A to Z Challenge countdown

Less than a day until the A to Z Challenge, and I've changed the blog header. The flying pig is a souvenir from Mexico, as you may have guessed.

On April 1, we'll launch our examination of odd words with Absquatulate.

Counting down to the A to Z Challenge

I'm looking forward to Wednesday, not to play April Fool's jokes, but because April brings with it the A to Z Challenge. My blogs are planned out through the letter O so far, and my theme is odd words that may have escaped your attention.

So until then, have a look at the poppies blooming in my home town of Las Cruces:

Ted Cruz, climate denier

An easy call: No.

Today Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President. He is a Harvard and Princeton graduate, though he doesn't sound like it. How can someone who is so smart deny climate change? When scientists refer to global warming, they refer to a trend. That New England has an especially snowy, cold winter doesn't make a mockery of the scientific claims. Complex changes are going on and have been at least since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. That isn't to say that all changes are manmade; there are natural cycles that have brought on multiple ice ages, but human activity adds unprecedented quantities of pollutants to the air. That may be accelerating change, and most likely is.

Senator Cruz claims he wants to repeal "every word" of Obamacare and abolish the IRS. Neither will happen, nor should it. Both are simpleminded positions. If the Affordable Care Act is flawed, let's fix it. Citizens need access to health care and shouldn't be made to wait while Republicans destroy one system and then talk about whether to replace the Act from scratch. As for the IRS, they can't do anything Congress doesn't allow them to do. So Congress needs to tighten the controls and simplify the tax code. Good luck on either of those things happening.

Cruz is trying to nail down the right flank of his party, where the Primary voters tend to come from. He is far down in current preference polls, and it will be interesting to see how much support he can gin up.