If you were going to weaponize an issue to take advantage of the weak points in the American political system — to highlight all the blind spots, dysfunctions, and irrationalities — you would create climate change. And then you would stand back and watch the world burn.

…

Either way, we’ve waited so long to begin cutting emissions that two degrees looks flatly impossible. We’re on track for 4°C of warming — which is nearly the temperature difference between the world now and the Ice Age. That’s a nightmare for the planet. The World Bank tried to model it and realized that they had no idea what would happen — or whether humans could manage. There’s “no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible,” they concluded.

Secondly, this xkcd

80 years. Steady advance of western medicine or not, I probably won’t still be here in 80 years but I’d like for Olivia and Charlotte to be surrounded by their great grandkids, having lived a life full of peace and hope and wonder. It makes me sick to think of the world they’ll grow old in being one that can only support a fraction of the population it can today and for my family and me to watch the world as it crumbles.

I’m very concerned. I wrote this because I want to be active in this fight. That has to be more than talking about it on the internet but maybe writing it here is a way of committing myself. I also wrote it here because I know some of you who will read it will think I’m being dramatic and foolish. If you think so, please don’t hesitate to tell me. The penalty for being wrong on this is too huge for us all to not be talking about it, whatever our core beliefs.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/12/the_exoneration_of_kash_register_and_the_problem_of_false_eyewitness_testimony.html

21 inches long, 8 lbs 3.4 oz.

Catie, Olivia and I are fortunate to have the opportunity to move back to Virginia to be closer to the densest concentrations of our family. The current plan is to settle in Richmond, Virginia, a place that both of us are very fond of. We’ll be leaving Seattle approximately June 22nd.

The three of us are are also expecting a new baby girl to join our family around the beginning of September. We’re very excited.

Catie will finish out her current school year with Eton and then take some time off to be with Olivia and her new baby sister before looking for a new teaching position at in a year or so.

I’ll be continuing to work for Amazon (less than three years now until I get a red border on my badge) but will be transfering out of the EC2 service team and into the Amazon Web Services security team. Their offices are in Northern VA and I’ll be telecommuting from Richmond about 4/5 of the time.

Olivia will be entering a Montessori primary school program either midway through the fall semester or in the spring. She’s very excited about those shelves full of puzzles and school ranks high among the topics that come up in our bedtime conversations (moving bears, people buying our house, going on an airplane to Virginia and potty parades being other common themes).

We’ve signed a lease on a beautiful house in Richmond a couple blocks off of Monument near Libby. 1500 square feet with a large backyard, a sunporch and a 1.5 car detached garage. One bedroom for us, one for Olivia, an office / playroom, a spare bedroom, and two bathrooms.

Between getting our house on the market, finding a rental, doula, midwife, a new Amazon team and looking at Schools for Olivia, we’ve been very very busy this year and are looking forward to kicking back and relaxing sometime in the fall of 2014.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=uxuMB4rje4Q#t=83s

There’s something more interesting in this image though. I agree with the democratic platform 97% of the time. I agree with the president, who I consider seriously compromised on certain justice issues 85% of the time. I am even able to find agreement with Libertarians on 39% of the issues and I agree with the average American 60% of the time (sloppy statistics because I have no idea how this sample was taken). But I agree with the the Republican party on only 4% of the issues addressed in this survey. That seems like a huge gap.

I’m going to make a sloppy leap here because I don’t think this image really supports my argument but it reminds of a notion I have which is that the Republicans gain most of their support from people who only support small subsets of their platform. They’re supported by pro-life advocates who disagree with the platforms economic policies for instance. I disagree with 95% of the republican platform but I don’t think I disagree with the average republican voter on 95% of these issues.

Then I got to work and realized I’d managed to forget my pannier.

So I turned around and rode back home. This time I didn’t feel strong, I felt naked without all my stuff. Stupid Wednesday.