Tannishblog

Here’s a taste of the State of the Union Mr. Bush will not mention tonight. Welcome to the Age of Polytrauma and the Year of Lost Hopes for more than 16,000 US troops.

Via NY Times:

To describe the maimed survivors of this ugly new war, a graceless new word, polytrauma, has entered the medical lexicon. Each soldier arriving at Tampa’s Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center, inside the giant veterans hospital, brings a whole world of injury. The typical patient, Dr. Scott said, has head injuries, vision and hearing loss, nerve damage, multiple bone fractures, unhealed body wounds, infections and emotional or behavioral problems. Some have severed limbs or spinal cords.

[…]

The surge in complex casualties, doctors found, required major reorganizing, enabling them to focus extraordinary medical and therapeutic expertise on each patient and to offer counseling, housing and other aid to their often shellshocked wives, children and parents.

This is the true cost of “Spreading Democracy.” Is it worth it?

I’ve held this theory close to my heart for years: The reign of the white man is over. I have no evidence for this outside my own experience. While more educated people than I will likely argue this from various standpoints, but to my ignorant eyes, this seems self-evident.

Perhaps it began in America with the emancipation of slaves. Perhaps this coincides with Euro-centric imperialism fading out because Caucasian dominance has run out of places to conquer. We’ve gone from “New World / Old World” to “One World” in a couple of centuries, and the electronic frontier is making the world smaller still.

White, male dominance has had its problems. Our history is unnecessarily bloody. While the system seems to work, it only works for a few. To my way of thinking, this is a huge fault line. Our Great White God and our Great White Hope has not served the planet well. We could use a cultural overhaul.

Recent events emanating from America I interpret as evidence of the fall of the white man. The very type that fears a change of cultural dominance is waging unpopular wars, and applying strong-arm tactics within American politics. They will not go down without a fight, but they will still go down. It’s happening already.

It’s past time for a global authority to heal the anachronistic chest-beating nationalism remaining from past centuries. What has occurred in the past during the white man’s reign will kill us all if it continues. As the descendants of Europe comprise a small part of the global community, the vast majority of humans have no voice. This is changing, thanks in large part to the technologies the ruling white men have embraced.

Although I’m a white male, I’m not sorry to hand the reins over to someone else. Perhaps geopolitical dominance by a different culture is just what the world needs. (Even as I type these words, I imagine a chorus of dissention.) Better would be a global consensus, however unlikely. Who’s to say this group or that group is better for humanity? Each cultural viewpoint contains different strengths and weaknesses, just as the people who comprise the groups. The Asians, for example, may bring society to a crash, too. They number so many more than us. They deserve a hand in guiding humanity from the cultural disease we are suffering.

As for us over-inflated white guys – time to pack it in.

“U.S. power and influence has declined precipitously because of Iraq and the war on terror and that creates an incentive for anyone who wants to make trouble to go ahead and make it.”

Who said this, and in what context? Read this.

I worked hard this week: 53 hours, mostly driving from job site to job site throughout lower Wisconsin. This mild winter we’re enjoying is jump starting the roofing season…

While making my daily trip north toward Milwaukee yesterday, I find myself behind a late-eighties model Camry in faded and road-worn silver paint. On the bumper is a new blue bumper sticker reading:

Don’t Blame Me I Voted For Bush

I read this a couple of times awaiting enlightenment. Changing lanes, I accelerate a bit to look into the vehicle. Inside is a fleshy Caucasian woman, a Betty Boop card handing from the rear view mirror like a pine tree air freshener: No enlightenment there.

The semi in front is moving too slowly. I get back behind the Camry. Don’t Blame Me I Voted For Bush. She’s one of those tunnel vision drivers that never check the side or rear view mirrors. She glides into a lane and stays there at as constant a speed as traffic will allow. Don’t Blame Me I Voted For Bush. She’s not curious about the gorgeous sunrise or the other commuters around here; not a glance left or right. Don’t Blame Me I Voted For Bush.

I surmise that this woman will never stumble across the vast cyber-sphere to these words. She’s probably not the type to read lefty blogs. Chances are astronomical that this page would show on any search request she may enter, if indeed she uses computers. Still, should a unlikely meeting occur between us, I would say this to her:

I don’t get it.

I’m a bit behind on my daily readings this week; work is overwhelming me.

That said, I quote from yesterday’s Washington Post:

It’s undisputed that Mr. Abramoff tried to use his influence, and his restaurant and his skyboxes and his chartered jets, to sway lawmakers and their staffs. Information uncovered by Mr. Bush’s own Justice Department shows that Mr. Abramoff tried to do the same inside the executive branch.

Under these circumstances, asking about Mr. Abramoff’s White House meetings is no mere exercise in reportorial curiosity but a legitimate inquiry about what an admitted felon might have been seeking at the highest levels of government. Whatever White House officials did or didn’t do, there is every reason to believe that Mr. Abramoff was up to no good and therefore every reason the public ought to know with whom he was meeting.

Whew! You know its going bad for the team when WaPo is taking pot shots at the Republicans. While most of the media is chorusing “Alito” like it’s the new hit opera, the other “A” is the real story. Abramoff’s White house ties, if exposed, may scuttle the already listing “Good Ship GOP”

Well, one can hope…

As if we need more data to support the obvious:

The wrong people are in Charge, here!

NY Times on the recent energy boom which, doesn’t trickle down to consumers, and the Bushovik policies that rob the government of proceeds in this time of record defecits.

If royalty payments in fiscal 2005 for natural gas had risen in step with market prices, the government would have received about $700 million more than it actually did, a three-month investigation by The New York Times has found.

But an often byzantine set of federal regulations, largely shaped and fiercely defended by the energy industry itself, allowed companies producing natural gas to provide the Interior Department with much lower sale prices - the crucial determinant for calculating government royalties - than they reported to their shareholders.

As a result, the nation’s taxpayers, collectively, the biggest owner of American oil and gas reserves, have missed much of the recent energy bonanza.

When the banks forclose on our great nation, we’ll all need to learn Chinese.

Pouncing Tiger, Cringing President…

I look out my window this morning at the post-snow storm fog and notice a neighbor’s SUV with a single faded support ribbon, only a pale blue smudge marks the once colorful message in support of our troops. Also, as I drive around for work I notice far fewer political slickers on vehicles as last year. I never litter my bumper with slogans because I’m never quite sure if they come off. I picture hours of furtive, sweaty labor in garages across America peeling, scrubbing and scraping the backsides of our chariots to rid ourselves the humiliating association of a loosing candidate. Yes; the Kerry stickers were the first to go.

I still see, in my travels throughout lower Wisconsin, the occasional Bush ’04 oval affixed to window or rear panel, and for some odd reason the colors haven’t faded over time. Perhaps they are secretly being replaced with fresh ones, or – more likely – the evil powers creating them have magicked the dyes against fading. I have noted before how the Bush supporters tend toward aggressive driving habits in large vehicles; perhaps their trying to compensate for something…

Democracies must give a minimal nod to the mood of its people. Whatever an administration decides, it must try to involve public opinion. To do less is folly. Yet this is what our administration is trying to accomplish: forcing an agenda of imperialism in the guise of spreading Democracy without any nod toward Democratic controls at home. Bush and Co. does not hear the ever fickle voice of the people. Weather one agrees with the administration or not, one thing stands out; they have their ideas set in stone. Yesterday’s pep rally at the Republican National Convention shows how little they care about the shifting mood in America. Their message is clear, to paraphrase Roald Dahl: They’re right, you’re wrong, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

Meanwhile the silent message of fading and disappearing stickers continues across America. The will of the people doesn’t always have to be spoken aloud. Politicians of both camps have the unfortunate propensity toward blindness. The Democrats were blind to the shift which brought the current crop into power, and now the pendulum returns.

We average, grubby Americans of the working class love the troops as we ever have, but we want them home. We cannot back a war without clear gains, and we cannot support leaders who won’t listen to us – or at least pretend to listen. In the minds of more and more Americans, Iraq is a loosing battle; time to set aside our ridiculous national pride and lick our wounds. It’s over.

Karl Rove came out of the closet along with RNC Chair Ken Mehlman to rally the troops and shake their pompoms in preparation for the upcoming mid terms. I see no reports if they wore skirts, or not, and perhaps that’s a good thing…

The good news is the RNC is running on the same busted platforms as before: 9/11, 9/11, terrorism, national security and, um, 9/11. While the rhetoric has tempered a bit, the oligarchs are singing the same tune. Good Dog Karl managed to use 9/11 twice in one sentence:

“At the core, we are dealing with two parties that have fundamentally different views on national security,” Rove said. “Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview. That doesn’t make them unpatriotic — not at all. But it does make them wrong — deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong.”

Not bad…

The bad news is that the RNC is running on the same old platform. Although the underpinnings are loose and missing in some places, many Americans still want to believe the in imminent destruction of parts of our nations. I find it interesting that most southern, and western voters are red, while the large cities in the north and northeast, prime targets for Osamafication, are blue. The red-staters perhaps show their disdain for city folk and wish them eradicated? But I digress.

Bring out a new audio tape of veiled threats and weak offer for peace, which the government couldn’t agree to if they tried, and rouse the rabble for the next upcoming battle: election season. There may be, somewhere in the bowels of America, enough die-hard war dandies to keep the current majority. On the other hand, one more news flash about internal corruption and this gig may be over. I wouldn’t want to bet on this one…

So: expect more of the same from the RNC. More corruption, more cheating, more lies and most of all more references to 9/11 that any sane person would care to count. Because when the grit is wiped away, our Republican congress came to power due to a confluence of these factors. The most insidious crime of the new century is how the Bushoviks used the tragedy for political gain. And they’re still doing it…

I really wanted to post something erudite (for a change) in response to Osama’s latest tape. Read the complete transcript here. After spending a couple of hours pingponging the blogocube, I found, via Lance Mannion, the Sideshow - and I gave up: A more succinct summation cannot be written.

It’s pretty obvious the Republicans worked fast to make sure everyone knew the talking point in response to bin Laden’s tape: Tie him to Democrats, liberals, and anti-war supporters. And they can’t let up for a minute on that, or else people might notice that bin Laden is much more like Fallwell than like Moore, has far closer ties to the Bush family and other Republicans than to Kennedy, and that it was the Bush administration that left us open for 9/11 in the first place and they still aren’t doing a damned thing to make us safer. And the media, including alleged liberals like Matthews, picked it up right on cue.

Darn! Outblogged again!

I’m not much into business news stories, and you’ll not see much on that front here, but I’m elated that AMD is gaining market share against Intel. I love computers; often I say with pride that I understand them more than I understand humans, and it’s true! Early on I jumped on the Advanced Micro Devices bandwagon, doing my part to create a dynamic market, foreseeing a potential for monopoly in Intel very much akin to the slothful market behemoth that Microsoft is still.

Due to the fact that there were no serious competing operating systems out there – there still isn’t – Microsoft was not keen on refining their product and consumers were forced to deal with crappy and overpriced software: Windows 95, anyone? Not to mention MS Office sticker shock! Only as the various Linux mutations grew in support and sophistication did MS finally build an OS that is stable with Windows XP. The need for a stable computer network, one Microsoft couldn’t provide even with NT, forced the software giant to adapt: In my opinion, decades too late. Even Star Office is becoming a real player lately.

Meanwhile Intel, long seeking a monopoly in itself, has consistently been foiled by upstart AMD. This dynamic helped fuel Moore’s Law and enabled engineering feats unanticipated in the brief, turbulent history of micro architecture. Who in 1970 would have dared predict dual-core processors or clock speeds above 3 GHz? All the while, consumers benefited from real competition in the marketplace. Had Microsoft this kind of tooth-and-nail marketing competition… Well, I envision voice activated 3D interfaces, machines that update themselves on the fly, without ever needing rebooting. Who knows what else we could now be working with if Microsoft had to run for its money?

That is why I applaud AMD for sticking it out in a tough, expensive industry. Today and for the past year, virtual centuries in internet time, they have the best product going, beating benchmarks consistently against a giant in terms of infrastructure, fabrication capabilities, and R&D budget. For now and for the near future, that’s where my I place my bets!