Did you know that those leftist hippies in the Vatican are trying to be the first Country to be powered exclusively by green technologies?

This got me wondering why it is in this country, that the Republican party has become this odd entity where all "true Republicans" must believe the exact same thing on all issues. Thus, honest debate on the Republican side of the fence seems to have ended. Perhaps it's a combination of the success of Newt Gingrich's Contract with America and Rush Limbaugh's strong numbers within the Republican core. Some would call this being "disciplined" but for me, there are just too many of these beliefs I just can't go along with. 

The democrat's are a completely different thing. There doesn't seem to be any single driving ideal within the Democratic party. On just about every issue, except perhaps Pro-Choice and pro-environment (and there's still outliers there), they are all over the place.

That's why the Dems can't get health-care reform passed. To many different ideas.

I've always considered myself to be an independent but I've hated the Republican's more than the democrats for the last 10 years. At least the Democrats will engage in true debate rather than just towing the party line dictated by Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh or whoever it is that's deciding that to be a true Republican you must think Global Warming is a hoax, all guns are great, Civil Unions are evil, the poor deserve what they got, Sarah Palin is wonderful, all regulation is bad and corporations wont abuse their power...

I'd rather vote for the folks that truly debate their ideas and never get anything done.

I wrote much of the below in response to a friend's post on Facebook. Figured it was worth sharing in a more public format... 

There is no credible dispute over the following facts: 1.) The Greenhouse effect is real and can be easily replicated through simple experiments, 2.) Humans are pouring Greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere at unprecedented levels, 3.) The planet is warming and has been since 1880.

What is much more difficult to know and remains under intense study and debate is exactly what impact humans are having on Climate Change. Based on all known evidence, the majority of Climate Scientists believe humans are playing a significant role in accelerating global warming. It's all very complex, too complex to be easily proven.

It is good that there is debate and intense study within the scientific community. That is the very foundation of science.

But to take that debate out of context and to present select tidbits to an ignorant public is just the same FUD techniques used by Cigarette companies, Dioxin manufactures, ...

Currently, the best science tells us it is real, we are causing it, and to continue the current trend could be catastrophic.

Perhaps in 10 years we'll have enough data and models to better access the anthropogenic impact. But for now, it would seem to me that the appropriate conservative approach would be to take the safe road and try to decrease our output of greenhouse gasses.

Even if it does turn out that humans have a minimal impact on climate change, we'll still be less dependent on foreign oil, our air and water will be healthier and lots of great jobs will have been created.
 

We took advantage of the spectacular weather today (high of 78 and low humidity in the middle of July) by taking a trip to the Confluence State Park and Graffton, IL.

The Confluence State Park sits between the Mississippi and Missouri river where they conflue (aka converge, no idea if conflue is a real word or what it's proper spelling may be). The actual confluence point was closed today due to flooding but we went to a spot below the lock and dam and chatted with fisherfolk and watch barges go through the locks and threw rocks. All wonderful things in the minds of young boys.

We also hiked the Two Pecan Trail. I'm a big fan of wetlands and meadows and thus loved this trail. There are certainly parts of it that aren't perfect, but it also has some spectacular sections that make up for the lesser areas.

We finished up at the Confluence State Park around 4pm and on a whim decided to head over the river into Alton, and then up the Great River Road...

I've truly been remiss in my updates for the last few months but taking care of two little guys, running and try to grow a company, and rehabbing a basement has pretty well removed any concept of freetime from my life. Thankfully, the basement is pretty much done so that should make things more manageable now.

The boys are both doing great. Gavin continues to be such an easy going and fun baby. He's quick to smile back when smiled at and is figuring out his hands and feet more and more everyday. Declan is very much a two year old. He's working hard to differentiate his identity from that of his parents. Basically, that means he's saying "No" a lot and doing the opposite of what we tell him. He's still wonderful and well behaved overall, but there are certainly times where he strains your patience a bit. It is so fun watching him grow up.

Yesterday, we were watching TV. Declan hopped off the couch. Walked into the kitchen. We heard him open the fridge.. a few things were shuffled... close the fridge. Then he came back into the room with his sippy-cup and a smile. He took a few chugs off the sippy cup, climbed back up on the couch and continued watching TV. And Jen and I knew he had just reached the next level.

That was a truly rare case where Declan said nothing. Most of the time at home, he's extremely vocal. His pronunciation is excellent. He can say almost anything though 3 syllable words still tend to throw him... Banana is "Baanna". Repition is the standard. Often you can see the gears turning as he tries to make sure he's phrasing, emphasising, pronunciating, or describing things right. Sometimes though, it's just to get what he wants. "Dekan needs his binkie, Dekan needs his binkie, Dekan needs his binkie, ...."

To be continued...

Through the many months of pregnancy and even before that, we've done a lot of thinking and talking about, "what's it going to be like to be a family of four?" Declan can be quite a handful now as he's being a proper toddler and "asserting his independence" and "defining himself separate from his parents." When we thought back on when Declan was an infant and how he somehow managed to keep us quite busy despite the fact that he didn't do much besides eat, sleep, and poo.

So far, it's been pretty much a cakewalk. Jen still doesn't have complete mobility, but then we're used to that  as she's pretty much the same as the last few months of pregnancy. Gavin truly does sleep 23 hours a day like they say, and during the day he's generally fine with sleeping whereever we put him. Sometimes he wants to be carried but he's so light that's no big deal. And we no longer have illusions about infants being particularly fragile so we can shift our hold on him as needed to accomplish whatever it is we need to do...

Welp, we've gone an' done it again. Mini-us-#2 is on the way. I'm quite a bit late in announcing this one here on the blog (seems the other one keeps me quite busy) but we're due in late February. And as I'm sure you can't quite clearly tell the gender from the attached photo, no need to reveal that.

Declan's 2nd Halloween. Funny how much he liked all the scary stuff around the house. He really enjoyed the ghoul hanging from the foyer light along with our graveyard and the pumpkins.

This was his first year really trick or treating. At first he seemed confused by it all but then he started getting the hang of it. He seemed to prefer getting to climb people's stairs over getting candy. Once he got going he didn't like it when the routine was interupted: go up sidewalk, climb stairs, ring doorbell, stare at candy bowl until candy is placed in plastic pumpkin, say bye, go down stairs, repeat. There were a couple houses he just wanted to stay and climb the stairs over and over. Both had boys slightly older than him who wanted to give him candy every time he came up. There were a couple times he worked up the nerve to grab the candy himself but then he didn't seem to get the "only a couple pieces" concept.

Zoe joined us for the last couple houses and then we went back to our house and gave out candy with Grandma and Grandpa Capstick and Brian.

Used to be, Declan would wake up around 5 or 6 AM every morning, I'd go get him, bring him to our bed and Jen would feed him and we'd all go back to sleep until 7:30 or so... Not sure whether it's because it's getting light so much earlier or that he's just older, but he's stopped going back to sleep now. And so the last couple mornings, Declan and I have been getting up early... and it's the best thing I've done in a long time.

Yesterday, we went for a bike ride around Forest Park, which I haven't done in a surprisingly long time. Today, we went hiking in the amazing Oak Savanna in Forest Park and then went to the Market in the Loop and stocked up on fresh fruit. Declan eats an amazing amount of fruit. We go through a cantalope, a pineapple, a big bag of grapes, and lots more every 4 days or so.

Walking through the savanna this morning reminded me of my mornings when I used to work at Miniwanca and how much I miss it. I just feel so much more connected and balanced when I'm there; spending all day every day outdoors, exercising constantly, interacting with and leading groups of open-minded folks who question everything, discussing philosophy and spirituality and the true meat of life. To be able to spend two months a year in that world was such a blessing. It grounded me and gave me a chance to see my life from another perspective and examine my path.

Slaving away at the office

Eric Berger was foolish enough to sign on as employee number two at my Web Development company, Efficion Consulting. Eric's been friends with Jen and me for years which is great since he's working out of Efficion's world headquarters (aka, the middle bedroom). In addition to administering regular footrubs to the other Efficion employee's (that's me), Eric will be doing HTML/CSS, PHP, DotNetNuke, ASP.NET, and lots of other things that probably won't mean much to most people but result in great websites.