My Column About Donald Trump...

Rather than write a column about local issues, I have decided to dip my toe in the 2012 presidential waters.

Here's a column about Donald Trump:

http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-c-2011-05-03-187113.114126-sub-Donald-Trump-not-a-good-Republican-candidate-for-2012.html

Hopefully this will be an attack on Trump from an unexpected direction.  I've heard Trump criticized on other grounds, like his divorce from his first wife, his tendency to attach "Trump" to everything (that he even jokes about), and his hair, and those attacks can be answered.

The eminent domain abuse criticism, although Michelle Malkin and John Stossel have engaged in it, has not to my knowledge hit the general public's radar yet.  However, those two wrote against Trump years ago and he was not a viable candidate then.  Trump's record is, in all likelihood, getting more attention right now than in the past.

Hopefully this foolishness can be nipped in the bud before Trump gets the Republican nomination (and is likely defeated in a landslide by Obama) or runs as an independent, which could lead to the vote being split and the Democrat winning again.

For the record, if Trump wins the Republican nomination, I'm voting Libertarian.  Even though the Libertarians won't win and I've been somewhat less hostile toward government spending in recent years, Trump's abuse of eminent domain is antithetical to everything any self-respecting conservative (or for that many, any self-respecting liberal) stands for.

Another News Article Round-Up

Got a bit behind blogging because I've been chatting on the Starcraft 2 section of the Battle.net forums, workling on my planned pitch to Blizzard, reading Windmaster's Bane and Liberty's Crusade, and working on my book, so I'll post all the interesting news articles I've found over the last few days:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/685071

The imam who wants to expand the mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center has apparently been very helpful in U.S. counter-terrorism efforts.  This is one reason why I've been a big defender of allowing the Muslims of Lower Manhattan to expand their facility--needlessly irritating American Muslims is going to make them less likely to cooperate in anti-terrorism efforts and might encourage cultural separatism rather than assimilation.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/08/wind-power-industry/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

This is very interesting.  Although I'm a staunch free-trader, I recognize the usefulness of an industrial base.  Widespread adoption of wind-power is something that would keep factory jobs here (and maybe even expand them) because they're difficult to outsource due to the transportation costs.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/mars-farming/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

On my alternate-history forum, we had a big debate about the morality and practicality of space colonization.  This is something that's really interesting, as the ability to farm on another world is important for long-term viability.

Taking a Stand Against "Libel Tourism"

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/112397-protecting-american-free-speech-sens-patrick-leahy-and-jeff-sessions

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100810/pl_afp/uspoliticsmediaindustrynewspapersrightsinternet

Jim Hill, a bigwig in the Spalding County Republican Party, is a friend of Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and brought this matter to my attention.  It's not every day that I come out and praise Democrats, but it's very good that Sen. Leahy supported and President Obama signed this bill.  Ehrenfeld was a victim of "libel tourism" in Britain when Khalid bin Mahfouz, a wealthy Saudi, sued her in a British court over her book Funding Evil, Updated: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It.  Mahfouz also went after the writers of Alms for jihad and as a result, Cambridge University Press went so far as to request it be removed from libraries in the United States.  I suspect this has something to do with how few copies Amazon.com seems to have, since Cambridge University Press agreed to destroy all unsold copies.

("Libel tourism" is particularly bad in Britain, whose libel laws impose the burden of proof on the defendant and not the plaintiff.  How delightfully medieval.)

According to his New York Times obituary, Mahfouz had been libeled in the past--people falsely accused him of being Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law.  However, this still does not mean that the "chilling effect" due to fears of libel judgements does not exist.  The United Nations Human Rights Committee has taken issue with British libel laws, as have others.

The UN: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/hrcommittee/ireland2008.html

The Global Journalist: http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2004/07/01/libel-tourism/

The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/books/review/Donadio-t.html?ex=1350532800&en=a46a9c67602861ee&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

In particular, the UN report and the New York Times point out that due to the Internet, British libel laws are causing a "chilling effect" worldwide.

And in many of these cases, it's rich people from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia--my least favorite Middle Eastern country, more so than Iran--who are behind it.  TGJ reports that the Saudi ambassador to Britain successfully pressured the Daily Mail to not publish an excerpt of While America Slept, which is about 9/11.

Kudos to the House and Senate for their strong support of this bill and kudos to Obama for signing it.  Freedom of speech forever.

In Defense of the "Ground Zero Mosque"

Just read the following article about the controversial "ground zero mosque" that's causing such a stir up in New York City.

http://www.economist.com/node/16743239

The author makes a good point.  The assimilatory ethos of the United States--we're centered on the idea of individual liberty and self-government rather than an ethnicity like the European states--helps explain why Muslims in Europe are more prone to extremism than Muslims in the United States.  Muslims are less alienated from the dominant culture in the U.S. than they are in Europe, since our way of life is less specific to any one religion, ethnicity, or social class.

In fact, American Muslim leaders have been helpful to fighting Islamic extremism.

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/US-Charges-14-With-Aiding-Somalias-al-Shabab-100043864.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10883870

If American Muslims become alienated from U.S. culture, assistance like this will dry up.  That's probably a far greater risk than American Muslims going off to join al-Qaeda or some other Islamist group, since non-action is easier than action.

Furthermore, let's remember that innocent Muslims (both foreign nationals and Americans) died on 9/11, including one who was an emergency medical technician who died assisting wounded victims of the attack. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks#Non-American_casualties
http://islam.about.com/blvictims.htm
http://crosswordbebop.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-many-muslims-died-in-911-attacks_01.html

Unless the mosque is allowed and a church, synagogue, or other house of worship is not, there is no reason to freak out.  Remember, ours is a secular government that ought not play favorites in regards to religion.

The only good argument that the critics of the "ground zero mosque" have is that it is insensitive to the concerns of New Yorkers and the families of 9/11 victims, who may view the building of an Islamic center near the site of an attack committed by Islamist radicals as insulting.  Incidentally, this is a view shared by some American Muslims as well as people like Sarah Palin and company.  Perhaps it was insensitive for the backers of the "ground zero mosque" to propose the idea, but I do not see how forbidding the construction of the center is justified because of hurt feelings alone.

That is a far better argument than Newt Gingrinch's insistence that the "mosque" (I have heard it's something more akin to a YMCA, containing both worship facilities and facilities of other sorts, including a food court) not be allowed until the Saudis allow the construction of a church--the actions of the United States, a secular democratic republic, should not be held hostage to those of a semi-theocratic absolute monarchy, no matter how odious the domestic policies of said monarchy are.  We are better than that.

American Muslims are Americans and have the rights and responsibilities of any American citizen.

Starcraft 2: What's Next? Spoilers Contained Therein...

I went to TVTropes the other day hoping to learn more about Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty but thinking that, since it wasn't that long since the game came out, I wouldn't have the entire storyline ruined.

Wrong.  Pretty much everything's there.  Life lesson--if you see a lot of spoiler tags, assume someone's beaten the game already and don't read them.

Of course, Starcraft 2 at present is only the human campaign, which my friend David said is so well-done it's better than the three-races campaigns of the first Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War and, for that matter, many movies.  Scuttlebutt online is that the Zerg campaign "Heart of the Swarm" won't come out for another 18 months.

So now it's time to speculate as to what's going to happen in that one.  For the record, this is all speculation based on what's happened in Starcraft 2 and scuttlebutt online about the later campaigns.  I don't have any inside sources feeding me information.

David told me that due to the revelation that Terran Dominion Emperor Arcturus Mengsk brought the Zerg down on Tarsonis, much of the Dominion is open revolt.  Furthermore, his son Valerian has taken much of the Dominion's fleet for the attack on Char, which would weaken Daddy Mengsk further, especially since David says that Valerian wants to use Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan (de-infested during the climax of the campaign) to help overthrow his father.

I suspect that the Zerg campaign will involve Kerrigan attempting to re-establish her control over the Zerg to use them against the Dominion alongside Raynor and Valerian and/or against the Zerg-Protoss hybrids and the "Great Hunger" behind them.  The rumors about the Zerg campaign describe it as kind of like a role-playing game where Kerrigan "levels up" and gathers new mutations to help her take control of more and more Zerg.

If her de-infestation decapitates the Zerg Swarm and it either starts falling under the control of the Protoss-Zerg hybrids Zeratul foresaw or goes wild and starts killing everything, I can imagine Kerrigan being needed to take control once again.  Zeratul said she was necessary to keep the hybrids from using the Swarm to exterminate the Terrans and Protoss and her taking control of the Zerg would be a good way to stop this.

Even before she was infested, according to other Starcraft media, she was able to control Zerg, but I could imagine her de-infestation could weaken her abilities in that field.  The "leveling up" part I could imagine as her using her psychic abilities to compensate for her lack of Zerg biology to take over more and more of the Swarm, although I hope to heck and back that they don't re-infest her (the "new mutations" part). 

I liked Raynor/Kerrigan from the first game (it alternated between being hilarious and sweet) and the breach brought about by Mengsk's treachery and her infestation was sad.  I would prefer to avoid the sad and unhappy, thank you very much.  Besides, it'd basically be rehashing the original game and Brood War and I think Blizzard can go in a much more interesting direction with Kerrigan's character than having her getting "re-bugged" (as opposed to her being "de-bugged").

Think about it.  She was probably the sole survivor of the forces Arcturus abandoned on New Gettysburg, there's the physical and psychic trauma of being captured and infested, and there's all the evil stuff she did as the Queen of Blades.  Assuming her de-infestation restores her human personality--which, based on how she recognizes Raynor and smiles, I think it did--she's going to likely have a colossal amount of survivor's guilt, post-traumatic stress disorder, and ordinary guilt-for-sin.  This on top of the issues she had before, due to her experiences in the Ghost program.

Her overcoming all these issues to take control of the Zerg Swarm once more, for good (protecting the sector from rogue Zerg, overthrowing Mengsk, and defeating the hybrids) and not for evil (her own self-aggrandizement) this time would make a really interesting story arc for her and perpetuate her status as a strong female character.  Bonus points if she does all this while dealing with everybody who is out to kill her for what she did as "the Queen of Blades" (essentially everyone except Raynor and Valerian, and Valerian might well sell her down the river to ensure his popularity with the general public and although Raynor can be trusted, some of his crew probably can't).

Her slowly but surely reverting to "the Queen of Blades" even after all the trouble gone to to save her from the Zerg and her own dark side (she killed Raynor's Protoss friend Fenix of her own free will) would just be a major downer.

Despite all the horrors I inflict on my characters in my own writing, I'm a big fan of happy endings.  Valerian overthrowing his tyrant father and bringing peace to the human powers of the Koprulu Sector, the "Great Hunger" being defeated by the combined efforts of the three races, and Raynor and Kerrigan retiring to Mar Sara to have lots of red-head telepathic kids who romp with Zerglings like ordinary kids might play with puppies would be a nice ending. 

Hopefully the Blizzard powers-that-be won't read this and decide to rework everything to avoid the possibility of being sued--apparently movie producers won't even listen to idea pitches anymore for fear of stuff like this happening.  Blizzard people, if you've already come up with something resembling the above storyline, for the love of all that's holy, USE IT!  I hereby solemnly swear that you did not get it from me!

(Seriously, they probably already have the macro-plot mapped out already even if the Zerg and Protoss campaigns aren't close to ready yet.  But people have done very odd things due to fear of litigation.)

In any event, the reason I haven't gone out and bought the game yet is because my computer isn't advanced enough to handle it.  I've got 2 GHz processor speed and 960 MB RAM and the game requires 2.6 GHz and 1 GB RAM.  Plus I don't know if my computer's video card can handle it, although I'm able to watch cinematics and the like on YouTube.

I'll swing by the Best Buy at some point and see how much it is to upgrade my computer.  I wonder if they have a "Starcraft 2 Upgrade Package" available?

If I do buy the game, I'll be sure to play it and blog about it here.