Paul's plans would surely mean we need fewer politicians in Washington DC. Correct, the self-serving politicians in DC would not be in favor of that.

Yes. Proof of this is California. They don't wait around for the Federal level to solve their problems. Neither should any other state. These agencies should be on the State level not the Federal level. This implies that some states will not need some of these agencies. Which is great.

People posed the same question back when Apple let artists publish music directly to iTunes. Last time I checked Apple didn't exactly become the only game in town. Amazon is not not in the publishing biz anymore than Apple is in the music biz. Amazon and Apple just want to sell you cool electronic gadgets.

Americans think "freedom" is the freedom from the responsibility to take care of your parents when they get up in age. The freedom from the responsibility to earn money to put your kids through school. The freedom from the fiscal discipline and planning and hard work required to have a stream of income to support you in retirement.

The list goes on pretty considerably.

Go Samsung!

Not paying tax is the same as stealing from your fellow man? So basically most ultra rich and all of the the poor people are stealing from the middle class.

Does anybody use Ruby (or Ruby on Rails) as the primary language for big-time software projects? Can we name a few that everybody should recognize?

"They have some catching up to do"

Yea, that's the whole point of their efforts.

I've been hearing how awesome graphene is for years and years. Is anybody making anything out of this stuff today?

We all know Jobs has a magnetic plug fetish. Jobs managed to get a bunch of nerds having a conversation about female holes getting plugged with magnetic cut-off jacks. He is probably enjoying reading this entire thread right now on his iPhone 6 and practically having an igasam.

Steve wants to force you to buy a $20 adapter that costs $0.03 to manufacture.

Java is the only one of those 3 languages that uses a virtual machine. Not sure why you lumped C# in with Java.

Angry Jobs maybe. He's pissed that China just leaked that they are in talks with Apple. Not even the Chinese government are permitted to speak of secret Apple deals in the works.

I wonder why bonch is so interested in making sure everybody gives Apple the respect and worship he feels they are due?

$20M is a rounding error of a rounding error to Apple. Apple has more money and power than most nations.