Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Chavez Gives Land Titles to the Indigenous. [AP World News] Six of Venezuela's indigenous communities received title to their ancestral lands on Tuesday in a ceremony that Venezuela's president said reversed centuries of injustice. President Hugo Chavez said he hoped the government would be able to turn over titles to 15 other indigenous communities by the end of the year. Amazingly, this article managed to completely avoid the question of who, if anybody, owned the land before. If it was the government, no problem. But what if it belonged to somebody? Venezuela has enough problems without Chavez trying to emulate Robert Mugabe along with Fidel Castro. 9:00:42 PM    comment () there was a lot of interest in P2P SIP at the last IETF meeting. Apparently there was a lot of interest in P2P SIP at the last IETF meeting, but some people don't see the need for it. People aren't clamoring for P2P email, so why VoIP? [Hack the Planet] Perhaps because it's considerably harder for the government to spy on your phone calls if they're not going through a central server? 6:26:05 PM    comment () I discovered a set of printed Frontier manuals in the CM area here at Symantec. There is a User Guide and a User Talk Reference Guide, both marked "First Edition: January, 1992." I didn't see a reference to which version of Frontier they were for, but they mention System 7, and I believe the earlier versions of Frontier predated that OS version. I suspect they came with Frontier 4, or perhaps Frontier 3. Both books have "Configuration Management Document--Do not remove from CM" written on the inside cover in big letters. Evidently Symantec CM must have been using Frontier at one time, although I couldn't find any indication of what that use might have been. That's not surprising, as (so far as I know) nobody who was in CM back then is still with the company. 12:53:39 PM    comment () # Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Immigration and the Welfare State - defend the borders. Eliminate welfare. Sounds pretty much in-line with the Constitution, defending the borders being one of the few powers given to the fedreal government. I don't see welfare mentioned anywhere. [End the War on Freedom] Actually the Constitution only gives the Feds the power to "establish a uniform rule of naturalization," or in modern terms, to set up the rules for becoming a citizen. It does not have the power to prevent non-white people from entering the country, although a sufficienty bigoted State government certainly could try. This kind of anti-immigrant bigotry is one of the very few areas where I disagree with Ron Paul. 9:57:07 AM    comment () I LOVE THIS GUY. In a totally Platonic, intellectual compatriot kind of way: I am getting a great deal of angry email because I scorned religion in a few posts this weekend. Some people seem to be surprised to learn that I don't share any of their religious beliefs. Allow me to clarify and pass on a few suggestions if [...] [The Light Of Reason] Let me add one further thought: religion is not an intellectual pass, or a "get out of cognitive deadends" free card. If you want to believe in myths and fables that are not supported by any evidence whatsoever, that's okay (in the sense that you're free to believe whatever nonsense you choose)--but it doesn't guarantee you the intellectual respect to which many believers seem to think they're automatically entitled. (By divine right, perhaps?) If I start writing long essays about my absolute faith in the reality of the Easter Bunny, I wouldn't expect anyone to take me seriously. Just because you call the Easter Bunny "God," that doesn't make your faith more serious, more genuinely philosophical, more complex, more legitimate, or more deserving of respect. It does, however, make it infinitely more common and entirely socially acceptable, if not socially demanded. And none of this is altered one teeny tiny microscopic bit because you really, really, really mean it and believe it down to the tips of your precious little toes. Well said. 9:46:37 AM    comment ()

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