Nuh uh - I ROT-13ed everything and they can't see nuttin'

And the USSR which didn't have a free market did so well. And Haiti. And Venezuela. And Greece. What you are intentionally ignoring is that a free market does not guarantee a steady increase, just a faster and greater increase. There will always be downturns - our entire economic mess can be traced back to one man: Greenspan. Appointed by the first Bush, Greenspan was calling the shots during the Clinton years. Rather than allow the market to take a natural correction and crash Clinton's popularity he cut interest rates when he should have let them stand pat. The economy burned more brightly but then faced an even worse collapse so the rates had to be cut again. The exact same thing happened at Yellowstone - if the government had just let the natural fires clean out the dead wood every few years instead of attacking every spark in the forest we wouldn't have had the soil-sterilizing fire storms of the late 80s. If Greenspan had let the economy cull the wounded gazelles in the mix we would have had 6-12 months of general unpleasantness and then would have gotten over it. Instead he spent a decade providing kiln-dried fuel for an economic firestorm, took a fat pension from the government and retired. The free market works, but only in the same way that the weather works. In the long-term it is best for everybody who isn't doing something stupid like planting pineapple in Idaho but sometimes one farm will get more rain than another.

But they aren't taking that $0.01 from you, they're taking it from somebody who thinks that it is a good deal. And it is his penny. You have no right to tell him what he can or can't do with that penny - buy a gumball, squish it on the train tracks, throw it into a fountain or yes, even buy a share of stock that traded for a penny less 20 minutes earlier. It is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!!!!! It does not destabilize the economy, it drives the economy. Such a novel concept - people able to buy what they want and accept responsibility for their purchases. This is called economic freedom - if you object to people being allowed to buy and sell what they want then there is a long list of nations where you are free to surrender your liberty.

Why? How? By what authority? The free market is better than anything else - unless you like a system where they say "ok... we'll protect the little guys by setting up a tier system. If your portfolio $5,000,000,000 then you have to wait six seconds. Everybody in the middle, 1 month."

In for 1.

Anybody who thinks that vaccines cause autism in 100% of the cases is wrong. Anybody who thinks that the argument is that autism is *ONLY* caused by vaccines is wrong. You clearly fall into the 2nd camp. In 2007 the federal "vaccine court" found that the MMR vaccination *DID* cause autism in a child by the name of Bailey Banks in that the vaccine caused an inflammation of the brain that led to PPD-NOS. In 2008 this same court found that in the instance of patient Hannah Poling the vaccine caused "autism-like" symptoms by aggravating a pre-existing condition. (Autism-like? If it quacks...) In the vast majority of cases the vaccine is safe - the numbers don't lie. HOWEVER the vaccine appears to be safe if and only if the child is neurotypical and, as there is no incentive, nobody is working on determining just how atypical one must be and in what manner before the vaccines are unsafe. The prevailing attitude is "sit down, shut up, you cannot decide what risks are acceptable for your child, we don't care if it is safe in this particular instance and if it turns out to destroy your family's life then oh well." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-david-kirby/vaccine-court-autism-deba_b_169673.html

No more than Lexmark had a monopoly on laser printers: the question is whether or not you are allowed to force a specific brand of products/consumables. The courts are very clear - it was illegal for AT&T to force their customers to use only AT&T phones. It would be illegal for Ford to require you to use only Shell gasoline under penalty of warranty cancellation. It would be illegal for Petsmart to sell you a kitten only on the condition that you never buy food from any other source or for Dell to sell you a computer and specify that you may only use Sony brand CD/DVD blanks. Microsoft does not have a monopoly among game players, but they are about to have a monopoly within XBox users.

See United States v IBM, 1936, USSC ruled that it was a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act for IBM to require the use of IBM brand punch cards in their machines. Exact same thing here.

If google blocked search engine and gmail from iPhone users - or Macs - any guesses what the AT&T/Apple reaction would be?

According to their city atty this was the greatest, bestest decision for the city ever. He's obviously clueless. Fire him.

Do something about Verizon saying "you may not use a smart phone without paying $30/month above and beyond your voice plan for data even if you don't want to use our data network". The phones have WiFi - that's what I want. Period. I don't want data. I want a smart phone and I don't want to sure the web using your network. That should be my right to choose.

Unless interstellar travel is nothing but a single "duh" moment away - maybe we're just missing something that will make everything simple and easy to understand. Like pipes or the wonderbra.

Is "sharing genetics" a reference to all of the previously-mentioned pron?

1,500 newspapers all want to sue Google because it is now painfully obvious that all 1,500 papers in the country bought the same story from AP/UPI?

From time to time they have conducted mock attacks and it has been demonstrated more than once that an external agent could destroy various pieces of equipment by ordering them to perform out of spec. And there are other weak points as well - hack into the railroads and instruct the train to deliver the coal to the wrong place, for example. But here's a story from August 13 2001 in the LA Times

For two weeks last spring, hackers wormed their way inside a computer system that plays a key role in moving electrical power where it is needed around the state. The computers belong to the California Independent Service Operator, an agency that oversees much of the state's electricity transmission grid--including the massive complex of power plants and transmission lines. Cal-ISO patched the flaw that allowed hackers to roam through portions of its network before power supplies were affected. But the episode sent shock waves throughout the energy industry.
The crux of the issue is that the system is vulnerable - recall 2003 when a single tree branch killed power across several states for a week? That is not indicative of a healthy and robust grid system. And if the system is that vulnerable to an accident what would happen if somebody with malice aforethought (and a degree in EE) decided to spice things up a bit?
Unless the utility companies make explicit plans to correct things a macro-catastrophe is inevitable. Personally I think that a solar storm is more likely than a terrorist attack but it *WILL* happen and tens of millions of people will lose their grid indefinitely (probably several years to restore full access). (I further predict that the system will be rebuilt to the old specs because it will be cheaper and easier to do it that way, flushing an opportunity to build a hardened grid).
This is your transformer. (note that this company claims to be able to repair your transformer in less than 30 weeks - that means that)
This is your transformer after a solar storm. Yes, the sun did this.
This is the transformer with which most geeks are more familiar.