The only way this could be scarier is if they had guns. (image via Washington Times/IMGUR)

You might think that after two weeks of seeing my nation go from a government “of the people, by the people” to being ruled by hissy fit that I would write about the government shutdown. If so, you would be wrong. Another fascinating story from the other side of the world has gotten my attention.

Parts of China have been overrun by giant hornets. Being overrun by hornets, just regular ones, would be bad enough. These are GIANT hornets. Giant as in two or three of them, with a vegetable on the side and maybe a roll, would make a complete meal. They’d make a compete meal, if they didn’t gang up on you and kill you first.

Yes, these giant hornets in China have ganged up on people and killed them. The army has responded by using flame throwers to burn down huge nests of the hornets. Here’s a news video from last year of that process:

One of the highlights of the video is an interview with a military official whose Chinese is so bad he is subtitled, in Chinese. Another is the three-man flame thrower team’s technique – one man balances the gun on his shoulder, the second stands with his knees bent and the third fires the weapon.

But the real star of this video is the hornet’s nest. Look at that thing. It is the size of a car. Are there no words in the Chinese language to express “dude, some giant hornets are building a nest the size of a Mercedes in that maple tree”? Allowing the nest to get that big is no different from people allow a tumor on the side of their neck to reach eighty pounds before they see a doctor. And yet, there it is, a condominium for giant hornets.

There are certain things that indicate you might want to leave a place. Among those things are a Hells Angels meeting in your favorite bar and the existence of giant killer hornets. Most of us would have a beer somewhere else, but the Chinese identify that they’ve got somewhat of a bug problem and stay.

During the hissy fit in the US government over the past two weeks there was a lot of posturing about the debt owed to the Chinese government. I’d contend that these giant nests of hornets are the answer to the debt problem.

If the Chinese start making noise about collecting on that debt, we let them know that our spies will throw rocks at their hornet’s nests.

Meanwhile, we ship the US Congress to Hornetville, China. There, they’ll learn to work cooperatively, like a Chinese flame thrower team. The sooner they learn to work together and govern in the interest of all the people, the sooner they can come home and stop getting stung.