For anyone still curious, in 2.8, the code for the "meta" widget (and other default sidebar widgets) is stored in \wp-includes\default-widgets.php.
ryanweijian, if you delete the following lines (and only the following lines) from that file, the meta section will remain installed, but with the the RSS, Comment RSS, and Wordpress Themes links removed:
<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" title="<?php echo esc_attr(__('Syndicate this site using RSS 2.0')); ?>"><?php _e('Entries <abbr title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</abbr>'); ?></a></li>
<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('comments_rss2_url'); ?>" title="<?php echo esc_attr(__('The latest comments to all posts in RSS')); ?>"><?php _e('Comments <abbr title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</abbr>'); ?></a></li>
<li><a href="http://wordpress.org/" title="<?php echo esc_attr(__('Powered by WordPress, state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform.')); ?>">WordPress.org</a></li>
To hide the Meta section entirely, go into the Dashboard and select Appearance, and then Widgets. Then just drag the "Meta" section out of your sidebar, and into the "Available Widgets" box.
Let me know if that's not clear and I can put together some screenshots. None of this involves/requires the MiniMeta plugin.