000717.html

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 17 Jul 2000 12:00:00 GMT
[new stuff at end]

On Saturday I put in a request to switch billstclair.com to my Netherweb site. There are fairly straightforward command line tools for querying domains and nameservers, but my Linux machine is still not connecting to my ISP (haven't worked on it yet), so I'm using Sam Spade on my Windows machine to see how it's going. Netherweb has done their part, but the nameserver at namesecure.com, my domain's registrar, isn't yet up-to-date. Maybe those guys don't work over the weekend. I'm using the Windows version of Sam Spade, not the website. I downloaded it from the website a little while ago, but it doesn't appear to be available from there any more.

3:53pm EDT: It's up! www.billstclair.com now points at my Netherweb site! Yay! You might still see the old site if your nameserver takes a little longer than mine did to get the new info.

I found a link to the eatonweb portal over at BirdBrain's Nest. 927 weblogs and counting. Added to my links page. [brdbrain]

Jim Higgins at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Staying afloat on WEBLOGS: a good overview of the blogging world. [iowa]

Lenny Savino of Knight Ridder via Cryptome - Encryption market opening up: The Klinton administration is allowing U.S. companies to sell real encryption in Europe, "without any licensing or review". Well, bully for them. Why did they ever think they had any business restricting trade in encryption in the first place? When codes are outlawed, only outlaws will have codes. [/.]

"The genie is out of the bottle," Robert Holleyman, president and chief executive officer of the Business Software Alliance, a Washington-based trade association of software manufacturers, said Friday. Referring to encryption technology's proliferation throughout the world, he said: "Trying to control the spread of technology is like trying to use a chain link fence to hold back a river."

Declan McCullagh at Wired - Is Encryption Tax-Protective? Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers is wining that encryption is making it harder for him to collect taxes. Good. [grabbe]

There's a new issue of The Libertarian Enterprise.

  • Letter from Jonathan Taylor - Does a good job of telling Metallica why they're making a bad move by pressing charges against Napster users. Most importantly, Mr. Taylor and his friends will never again buy a Metallica album, and he bought all of them up to now.
    P.S - And please, if you have to continue to speak in public, could you pretty please stop referring to the band in the third person? A simple 'We' would do - I understand you're aging, but you're starting to remind me of Bob Dole, for christ's sake.
  • Letter from Paul Birch - an interesting perspective on the constitutionality of the war on drugs.
  • Why Democracy Failed in America by Michael Peirce - The failure of democracy in America was assured by the War of Northern Agression. He blames it mostly on laziness and stupidity. He is probably right.
    So the failure of democracy in the United States was a foregone conclusion, from that time on. After "Honest Abe" threw out the constitution, Bill Clinton was inevitable.

    This system we call "democracy," and which was actually set up as a republic, could stand only when men where principled enough to make it stand. The old adage held true, that as soon as the masses realized they could vote themselves "bread and circuses" they would, and they darn sure did. Another writer in that distant century noted that as long as Americans were good our experiment would work. It's not working -- care to draw any radical conclusions from that?

    ...

    Yet the violent culture is a product of failed government programs and the breakdown of conventional morality! So more of that is better? Much of the violence in this violent culture stems from the government and it's ill considered and imaginary "war on drugs." It should be called the "War on Freedom." Gun control has subtly crept into this country at such an alarming rate you will soon find it very difficult indeed to purchase a firearm, let alone carry one. Yet politicians are slamming each publicly other for not being sufficiently in favor of gun control. Try basing your self-defense on the promises of an American politician. You'd better take some harp lessons first -- you'll be needing them.

R.W. Bradford at Liberty Magazine via mapinc.org - The Life and Death of Peter McWilliams: Another good article about the murder of Peter McWilliams.

Dave Winer at DaveNet - The Napster Weblog: Dave has created a Napster weblog for talking about the issues of net distribution of music. [script]

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