Schmidt, You've Done It Again

I was wondering some time back about compiling an index of painful things. Apparently they have already done that for bees and wasps and ants. Venomous stings are the most inscrutable kind of pain, because unless you are an organic chemist and also God you can't know how much a given chemical will hurt you.

So now there's a Schmidt Sting Pain Index. Good to know. Of course, it is completely useless, because we have no idea what the scale is. Is it logarithmic? It's surely not linear. Being stung by a bullet ant is probably not four times as painful as being stung by a sweat bee. Also you will notice that there are zero honeybees on that list. No bumblebees either. Why would you even bother if you are not going to include the two most popular stinging insects? Jeez.

P. S. Have you noticed that every single article on Answers.com is a word-for-word copy of a Wikipedia article? Wikipedia is open-source and all, so I'm sure it's not a crime but still. What's their angle? Maybe every tenth fact is false. It's like Evil Wikipedia whose purpose is to fool you. I wish.

P. P. S! About the sting of the Tarantula Hawk, Schmidt says, "If you get stung by one, you might as well lie down and scream." I love the way that is phrased. Like if you're teasing a wasp, and it stings you, you inwardly sigh, "well, I guess I should probably scream now. Better make the most of it." And then you just lie down and kick up a fuss, because hey; why not?