"Too many connections" is the error I'm getting now.  With the amount of money MtGox is taking in on a daily basis, they could at least spring for a good IT admin staff.

This actually is hindered by bitcoin's fundamental value of deflation.  Fiat currencies partly get their value due to the assumed stability given by such a widely circulated "commodity".  This stability is from both (hopefully) well-thought out adjustments in supply/demand by the issuing government, and by the widely used nature of a central currency.  Indeed this was the thinking behind the US Constitution's declaration that the federal government would be the only governing body allowed to issue currency.  A single currency greatly simplifies the task of quickly assigning known *relative* prices between goods.  Now, the founding fathers obviously couldn't predict the massive power the internet would bring to the citizenry to upend government power.

That is, of course, assuming internet neutrality is declared an unalienable right of the people.  I am not worried as much about government intervention specifically against bitcoin directly, as I am about a growing tide of corporate interests looking to break up the internet as we know it, wanting to carve it into fiefdoms of media conglomerate control (a la cable television).

The issue with this is that anything that is remotely useful is reciprocally un-random.  True randomness is the basis for all modern cryptography, and most cryptographic "cracks" have to do with discovered flaws in a computer's (or human's) fundamental difficulty in creating truly random numbers.

The bottom could very well be pretty low, since it's still the weekend, and the price drop is partly due to people not being able to get money from Dwolla into MtGox (which won't happen til monday).

I'm starting a new thread here in the hope of bringing some light to the current problem of bitcoin exchanges.  For an excellent overview of the problem, please read Falkvinge's article here: http://falkvinge.net/2011/06/10/bitcoins-four-hurdles-part-four-exchanges/

It is quite evident that the recent downturn is a direct result of three occurrences: profit-taking, bad press, and Dwolla failure. 

The first two are obvious.  At a high of $31.40, even long-term traders saw an opportunity to make significant profits, and they took it.

Furthermore, the two US Senators who 'want to shut down bitcoin' headline was plastered all over the internet, perhaps prematurely.  In fact, the Senators are far more concerned with shutting down the Silk Road than with bitcoin, a point that is obfuscated by the press because they want to sell a story.  Instead of quoting the senators calling for the fall of bitcoin, they are quoted saying reasonable arguments that the silk road was a clearinghouse for anonymous transactions over the internet.  Which is obvious - the Silk Road had obvious illegal activity that could be easily prosecuted under US law under anti drug-trafficking law.  Indeed, lets look at the quote from the PCWorld article:   (Emphasis mine).
They specifically did not say they were looking to shut down bitcoin.

Finally, and most importantly, is the problems MtGox had/has with transfers with Dwolla.  It can take over a week for money to be available for MtGox purchases, and the failure of automated withdrawls until Friday means that for the weekend, for all intents and purposes the exchange was broken.  It's reassuring the problem was fixed within one business day, but there is a reason most exchanges operate only during business hours - it's exceedingly if not impossible to freely exchange money during the weekend.  This disruption just happened to occur over the weekend, and during a very-much-needed correction.

If MtGox does not freeze trading until Monday morning (when money will again begin arriving in investors accounts), bitcoins will continue to fall in price.

Of course this does not change the long-term bitcoin market. These types of growing-pains are common in new industries. However, the emerging nature of the technologies behind bitcoin are what will ultimately define its success or failure.  It's imperative that an enterprise the size of Mt.Gox show maturity by creating close partnerships with those companies both above and below them on the value-chain - the disruption with Dwolla is an excellent example of the difficulties of distributed networks.