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? 

Advice on political strategy

University politics are vicious because so little is at stake, so TPP has a career's worth of experience in tactics and strategy.  One of the best ways to get rid of some really terrible, awful, no-good, very bad idea is to let the proponents give it a try.  When TANGVB ideas utterly fail to deliver, they can be easily removed and discarded, and so-labeled TANGVB so as never to appear again or be tried again.  So why is the GnOPe so opposed to allowing the Affordable Care Act to be enacted?  If as TANGVB as they say, and they certainly have said so, ACA will be a huge failure and they will easily be able to repeal the law.  Why are so many GnOPe controlled states stone-walling implementation of the Affordable Care Act?  If ACA is as sure to fail as they say, then why not let it fail on its own merits while crowing, "We told you so!"  Could it be that they really think ACA will work so they don't dare give it a try?  The fanaticism over defunding ACA would then make sense because when ACA works well in state A, then GnOPe controlled state B citizens would actually see that their elected officials have stiffed them, so you can't let ACA be enacted at all in the fear of ACA's success!  That's what the GnOPe is so afraid of!  Oh, these guys are so transparent!