To my surprise, I received a number of resume requests just as I began my vacaction, so I’ve posted an updated version.

After working nights and weekends for last few weeks, I will be taking a well-deserved break and going to New York City for vacation tomorrow. I’ll post the photos when I get back on the 28th (and maybe while I’m there – I’m taking along a laptop with 3G wireless.) If any New Yorkers want to hang out with the infamous GreedyCapitalist, email me at heroic-at-gmail.com

Dear god(s),

Grant me courage and eloquence to
boldly speak the truth when I know it;
honesty to keep my mouth shut when I don’t,
the wisdom to know the difference,
and the determination and integrity to discover the facts.
-Me

Microsoft has released a free beta of AntiSpyware, a new product designed to keep your computer free of malicious software. Independent reviews have already shown the the software is more effective that its best competitors, Spybot and Ad-Aware. The design of the software is simply amazing, as it represents the next generation of software architecture. (In all fairness, Microsoft didn’t develop this software – it was developed and purchased from another company.)

You can download a free copy from Microsoft.

Fortune: Why There’s No Escaping the Blog: Freewheeling bloggers can boost your product—or destroy it. Either way, they’ve become a force business can’t afford to ignore.

When it comes to finding excuses to pillage the public, you can always count on politicians to find an excuse, no matter how ridiculous:

A 44-year-old Web site designer, Oldham is not now and never plans to be a member of the television-owning public, having given it up in exasperation when “Inspector Morse” went into reruns. But for more than a decade he has been enmeshed in a bizarre pas de deux with the agency that polices television ownership in Britain, and that seems intent on proving him a liar.

No matter how much Oldham protests, he said, stern letters come inexorably in the mail, informing him (in case he has forgotten) that he has not paid the £121, or $233, BBC license fee required annually of every owner of a “telly.” If indeed he is found to be harboring a television illegally, they remind him, he could be fined £1,000 or wind up in jail.

On a related note, a Munich court has ordered a €12 “copyright levy” to be paid on all new Fujitsu Computers PC’s. The tax, which will likely be extended to all new computers is meant to compensate uh, someone for software piracy costs.

I have an idea – how about a “life tax” – for the privilege of being allowed to live in a “democratic society?”

The Mexican government is publishing an illustrated booklet that advises illegal immigrants how to illegaly enter and reside in the U.S.
…Just another absurdity created by laws that make it illegal for peaceful people to get to their jobs and support their families.

The latest death toll from Dec 24th’s tsunami in Asia is at 150,000 and rising. 400,000 thousand people have become refugees and 94,081 have been confirmed dead in Indonesia alone. (Reuters as of 1/04/05) A tragedy of this magnitude deserves our consideration, especially of two questions: why did so many die, and what can be done to minimize the destruction of such events?

Conventional explanations abound. Environmentalists blame overpopulation, deforestation, and tourist exploitation; Marxists blame the West for the poverty of poor nations; politicians claim that a lack of emergency preparedness, housing regulations, and tax funds are to blame, and that coerced charity is the fix; religionists assure us that man and science are powerless against nature, and if anything, man must now pray and sacrifice his wealth to the suffering because suffering is man’s natural state, appeal to God is the only remedy, and altruism is the moral ideal.

While there is some truth in these answers, they are all fundamentally mistaken about the significance of natural events to man’s condition. They are right in that the tsunami is a powerful natural event that neither government regulations, nor charity, nor prayer, nor even our current technology can make a dent in. They are also right in stating the poverty is the primary factor of the death toll, and that better buildings, warning systems, emergency preparedness systems, and better science can save many lives.
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