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Balloon Juice

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Consistently wrong since 2002

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Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

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“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

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A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Don’t Think I’d Be a Fan of This

Don’t Think I’d Be a Fan of This

by John Cole|  May 19, 201510:51 am| 121 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Nasty:

Millions of tiny spiders recently fell from the sky in Australia, alarming residents whose properties were suddenly covered with not only the creepy critters, but also mounds of their silky threads. But that’s not where the frightful news ends: Experts say that such arachnid rains aren’t as uncommon as you might think.

This month’s spider downpour in the country’s Southern Tablelands region is just the most recent example of a phenomenon commonly known as “spider rain” or, in some circles, “angel hair,” because of the silky, hairlike threads the spiders leave behind. Ian Watson, who lives in the region affected by the spooky shower, took to Facebook to describe what this strange “weather” looks like, according to the Goulburn Post.

The spider part wouldn’t bother me so much, but cleaning up all that silk would be a pain.

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Reader Interactions

121Comments

  1. 1.

    PaulW

    May 19, 2015 at 10:56 am

    Call SyFy Channel, I got a new idea for a cheap no-budget horror movie.

  2. 2.

    JPL

    May 19, 2015 at 10:57 am

    I’d move.

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    May 19, 2015 at 10:57 am

    I’ve seen one, tho nothing at all as extreme as this one, and they are really pretty cool.

  4. 4.

    TaMara (BHF)

    May 19, 2015 at 10:57 am

    I’m with you on the webbing. Traipsing through the thick woods on Cape Cod as a kid, it was always horrible when I would accidentally stumble through an orb spider web (that were sometimes 5 feet long, from tree limb to the ground). Spiders don’t bother me, but ugh, tangled in web was awful. Then I’d also have to look for the spider to make sure I wasn’t taking her with me. (Queue scene from Raiders).

  5. 5.

    Mike J

    May 19, 2015 at 10:58 am

    @PaulW: Spider-cane!

  6. 6.

    Valdivia

    May 19, 2015 at 10:59 am

    Not a fan of it myself. I am not great with spiders having grown up in a tropical country where they were constantly chasing me.

    OT–who was joking yesterday that the demilitarization of police would be seen by the crazies as part of the invasion of Texas conspiracy? You have won a prize.

  7. 7.

    Karen in GA

    May 19, 2015 at 10:59 am

    certain species of small spiders — as well as the tiny hatchlings of larger spider species— are known to balloon around the Outback during late autumn (May) and early spring (August)

    Well, just fuck the Outback, then.

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    May 19, 2015 at 11:01 am

    These aren’t man-eating spiders, are they? (He asked fearfully.)

  9. 9.

    MattF

    May 19, 2015 at 11:03 am

    For some reason, I’ve always had a rather positive view of spiders– maybe I missed out on arachnology as a profession. But millions of them parachuting down from the sky on spider silk is probably over the line, even for me.

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    May 19, 2015 at 11:05 am

    Note to self: remove Australia from my bucket list.

    The Amazon rain forest removed itself when I found out they have a spider so large that its primary prey is birds.

  11. 11.

    Karen in GA

    May 19, 2015 at 11:06 am

    O/T — One of the sidebar ads is for kitty urns, which is not helpful right now. Phoebe’s still at UGA. Her pacemaker is working fine, her lungs are clearing, the congestive heart failure is fine now — but she’s still sick. She’s back with her internal medicine vet there, who’s trying to figure out why her blood pressure is low, she hasn’t eaten since last Thursday, and she looks dazed all the time.

    And on top of that, even with the pet health coverage and the majority of the cost being reimbursed, I’m really uncomfortable racking up this bill.

    Should get more test results later today, then we’ll hopefully know more about what to do. I don’t like this one bit.

  12. 12.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 19, 2015 at 11:07 am

    Ballooning is tremendously common in spiders. Like the article says, what happened here is a freak of the weather made so many come down at once, in one spot, that laymen noticed.

    EDIT – If it helps, remember that for a spider to balloon, it has to be ridiculously tiny, like pin head tiny. Even the deadliest species (really only a concern in Australia anyway) can’t hurt you at that size.

    EDIT EDIT – @Mnemosyne (tablet):
    Naah, that’s a myth. There are spiders big enough to eat small birds in most tropical areas, but birds are never their primary food. They can’t catch birds! Mostly the bird eating is if they get lucky and wander over a nest, or the colony weavers manage to snare one. ‘Goliath Bird Eating Spiders’ are big, but the layman couldn’t tell they’re much bigger than African or Australian tarantulas.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    May 19, 2015 at 11:08 am

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):
    Come to Malaysia. We have insect-eating plants.

  14. 14.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    May 19, 2015 at 11:14 am

    @Karen in GA: I’m thinking good thoughts for Phoebe and for you. (And Iggy of course.)

  15. 15.

    Mustang Bobby

    May 19, 2015 at 11:16 am

    I have spiders all over my back patio; the little “smiley-face” variety, so named because their bodies look like the icon, except they’re black and white, not yellow. Their webs are annoying to run into, but I pretty much leave them alone since they eat mosquitoes. If they get in the house, though, they’re fair game, and I’m just as likely to step on them as I am to escort them outside.

  16. 16.

    dedc79

    May 19, 2015 at 11:17 am

    Clearly the first of ten plagues to strike the Australian Pharaoh – Tony Abbott

  17. 17.

    Jerzy Russian

    May 19, 2015 at 11:18 am

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): I believe there is a tribe living in the rain forest down there that considers the giant spiders to be a delicacy.

  18. 18.

    Ryan

    May 19, 2015 at 11:19 am

    I live in Durham, and we have cankerworms that rain down for a few weeks every spring. Disgusting because you can’t avoid walking under all the trees.

  19. 19.

    Mike J

    May 19, 2015 at 11:20 am

    @Jerzy Russian: And everyone gets a drumstick.

  20. 20.

    Buffalo Rude

    May 19, 2015 at 11:23 am

    Raining spiders? That’s when I get in the “Nope! Mobile” and nope! the fuck right outta there.

  21. 21.

    Jerzy Russian

    May 19, 2015 at 11:23 am

    We have some fairly big spiders here (Gray spiders?) that can weave these large webs fairly quickly. I don’t mind the spiders, but I would appreciate it if they did not weave their webs in the walkways. There is apparently something called a “California Lawn Spider” that is supposed to be large, but I have yet to see one.

  22. 22.

    askew

    May 19, 2015 at 11:29 am

    That is literally my worst nightmare. Yikes!

  23. 23.

    Michael G

    May 19, 2015 at 11:29 am

    I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    May 19, 2015 at 11:30 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    I’m okay with insect-eating plants since they don’t dangle from the bathroom light in the middle of the night to play “Surprise!” when you’re trying to get ready for bed.

    I don’t want to kill all spiders since they serve an important function, I just want them to stay the hell away from me.

  25. 25.

    Karen in GA

    May 19, 2015 at 11:30 am

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Thanks. Iggy actually fears Phoebe. She’s a sweetie, but she can be a bit full of herself — and Iggy doesn’t understand that you don’t just go bounding up and shoving your entire face in a princess kitty’s fur.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    May 19, 2015 at 11:31 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    There’s a reason they used that spider in”Arachnophobia,” which I foolishly watched on cable one night. Though apparently they did have to dress it up in costume a bit to make it even scarier.

  27. 27.

    maya

    May 19, 2015 at 11:33 am

    An educational tale for all you spider sissies: http://www.storiestogrowby.com/stories/bruce_and_spider_body.html

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    May 19, 2015 at 11:33 am

    @Karen in GA:

    I hope she pulls through — my Boris used to get very low blood pressure and a heart murmur when he was stressed, so it might be that. Have they tried the liverwurst-like canned cat food? You warm it up a bit in the microwave to make it nice and stinky.

  29. 29.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 19, 2015 at 11:42 am

    Must have been SOME PIG in the vicinity.

  30. 30.

    kc

    May 19, 2015 at 11:43 am

    The spider part wouldn’t bother me so much

    The spider part would bother me A LOT.

  31. 31.

    kc

    May 19, 2015 at 11:43 am

    @JPL:

    I’d move.

    To Mars.

  32. 32.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    May 19, 2015 at 11:44 am

    Thank goodness it never rains bears.

  33. 33.

    ruemara

    May 19, 2015 at 11:45 am

    @Karen in GA: Thinking good thoughts for kitty.

    Hmph. I got booted out of work. I have a cold, a wee one and they said, “Nu’uh, go home!”. I’m stuck working at home. this bites.

    @Matt McIrvin: win

  34. 34.

    Karen in GA

    May 19, 2015 at 11:46 am

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): I’m not sure what they’ve been trying to feed her. I’ll ask next time I talk to them, and whether it has a strong smell. Thanks.

  35. 35.

    FortGeek

    May 19, 2015 at 11:49 am

    @Amir Khalid: Only if you’re a very small man. John McCain might be in trouble.

  36. 36.

    samiam

    May 19, 2015 at 11:49 am

    Any guesses how may posts we will see from Cole this week defending everything fat bastard Christie does and critisizing everything next President Clinton does?

    Last week really took the cake. Either Cole is not trying to hide his Republican stripes anymore or he really is in his own little world thinking his DNA is actually progressive now because….dronezzzzz are bad.

  37. 37.

    Comrade Dread

    May 19, 2015 at 11:50 am

    Australians don’t fear hell because they live in Australia.

  38. 38.

    bemused

    May 19, 2015 at 11:53 am

    Tent caterpillars or as we call them in northern MN, army worms, are gross, squishy worms. They arrive in 10-15-20 year cycles during spring, eating new leaves on trees. If the infestation is heavy enough, they will eat a lot more than tree leaves in their path and will leave acres and acres, huge swatches of forest bare. Most trees will rebud. The worms aren’t poisonous but have caused traffic accidents from masses of them getting squished on highways creating a slick peanut butter surface.

    No one is happy about an army worm invasion. They travel north piling up on the south side of buildings where they die and reek like hell. It’s a very soft worm so they get squashed easily and leave stains on walks, house siding, outdoor furniture. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any wild critters that want to eat the worms, not even bears or lake fish. Guinea hens are the only animals that will go for them that I’ve heard of anecdotally. Nothing in local news yet if we can expect army worms this year.

  39. 39.

    SatanicPanic

    May 19, 2015 at 11:53 am

    @Jerzy Russian: probably not so different from crab

  40. 40.

    Linda Featheringill

    May 19, 2015 at 11:55 am

    I’m a member of the Arachnaphobia Club. Intellectually, I realize that they fill a niche in Earth’s ecology but emotionally, they scare the #%$#$%# out of me. Ewww!

    I twice tried to watch the movie, Arachnaphobia, but couldn’t stay with it either time.

    I’m a real spider sissy.

  41. 41.

    FortGeek

    May 19, 2015 at 11:56 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: Every spring, shortly after I put up my window air conditioner, I get a couple of ballooning baby spiders in my room riding the air current from the AC box to me. I guide them off somewhere else and wish them well going after whatever bugs deserve to get caught.

  42. 42.

    Valdivia

    May 19, 2015 at 12:00 pm

    @Karen in GA:

    sending warm get well vibes to Phoebe and hugs to you.

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:

    ummm, why would you put that in my head? yikes.

  43. 43.

    WereBear

    May 19, 2015 at 12:01 pm

    I spend some formative years in Florida. Cockroaches squick me out more.

    But coming down from the sky? Ixnay on the iderrainspay.

  44. 44.

    Punchy

    May 19, 2015 at 12:02 pm

    I’m sked’d to go to Australia in Sept. Now I’m forced to ask that my company puts me up in a NON-spider-raining hotel near NON-spider raining restaurants. Dammit, more details I hadn’t even thought of….

  45. 45.

    JPL

    May 19, 2015 at 12:02 pm

    @Karen in GA: I hope you get good news.

  46. 46.

    Dave C

    May 19, 2015 at 12:03 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Luckily for us, there exists no spider in the world that actually eats humans. A very small number of them have bites that are harmful to humans, but the overwhelming majority (>99%) of the more than 40,000 described species of spiders in the world are totally harmless to humans. Even better, they are most definitely not harmless to pest insects, so they are great to have around!

  47. 47.

    Peale

    May 19, 2015 at 12:03 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Apparently they can travel great distances…so which way does the wind blow? From Malaysia to Australia or vice versa.

  48. 48.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 19, 2015 at 12:03 pm

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):
    Arachnophobia is about as scientifically accurate as most disaster movies – IE, entomologists run around waving their arms in the air and screaming ‘NONONOITDOESNOTWORKTHATWAY!’ You are probably not surprised.

  49. 49.

    Elizabelle

    May 19, 2015 at 12:03 pm

    It would be cool if the zillions of spider webs, or spiders themselves, contained a cure for pancreatic cancer, or any type of cancer or disease.

    Maybe they’re a gift.

    Not being inundated with spiders in Northern Virginia — last night, saw my first lightning bug/firefly of the season, and that was charming.

  50. 50.

    Dave C

    May 19, 2015 at 12:07 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Well, I don’t know about cancer cures, but spider silk and venom proteins have a number of very interesting biochemical properties that are actively being researched for practical purposes.

  51. 51.

    FortGeek

    May 19, 2015 at 12:09 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: I felt like running around and waving my arms like that when the trailer for “San Andreas” came on before “Mad Max” the other day. So much wrong with it, it really should have gone straight to the Sci-Fi Channel.

  52. 52.

    Elizabelle

    May 19, 2015 at 12:09 pm

    Was wondering if the spider rain was a portent of climate change and, yeah, maybe so, but maybe no. From John’s link:

    “Ballooning is a not-uncommon behavior of many spiders. They climb some high area and stick their butts up in the air and release silk. Then they just take off,” Vetter told Live Science. “This is going on all around us all the time. We just don’t notice it.” [Rick Vetter is a retired arachnologist at the University of California, Riverside.]

    The reason people don’t usually notice this ingenious spider behavior is that it’s not common for millions of spiders to do this at the same time, and then land in the same place, said Todd Blackledge, a biology professor at the University of Akron in Ohio.

    “In these kinds of events [spider rains], what’s thought to be going on is that there’s a whole cohort of spiders that’s ready to do this ballooning dispersal behavior, but for whatever reason, the weather conditions haven’t been optimal and allowed them to do that. But then the weather changes, and they have the proper conditions to balloon, and they all start to do it,” Blackledge told Live Science.

    This is likely what happened in New South Wales, where certain species of small spiders — as well as the tiny hatchlings of larger spider species— are known to balloon around the Outback during late autumn (May) and early spring (August). But, as Blackledge explained, an abrupt change in the weather or wind pattern may have carried these migrating spiders up and away and then back down to earth en mass — not the orderly dispersal that they (or the residents of the Southern Tablelands region) were expecting.

  53. 53.

    maya

    May 19, 2015 at 12:09 pm

    @WereBear:

    But coming down from the sky?

    New meaning to the term “hit the silk”.

    The 101st Arachnid Div: “We’ll leave the screaming to you”.

  54. 54.

    Amir Khalid

    May 19, 2015 at 12:10 pm

    @Linda Featheringill:
    @Dave C:
    Did you see Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets? Now that movie is the stuff of arachnophobics’ nightmares.

  55. 55.

    Elizabelle

    May 19, 2015 at 12:10 pm

    @Dave C: Good to know.

    Bees have gone from being summertime terrorists to agricultural angels, now vanishing and missed.

    Maybe the spider needs better PR too.

  56. 56.

    scav

    May 19, 2015 at 12:13 pm

    @Elizabelle: Baby Spider Flash Mob!

  57. 57.

    JPL

    May 19, 2015 at 12:13 pm

    @Elizabelle: There’s no amount of PR that will take that image out of my mind.

  58. 58.

    SatanicPanic

    May 19, 2015 at 12:19 pm

    @Elizabelle: I remember being in a soccer field one day when I was a child living in the desert and saw this happen. It wasn’t quite this crazy- dozens or maybe hundreds floating through the air on little parachutes. That doesn’t prove anything, you just reminded me of it. It was pretty cool actually.

  59. 59.

    Felonius Monk

    May 19, 2015 at 12:22 pm

    I thought spiders only came wearing red and blue ‘jammies and took out the bad guys and rethugs (but then I repeat myself).

  60. 60.

    Dave C

    May 19, 2015 at 12:23 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Heh. Yeah, I did. Good stuff.

    Growing up I was deathly afraid of spiders, but somewhere along the way, the fear just…vanished. And now after spending roughly the past 5 years or so studying spiders in the lab and in the field (mostly the former), I can’t even remember where that visceral reaction came from. It’s weird how that works.

  61. 61.

    Germy Shoemangler

    May 19, 2015 at 12:27 pm

    Something scarier than spiders: town hall meeting.

  62. 62.

    scav

    May 19, 2015 at 12:28 pm

    And now I’m trying to figure out just how a spider does a moon walk.

  63. 63.

    Cervantes

    May 19, 2015 at 12:30 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    They can’t catch birds!

    Birds have been caught in webs before. The problem, from the spider’s perspective, is: what do you do next?

  64. 64.

    Elizabelle

    May 19, 2015 at 12:32 pm

    From I fucking love science, re spiders. A friend put this up today on Facebook, and it was poignant.

    I always try to escort spiders outside. Cockroaches, no.

  65. 65.

    Germy Shoemangler

    May 19, 2015 at 12:32 pm

    @Cervantes:

    Birds have been caught in webs before. The problem, from the spider’s perspective, is: what do you do next?

    Sort of like a tea-partier winning an election.

  66. 66.

    Cervantes

    May 19, 2015 at 12:33 pm

    @Dave C:

    Not counting allergic reactions, I presume.

  67. 67.

    Valdivia

    May 19, 2015 at 12:33 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Is this recent? I am afraid to know what State he’s from.

  68. 68.

    Germy Shoemangler

    May 19, 2015 at 12:35 pm

    @Valdivia: It was posted to youtube in 2014. He is from Oklahoma.
    Spiders are fluffy bunnies compared to that town hall.

    Bridenstine introduced the Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2013 (H.R. 2413; 113th Congress) into the House on June 18, 2013. Bridenstine introduced the bill in response to several 2013 Oklahoma tornadoes. Bridenstine said that “my state has seen all too many times the destructive power of tornadoes and severe weather. In the wake of the latest outbreak in May that cost 48 lives, it is painfully clear that we must do more.” Bridenstine claimed 30 times more money was being spent on climate change research than on weather forecasting and warning, a claim that is not true.

  69. 69.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 19, 2015 at 12:37 pm

    @FortGeek:
    Screaming Mount Pony Fuck, yes, I had that reaction. I had it for Jurassic World, too. Mad Max was equally unrealistic, but wasn’t pretending to be. If you’re going to make a movie about earthquakes, learn something about friggin’ earthquakes. If you’re going to make a movie about dinosaurs, learn something about friggin’ dinosaurs. The frog DNA excuse actually makes things worse, since the idea you could splice a dinosaur with anything except a bird is insane.

    Look, people. The major predatory dinosaur branches, the theropods, were basically birds. They had feathers. They were hind leg focused hunters. I will very, very dimly allow you your unbelievably stupid-ass rendition of them as super-geniuses who somehow know what a tracking implant is, but at least get something right. No, don’t hide behind ‘feathers aren’t scary!’ A feathery T-Rex jumping on a human, picking him up in its hind claws, and biting him in half will send people home with nightmares. Make them act like predatory birds, and they’ll be scary looking like predatory birds. Giving a bird feline and canine mouth-oriented body language, yeah, makes it a lot less intimidating. You might as well be threatening someone with the handle of a knife.

  70. 70.

    Pogonip

    May 19, 2015 at 12:39 pm

    @Amir Khalid: They sound like balloon spiders. Think of them as little Charlottes.

  71. 71.

    Dave C

    May 19, 2015 at 12:41 pm

    @Cervantes:

    As far as I know, around 40 species of spiders have bites that are considered to be “medically significant”. I would imagine that this might include very common allergic reactions, but I’m not sure. I doubt it includes relatively uncommon allergic reactions. This is a pretty interesting article (trigger warning: some scary looking spider pictures):

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medically_significant_spider_bites

  72. 72.

    Valdivia

    May 19, 2015 at 12:42 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    the depth of the crazy seems to be bottomless.

  73. 73.

    Alex

    May 19, 2015 at 12:42 pm

    @samiam: Troll harder

  74. 74.

    SRW1

    May 19, 2015 at 12:43 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Totally OT, Amir, but what’s the background to the ruckus in Malaysia about Tottenham and Liverpool going there to play friendlies against local teams?

  75. 75.

    scav

    May 19, 2015 at 12:47 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler: No true teapartspider would ever so over-engineer a web so as to allow it to potentially capture a bird. Waste of funds. They can, however, be observed convincing even smaller prey of their own ilk to wander over, apply elmer’s glue to themselves and stay put until eaten, all on their own bootstraps.

  76. 76.

    FortGeek

    May 19, 2015 at 12:58 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: The folks with me at “Mad Max” were drooling over the “Jurassic” trailer. Heh. Nope!

  77. 77.

    Tenar Darell

    May 19, 2015 at 12:58 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: Was Michael Crichton’s book ever really accurate? Based on his other attempts, at other topics, I’ve always suspected that he was basing his novels off of junk science or discredited theories when he wrote them.

    As for using birds as exemplars for behaviors, riled up wild geese are scary enough, I don’t understand why the producers and animators wouldn’t use them.

  78. 78.

    shell

    May 19, 2015 at 1:01 pm

    of larger spider species— are known to balloon around the Outback

    Wow. I’m never going to that restaurant again!
    ***********
    I actually like spiders, especially Daddy Long Legs. But that’s definitely too much of a good thing!

  79. 79.

    Botsplainer

    May 19, 2015 at 1:03 pm

    @maya:

    I love spiders and encourage them around the house, particularly wolf spiders.

  80. 80.

    rikyrah

    May 19, 2015 at 1:05 pm

    I would be screaming my head off.

  81. 81.

    Lavocat

    May 19, 2015 at 1:06 pm

    Cole, you have no problem with MILLIONS OF SPIDERS RAINING FROM THE SKIES!!!!????

    Sounds like a really bad acid trip to me.

    No fucking thank you, man!

    This is even worse than snakes on a plane!

    How much worse could you make it? Jumping spiders? Who spit acid? And are registered Republicans? Again: Worst. Bad. Acid. Trip. EVAH!

    Wait … great idea for another bad movie in 3-2-1.

  82. 82.

    Amir Khalid

    May 19, 2015 at 1:06 pm

    @SRW1:
    A fan group says the friendlies will provide little if any benefit to the national team’s prep for World Cup qualifiers a couple of weeks later, while causing local league matches to be disrupted. Apparently the local clubs haven’t made alternative arrangements for fans who’ve paid for tickets to the local league matches.

  83. 83.

    Zinsky

    May 19, 2015 at 1:06 pm

    Roll Karl Rove naked through some honey and leave him out in some spider rain to let those bastards have their way with the walking pile of human excrement!

  84. 84.

    raven

    May 19, 2015 at 1:07 pm

    Been fishing since sunrise. Only 1 small blue but the pelicans are feasting 100 yards offshore. Back at it!

  85. 85.

    Amir Khalid

    May 19, 2015 at 1:08 pm

    @Tenar Darell:
    Crichton was a physician, as I recall. You learn fuck-all about dinosaurs in medical school. Same goes for global warming, of which Crichton was a denier.

  86. 86.

    Roger Moore

    May 19, 2015 at 1:11 pm

    @Valdivia:

    the depth of the crazy seems to be bottomless.

    The Balloon-Juice accepted way of saying this is “Peak Wingnut is a Myth”.

  87. 87.

    Fair Economist

    May 19, 2015 at 1:16 pm

    @Karen in GA:

    One of the sidebar ads is for kitty urns, which is not helpful right now.

    Hoping for a fast recovery for Phoebe.

    The ad is probably the nastiness of the internet at work. I’ll bet you’ve been googling kitty diseases, and some urn company probably figured out that people who google kitty diseases are more likely to buy urns, so they’re serving you an ad. The current internet invades your privacy relentlessly and when things in your life aren’t going well, proceeds to grind your nose in it. Don’t sweat it, because their predictive power is pretty low – I have a number of wildly inappropriate ad types that chase me. I can figure out why they chase me, but they’re still totally off-base.

  88. 88.

    shell

    May 19, 2015 at 1:17 pm

    And are registered Republicans? Again: Worst. Bad. Acid. Trip. EVAH!

    There are spiders falling from the sky…..and they’re voting Republican.

  89. 89.

    Valdivia

    May 19, 2015 at 1:21 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    of course! how could I have forgotten :)
    Also, too.

  90. 90.

    Fair Economist

    May 19, 2015 at 1:23 pm

    Spiders are generally antisocial, often cannibalistic, generally easily frightened, and like to suck the lifeblood from other creatures. They probably would vote Republican.

  91. 91.

    Botsplainer

    May 19, 2015 at 1:29 pm

    @Dave C:

    As far as I know, around 40 species of spiders have bites that are considered to be “medically significant”.

    About a year ago, I got a tropical spider bite while in Belize on a diving trip. It took about 12 hours to go from annoying welt to “holy shit, I’ve got a lump the size of my fist, the center is brown to black, it is weeping and it hurts like a motherfucker in a throbbing way.”

    I noticed just how bad it got as I came up after my first dive of that day (nice wall dive, max depth 85-90 feet down) and saw it oozing. Still made the second dive – we were about 20 miles out to sea.

    The doc that the resort called when we returned chewed my ass out for making that second dive. Talked about the body under pressure, particularly at depths below 60 feet, and said I was lucky as shit that I didn’t have a stroke at depth – mentioned how nice THAT would have been for my fellow divers. He gave me something in the Ceflex family along with a multispectrum antibiotic ointment and barred me from diving for at least one day.

  92. 92.

    henqiguai

    May 19, 2015 at 1:30 pm

    @Amir Khalid (#13):

    Come to Malaysia. We have insect-eating plants.

    Why? We got them right here in North America (e.g. Venus Fly-trap, the Sun Dew). Or are we talking epic battles between tropical bird-eating humongous spiders versus ginormous semi-mobile carnivorous plants???

  93. 93.

    Amir Khalid

    May 19, 2015 at 1:33 pm

    @henqiguai:

    epic battles between tropical bird-eating humongous spiders versus ginormous semi-mobile carnivorous plants

    Damn, I’d pay to see that movie.

  94. 94.

    Roger Moore

    May 19, 2015 at 1:35 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    We have insect-eating plants.

    Those are monkey cups, right? My former boss was trying to raise some in a terrarium in his office so he could extract their proteolytic enzymes. Sometimes being a scientist is very cool.

  95. 95.

    Mike in NC

    May 19, 2015 at 1:36 pm

    When living in NoVA years ago, I came home one day and saw a large ‘coffee table’ type book lying in the middle of the living room floor. My wife had put a note on top saying she had used it to kill a giant spider. I sort of chuckled since we didn’t have any species of giant spider in the state. When I picked up the book I found the bigger flicking (squashed) spider I’d ever seen outside of a zoo. Like a small tarantula. Never did try to find out what it was.

  96. 96.

    Valdivia

    May 19, 2015 at 1:44 pm

    Speaking of insects: Charles Murray at it again now with more derp.
    Worth a read

  97. 97.

    SRW1

    May 19, 2015 at 1:55 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Hm. I saw another interesting example recently for European football interests bigfooting that of other continents: Apparently, CONMEBOL has waved the rule for national teams being entitled to require their players to join the team 15 days before a tournament. Otherwise Barca would have been forced to play the upcoming Champions League final without Messi, Neymar, and Suarez because the Copa America starts only five days after the CL final in Berlin.

  98. 98.

    Elizabelle

    May 19, 2015 at 1:59 pm

    Speaking of spiders:

    Paul Krugman’s superb “Errors and Lies” is #3 at the moment on the NYTimes list of most emailed articles.

    The anti-Krugman is also on the list, at #14. David Brooks, with the humility to write a column entitled: “Learning from Mistakes.”

    And then proving he can not.

    Boboprose:

    From the current vantage point, the decision to go to war was a clear misjudgment, made by President George W. Bush and supported by 72 percent of the American public who were polled at the time. I supported it, too.

    What can be learned?

    The first obvious lesson is that we should look at intelligence products with a more skeptical eye. There’s a fable going around now that the intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was all cooked by political pressure, that there was a big political conspiracy to lie us into war.

    That doesn’t gibe with the facts.

    But actually, it does.

    A leading reader comment, with 470 approvals, by proudcalib:

    Brook’s column is utter sophistry: the Robb-Silberman committee was expressly forbidden from investigating whether the intelligence leading up to the Iraq was politically manipulated.

    I don’t see how the NY Times and its credibility can afford employing Judith Miller and Bill Kristol in the past, and David Brooks now.

    This Brooks column is letter to the editor complaint-worthy.

  99. 99.

    Gravenstone

    May 19, 2015 at 2:03 pm

    This seems to be several levels of fucked up. Students forced to endure transvaginal exams or suffer reduced grades or professional blacklisting.

  100. 100.

    Roger Moore

    May 19, 2015 at 2:08 pm

    @Valdivia:
    What do you have against insects? They deserve better than to be compared to Charles Murray.

  101. 101.

    Pappenheimer

    May 19, 2015 at 2:15 pm

    For those of us with ophiodophobia, Amr should be able to confirm that Malaysia has a species of flying (well, gliding) snake. They don’t migrate, though.

  102. 102.

    Valdivia

    May 19, 2015 at 2:21 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    hhis. I apologize to the insect kingdom, they are too good for the Murray comparision.

  103. 103.

    Tenar Darell

    May 19, 2015 at 2:21 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    You learn fuck-all about dinosaurs in medical school.

    QFT

    Expanding on this, I suspect you learn fuck-all about a long list of things in medical school based on the doctors who are running for President, and the doctors who are state and federal representatives.

  104. 104.

    Valdivia

    May 19, 2015 at 2:25 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    can he go on a honeymoon with his new girlfriend and relieve us from all his pablum for a while?

  105. 105.

    Interrobang

    May 19, 2015 at 2:27 pm

    Millions of Australian spiders on a house? I’d set the thing on fire with all my stuff inside. It’d just be safer that way.

  106. 106.

    ms_canadada

    May 19, 2015 at 2:28 pm

    @askew: I’m with you. I’m terrified of spiders, although I recognize their important contribution to the ecosystem. However – NOT in the house. My Dad used to suggest that I, “ask them outside.”
    Years ago I wrote an essay entitled, ‘How to Kill a Spider’ incorporating all the methods my mother taught me, and some I came up with on my own. The best one, IMO, was spraying the critter with ‘STIFF’ hairspray.
    Twisted, eh?

  107. 107.

    Dave C

    May 19, 2015 at 2:33 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    Crazy! I wonder if maybe it was a Chilean recluse. In any case, I am glad you (apparently) recovered!

  108. 108.

    Elizabelle

    May 19, 2015 at 2:34 pm

    @Valdivia: Judith Miller?

    Young Brooks has a romantic interest? Do tell.

  109. 109.

    Valdivia

    May 19, 2015 at 2:40 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    if there were any justice it would be her. After his divorce he now seems to be dating a woman in her 20s, I have tried not to read too much about it because of the yuck factor!

  110. 110.

    Elizabelle

    May 19, 2015 at 2:53 pm

    @Valdivia: Great. Now he’s going to be an expert on teh youths.

  111. 111.

    Rich (In Name Only) in Reno

    May 19, 2015 at 2:55 pm

    Sounds like something described in one of those Charles Fort books that were popular in the 1960s.

  112. 112.

    Valdivia

    May 19, 2015 at 3:17 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    he already wrote an article of internet dating, I am sure more wonders are next!

  113. 113.

    Karen in GA

    May 19, 2015 at 3:25 pm

    @Fair Economist: Thanks. Actually, the reason for the ads is even simpler — I was looking up kitty urns last month when my then-oldest, Smudge, had to be put to sleep. It’s been a bad month for kitties in my home.

  114. 114.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 19, 2015 at 3:31 pm

    @Amir Khalid: The giant spider shows up in one of the rides at Universal Florida, “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.” I enjoyed the ride, which is fairly visually intense all around, and forgot all about that bit (the Whomping Willow and the Quidditch scene were more memorable). But a lot of the reviews of it are like “This ride scared me to death because BIG SPIDER!!!!!!!!1” If you’ve got the fear, nothing else is as relevant.

  115. 115.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 19, 2015 at 3:33 pm

    @Rich (In Name Only) in Reno: I had an “amazing true science facts” book as a kid, “Nature At Its Strangest”, that described a massive ballooning-spider incident in vivid detail. I think I’d already encountered the idea form “Charlotte’s Web,” as mentioned above.

  116. 116.

    rikyrah

    May 19, 2015 at 3:33 pm

    I would still be screaming and running all over my house. This is absolutely terrifying to me.

  117. 117.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 19, 2015 at 3:35 pm

    …There’s a window screen in our back yard where, for a few springs in a row, spiders would place their egg sacs, and you could look through the kitchen window and see the hundreds of tiny tiny spiderlings hatch out and crawl away. It was adorable.

  118. 118.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    May 19, 2015 at 4:32 pm

    @henqiguai:

    Semi-mobile carnivorous plants would be Triffids. Sadly, the movie doesn’t hold up. Some things are scarier without pictures:

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffid

  119. 119.

    Comrade Mary

    May 19, 2015 at 5:04 pm

    I adore spiders. They do good for the ecosystem. In closeup, many of them are incredibly goddamn gorgeous. Our collective conflicted feelings about them have even spawned a meme. (Arachnophobes, don’t click that link, ‘k?)

    But I’ll be damned if I wasn’t squirming just a little as I whipped a cloth at some garage shelving this weekend as I tried to clean off the clusters of spider eggs. Ick.

  120. 120.

    donnah

    May 19, 2015 at 5:10 pm

    I recommend Kingdom of the Spiders, 1977 which has William Shatner as a small town vet who tries to save a town threatened by spider invasion.

    Heh.

  121. 121.

    ms_canadada

    May 19, 2015 at 5:29 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: No! That’s not adorable, that’s a nightmare. When I was pregnant with my first child, 35 years ago, a spider ‘gave birth’ on the cove ceiling of our bedroom. My husband was working the night shift, so I was on my own in the killing field. There I was, 8 months pregnant, jumping up to kill those teeny-tiny sob babies that had populated the ceiling. I was a mess of fear and loathing, weeping and cursing that my husband wasn’t there. I still have nightmares of that horrific night. Yes, I respect those critters, but I do hate them with a passion.

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