The Keynesian system of economics fails to model reality well because it's seriously flawed. The Austrian school of economics, which is similar to what was used in the United States pre-Keynes and whose economists did accurately predict the current economic crisis, is an entirely different matter. Look at Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, and a number of others -- they have been debunking Keynes for years. They've also been pointing out that the artificial "stimuation" of spending and the idea that your house is an investment rather than a liability or at best an item whose value is controlled by supply and demand and with the retirement of the baby boomers was bound to experience a slump in demand. With the addition of government interference in backing unrealistic loans for those who couldn't afford them, the writing was on the wall. We need to ditch the idea of a "centrally planned" economy and Keynesian economics generally if we want to have any kind of realistic understanding of how markets really work, and before we shoot ourselves in the foot yet again.

Online poker where the server is run outside the United States, may not be illegal in the US. At least the wire act used to prosecute people sending money to sports books and the like does not appear to apply to poker specifically, nor has anyone in the US been successfully prosecuted for online poker.

What *is* illegal as of the recent UIGEA act is for banks to provide you the ability to send your money to / receive money from these online gaming sites. Regardless of the facts, many state and federal officials persist in calling online poker illegal, despite it not apparently breaking any laws.

See this quote:

The indictment sets up a complicated global legal battle between the Department of Justice and the online poker entrepreneurs who have long argued that their operations in the U.S. do not violate U.S. law. Indeed, in recent days, one of the nation’s most prominent casino billionaires, Steve Wynn, announced a strategic relationship with PokerStars and said “in the United States of America the Justice Department has an opinion but several states have ruled and courts have agreed that poker is a game of skill, it’s not gambling. PokerStars rests their argument on that.”

Online poker where the server is run outside the United States, does *not* appear to be illegal in the US. At least the wire act used to prosecute people sending money to sports books and the like does not appear to apply to poker specifically, nor has anyone in the US been successfully prosecuted for online poker. What *is* illegal as of the recent UIGEA act is for banks to provide you the ability to send your money to / receive money from these online gaming sites. Regardless of the facts, many state and federal officials persist in calling online poker illegal, despite it not apparently breaking any laws.

Totally agree. I'm amazed to hear people calling for the censorship / restraint of the free exchange of tools and information by people who want to make them available to people who want to use them, when they violate no law. Just because something is controversial does not mean it should be banned. (I would think that we in the US would understand that more than most)

I know it's cool to hate Apple these days, but seriously, get the facts first...

The people who had 1.1.1 phones "bricked" were people who had unlocked their phones with the original (buggy) version of AnySIM that subtly corrupted the seczone where phone locks and IMEI were stored. It was corrupted in such a way that it wasn't obvious until the baseband was upgraded to the next version (which occurred in 1.1.1) where things totally stopped working.

Apple never deliberately tried to break anyone with an unlock, it just so happens that the unlockers had damaged their seczones and prevented the update from being applied cleanly.