Beans versus nuts

Today's laboratory focuses on beans, legumes.  It's a fun lab with lots of cooking and disecting and eating.  Peanuts, the very name, cause a bit of confusion because they are not a nut at all but a pea in a pod, a dry indehiscent (does split open by itself) pod that grows under ground.  Of course this mornings news was all about nuts of the political persuasion.  Nuts who are obsessed with causing Obama to fail at any cost; nuts who will do any amount of damage to the USA to accomplish this goal.  In making this observation, it occurs to TPP that we might even say "pea-brained nuts" because none of this is very smart.  Indeed, the fear that Obama-care might work has spawned a disinformation campaign of epic proportions.  This however does demonstrate that ideology is no way to govern, and the GnOPe (the G is silent you recall) party continues to pursue their agenda because it's the will of the people, all 22%.  Wonder how many of my students even know what happened? 

Why plants and rainforest stuff, not politics?

A reader asks why the Phactor has made no comments about recent political events and instead rambles on about his tomatoes and rainforest organisms? Well, it’s fairly simple. The Phactor is so disgusted, so annoyed, so angry, so outraged that he will go ballistic if he starts thinking and writing about this topic at all. After all when you’ve been accosted, however nicely, by an upset shopkeeper in a small butcher shop in a beach community of far northern Queensland who’s worried about the impact of the USA’s stupid politics will have on global economics, well, you know there is a lesson to be learned and it’s pretty simple: rigid ideology of any sort is no way to govern. The butcher had decided that while his business was doing well, he wasn't going to risk a good thing by buying and opening another shop in a 2nd location until the world economy of which the USA is a lynch pin settles down. If a butcher thinks like this half way around the world, why is anyone surprised that the economy and the job picture have not improved. Our politicians, and therefore, the USA are not instilling confidence because of how they behave. The common good does not matter at all, either on a national or international level, just ideological purity. Fundamentalism either in politics or religion does not lead to thinking about consequences. Yours truly hopes that everything does not have to implode for people to learn that electing political ideologues is not a good thing, ever, of any persuasion. To all you good people of the world, let me apologize for our actions, for the stupidity of the electorate and the elected. Oops, blood pressure monitor, that bulging vein on my temple, says this is not good for my wa. Even a tomato-thieving varmint has a calming influence in comparison.

Comng soon - The world is flat

Any day now one of the GnOPe presidential candidates will declare the world flat, in accord with the Biblical views of their followers, and their minions will rush off to change Wikipedia entries that say "globe", "globalism", "globe", or "sphere". Apparently the present day conservative mind thinks they are entitled to their own facts, especially those facts that shore up conservative ideology, even if those facts were mere fictions, whereas facts laboriously gathered and documented that fail to support said ideologies are blithely discarded, ignored, or disparaged. So this is what GnOPe is coming to - a party of No-nothings, but ideologically pure.
GOP! GOP! Ignore the science; drink the tea!
Notice how it works both ways. This is a nice slogan for chanting at various gatherings, and since the Phactor holds the copyright, it can be bought for the right, far-right, price.