It warmed up, sort of

After bottoming out at -21.3°C (-6.3°F) around 8:30 this morning, the temperature has skyrocketed to -18.7°C (-1.7°F) a few minutes ago. I decided to walk to my optometrist appointment, 12 minutes there and 13 minutes back thanks to a red light, which wasn't too bad in my swaddling. When I got back, Cassie lasted just over 4 minutes before bolting for my front door. Smart dog.

Outside Chicago, things look a lot worse: a major winter storm has formed west of Texas with a trajectory that will hit just about every population center from Albuquerque to Boston over the next 72 hours—except us. Even Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry had to warn his constituents to "get off the roads, get comfortable, and cook a gumbo." (My dinner tonight will be homemade chicken soup, but same principle.)

In other news:

• Tom Nichols dreads finding out how the US military will react to truly unhinged orders that could come from the OAFPOTUS. Julia Ioffe concurs.
• Matthew Yglesias looks at the collapse of childhood vaccinations and wonders if we'll be able to fix this horrible legacy.
• Jeff Maurer tries to make sense of a new poll showing a plurality of voters calling themselves "independent" but don't seem to want a new, centrist party. That said, "to some extent, Gallup’s question doesn’t measure how much people identify with either party, but rather how cool it is to call yourself 'independent.'"

Finally, fitness technology company Strava is going public, a move that The Economist thinks is cause for a below-average dad joke.