OCEANIA ORACLE
ISSUE #23- 02/07/95
No Nonsense New Nation News
- © 1995
ISSUE #23- 02/07/95
No Nonsense New Nation News
- © 1995
INDEX
>From Richard Johnson:
Eric, here's a little something you might want to edit and stuff in the the Oracle. You in the secret-sig society can consider it another avenue for advertising. Last night, Sunday 5 Feb. 1995, I appeared on the "Libertarian Forum," a bi-weekly local-access talking-heads program. Other guests were Dan Vander Ploeg, the Lib. Party candidate ofr Oregon governor in 1994, and Thomas Cox, chairman of the Washington County Lib. Party. I took a disk full of Oceania pictures with me, in the hopes that we could show the city some of Jim Davidson's wonderful jpegs. Unfortunately they had only one Amiga in the studio and it was reserved for doing electronic titling. No one was sure how to convert the art from a PC disk to Ami disk. No one knew how to use the Ami to view a *.jpg picture. Finally, no one knew how to see that the pictures, if up on the screen, could be put on air. (As though it's somehow different than syncing titles...) So the pictures were a bust. I did get to mention Oceania a little bit. I got asked one question about what Oceania is. "... a floating country in the Caribbean that we're planning to build." So they asked about whether we had a constitution. And what it says. "It differs from other constitutions in that it starts off listing fundamental rights of individuals," I said. "It talks about how we have a right to life, and how that then means we have the power to defend that life, and the lives of others. We have a right to property and that means we have the power to use and dispose of it. We can associate any way we want. So business are voluntary associations of people, with designated powers, and the government is a special kind of very limited association of the people, with powers explicitly stated, and explicitly limited." Then they asked me about property rights. It must be my karma this week. :=) The host said he thinks that intellectual property should have no rights. I disagreed. Then they changed the subject. Later we took some telephone calls, but they were all about gun control. Anyway, it was a pleasant diversion and Oceania got a little bit of exposure. -- Richard Johnson
I would like to thank Jason Dour with providing us with some good CGI scripts for a web site and Randy Ralph for his good icons. I would also like to thank everyone who has given me good leads on web sites.
I just received a 1 gig drive to upgrade my capacity to work on a web site. This brings my total of compressed space to 2.66 gigs.
Ummm, it's "SDIO" not "SD10." It stands for Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. The Delta 180 program and its successors used the "brick" to good advantage in keeping a low-cost program on a very rapid schedule. Let us hope it works as well for us.
The editor replies:
Unfortunately the virtual brick idea was very unpopular. I got many complaints about it. This idea has been dropped.
I thought of the Oceania project when I read this: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -George Bernard Shaw -Anupa
Passport discussion from Augustine Cano:
Number of languages and which languages are more appropriate: English French and Spanish I agree with, but greek? Since English is the de facto international language in today's world, there's no doubt that it should be in first place. French, being the international/diplomatic language of some years ago should probably be there too, but probably in 3rd place. Spanish should probably go in 2d place for various reasons: the sheer number of spanish speaking people in the world and the proximity to Oceania of quite a few spanish speaking countries being the most obvious. In fourth place I'd have Chinese (Mandarin). The sheer number of people that speak Mandarin make this reasonable, as well as the growing importance of China in today's world economy, not to mention Taiwan which, even though small, manufactures just about everything for the whole world (well, slight exageration on my part :-) If a fifth language were to be added, it should definitely be Russian.
I have a volunteer (native speaker) that's willing to write the Chinese part. Also, the Spanish feels awkward in places. For instance there is a word for "visa": quite simply "visado". Obviously the person who wrote the Spanish is not a native spaniard. I'd be glad to help in this respect. Of course, I'd need to know the full text of everything that will go in the passport, preferably in all languages. I could also attempt the French part if you can't find a native French speaker: although I speak French fluently, my days of translating official documents are long past and it's likely my translation wouldn't have the right "bureaucratic" feel. I'd try to find a French passport as a model. If all else fails Berlitz will definitely find a native Francais to do it. Berlitz prides itself about only using native teachers/translators. For the few words required, it could not be too expensive. I used to work for Berlitz years and years ago.
I also have no idea how the passport is going to be tamper-proof. I suggest that the page with the picture and signature be plasticized (covered with a transparent plastic film glued to the paper that will destroy the paper if it is pulled off) In order to allow the bearer to sign it without having to go to Las Vegas, the film could be not totally in place leaving the signature area usable. Once the owner signs it (right away!) the remaining protecting film can be peeled off and the transparent plastic stuck to the paper page. This would prevent tampering with the picture as well as the signature. Also, all pages should have some soft color print on them, to prevent erasures to go undetected.
--
Augustine Cano
Jason A. Dour has joined this society which adds the following .sig to all their messages:
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