warren   14 years ago

    Fuck you Reason! That's sixty eight seconds I'll never get back. Not to mention I can't unsee it.

  4. Ice Nine   14 years ago

    "the sweetest corn"

    Those born and bred in Iowa are laughing ourselves to the point of brain hemorrhages right now.

    We will however spot you your freakin' stink bugs.

    1. Wind Rider   14 years ago

      And here I thought Iowans fed most of their corn to their women so they can't run off so quick.

      1. Ice Nine   14 years ago

        LOL. They do grow 'em big there. When I was on the GYN service at the U we commonly referred to a patient's weight in "Iowa Units" (= 100#). Threes and fours were common; sixes were seen (and thanks a lot for stirring up old nightmares).

    2. Barely Suppressed Rage   14 years ago

      Have you ever had Sussex County Silver Queen? That is some seriously good shit. One the very few things I miss about NJ, actually. We used to get it right from the farm across the road. That farm is long gone now.

    3. Mr Whipple???   14 years ago

      Actually, Florida's "Super Sweet" variety is the sweetest. Previously, it was Jersey's "Silver Queen". However, Jersey grows mostly the Super Sweet variety, now. What do they grow in Iowa? Monsanto's Round up resistant GMO?

      Ignorance is bliss.

  5. Fist of Etiquette   14 years ago

    At the risk of offending right on the heels of the earthquake/tsunami, the Asian Lady Beetle is by far the worst pest ever to afflict the United States. They stink, they bite, they stain, they infest.

    Rural Pennsylvania is rendered significantly less idyllic every autumn because of them.

    1. capitol l   14 years ago

      I think of them as zombie bugs. They are real slow and stupid, not to mention killing them is a breeze(if you have a hammer of death: see below).

      Also, they bite?

      1. Fist of Etiquette   14 years ago

        It's not a debilitating bite, but they do. Also, the hammer thing might be fun but their blood (which they release when fightened) has a terrible odor and will stain anything. A vacuum is the preferred method of control. Because they kill aphids the eggheads at Penn State suggest releasing them back into the wild. Fuck you, poindexters, and fuck you, farmers. No way.

        1. capitol l   14 years ago

          What I do is to get them onto a piece of paper, I then fold it over and give 'em the hammer treatment, the next stop is a garbagy grave for the fucker.

          If my girlfriend finds out that they bite I'll be moving out of the n-east asap.

          1. Wind Rider   14 years ago

            Shallow dish or pie tin with soapy water. They literally die by the thousands doing a kabuki swan dive competition or something. Lil fuckers love light colored, bright houses/surfaces. It's like a damned horror movie, with no actual horror.

            1. Fist of Etiquette   14 years ago

              You, sir, may be my hero. That Enrique Iglesias song is literally playing in my head right now. I will try that soap thing come September. (Reading just those last two sentences on their own out of context sounds kinda gay.)

              My house is on the top of a hill and the only structure for a mile around. They swarm to me. They are like ladybugs who have died and come back as zombies, like cap said.

              1. capitol l   14 years ago

                Another thing to look out for is any creeping viny plants that grow up on the side of buildings, like your house, as they live underneath the leaves.

                I was getting them bad until I removed the ivy that grows on the outside wall of my house. There were millions living under there.

                ---------------
                Gonna try the soap thing as well, sounds like a winner.

        2. Mr Whipple???   14 years ago

          They don't devour crops. Japanese beetles are, by far, the worst ever pest infestation.

          BTW, some garden stores actually sell containers of live lady bugs.

          1. Fist of Etiquette   14 years ago

            Lady bugs are aces. The lady asian beetles look like lady bugs, but not. You really have to experience them on a sunny autumn day to fully understand.

  6. capitol l   14 years ago

    They have been doing stink bug stories on the news here in p-burgh for about three years now. Every spring they get some guy that works for an extermination company to reassure the public that they cannot in fact be killed by stink bugs.

    A couple of weeks ago I saw one of these Orkin dudes on teevee, and he said if you are seeing the bugs in early spring not to be worried: they are not new bugs, but ones that have been living in your walls all winter. Real reassuring.

    I have probably killed like 300 of these things in the past few years, and I can never smell anything. Other people say that these bugs stink, but even upon smashing one with a hammer and getting close up, I could smell nary a thing. I did detect the minutest musty odor, possibly from the hammer as it had metal overtones.

    What the hell do they smell like?

    1. db   14 years ago

      You're lucky you can't smell them. They don't "stink," as in "poo" or "skunk" or "rancid zombie," they smell...green. So green you want to destroy yellow and blue.

      I live in the woods and we have had these things around for about 3 summers now (and I can remember seeing them north of Pittsburgh as far back as 2003 or so). They are supremely annoying, crawling all over everything, ending up in your drink, flying clumsily around until they smack into the wall or your face and then fall down ad crawl around until they get enough energy to fl around again. I hates 'em.

      1. capitol l   14 years ago

        I probably destroyed the stink bug receptor in my nose with strange powders, because, like I said, I don't smell a damn thing.

        1. Tulpa   14 years ago

          Maybe the stinkbug smell is close to your own natural aroma, so you can't smell it anymore.

          1. capitol l   14 years ago

            Well then stink bugs must reek of freedom.

            1. Tulpa   14 years ago

              I do find that when I let myself ripen for a few days, people do tend to leave me alone. So it's a start.

    2. Tulpa   14 years ago

      Imagine filling a garbage bag full of dead leaves in October, leaving it out in the sun for a week, and then opening the bag and taking a deep whiff.

      That's pretty close to the smell.

  7. Restoras   14 years ago

    The Stink Bug? Seriously? Has anyone been paying attention at all for the last decade? By far the worst export/product of the mid-Atlantic region are CongressCritters, not to mention the noxious fumes that emanate from thier pie-holes, and the defacations called 'legislation' that just piles up and stinks to high heaven.

  8. David   14 years ago

    Enema Man - How come I never thought of that? Brilliant!

    1. Anomalous   14 years ago

      The real Slim Shitty.

  9. Conservative Libertine   14 years ago

    I smuggled a Jersey Tomato up here to New England once. Ten years later I had to divorce her. I don't blame New Jersey though. I enjoyed my time there.

    🙂

  10. Tyler Nixon   14 years ago

    Across the river here in Delaware we have the stink bugs AND the Bidens.

    We tried to export Joe but he just keeps coming back...now by way of Wilmington's freshly-named "Biden Train Station".

    One thing's for sure, the stink around here ain't from bugs.

  11. James Lloyd   14 years ago

    A modest prediction; the self-righteous "Silent Spring" liberals who ignore malaria deaths in Africa and the 400,000 birds slaughtered annually by green windmills, will rediscover the value of DDT when the bed bug, and now, stink bug epidemics reach their own homes.

  12. albo   14 years ago

    They're crawling out of their winter holes at my house right now.

    Fortunately, they're clumsy, slow, and about as easy to catch as herpes at Charlie Sheen's house.

  13. Guidos, Union Bosses   14 years ago

    As a proud New Jerseyan, I'd like to point out that "smelly scourge" of the mid-Atlantic is in fact my home state, the damn best state in this whole misbegtten experiment we call America and the great producer not just of blueberries, cranberries, tomatoes, the sweetest corn, and the tartest broads but pound for pound the chief producer of libertarian...

    Ey, what, not even goin to throw us a bone? Wtf... You like tomatoes, I got 3 truckloads of tomatoes up in Seacaucus, forgetaboutit...plus, anyone you need to take care of? My cousin jimmy knows a guy. I can get you into any club you want. At least give your fellow statesmen some reasonable representation, you know what i'm saying? Also, I know a great guy for taxes. I mean like, how to get some sweet contracts and shit. Whaddyo you like? Waste removal, road work, building inspector...? I make a call, it aint nothing...

  14. Guidos   14 years ago

    Also, wtf? You try bringin fucking stinkbugs to Perth Amboy... in your face, bugs. Those fuckers will be dead in no time... from SHAME. Forget it, try sending a million of them down the boardwalk. My fuckin Drakkar will PWN those bugs. I blind small children at 50 yards. Evolution, bugs. You don't need to read about it, bitch, just look right here (points to waxed, steroid-inflated chest)... you're lookin at it.

  15. califronian   14 years ago

    Tyler Cowen a libertarian? Have you read his blog?

  16. johnl   14 years ago

    English Tim Cavanaugh?

  17. Pest Control Las Vegas   11 years ago

    If you ever have a problem with these bugs you need to try and take care of asap.

  18. GabrielLaird   10 years ago

    It is true that gardeners' uses huge range of pest control chemicals to prevent the gardens or farm from various diseases. But the downside of applying this way is that the toxic compounds of chemical put undesirable side effects on the soil, water and micro-organisms. Therefore it's vital to use services of pest control specialist which offer comprehensive solution without harming soil. However, if you don't wish to have their services, then try good chemical that doesn't impact adversely.

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