title: Parse a date with the timezone "Etc/GMT"
body: <p>My first attempt was:</p>
  
  <pre><code>DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss z");
  Date date = formatter.parse(string);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It throws ParseException, so I found this hack:</p>
  
  <pre><code>DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss z");
  TimeZone timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("Etc/GMT");
  formatter.setTimeZone(timeZone);
  Date date = formatter.parse(string);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It did not work either, and now I'm stuck. It parses without problems if I just change the timezone to "GMT".</p>
  
  <p>edit: An example string to parse would be "2011-11-29 10:40:24 Etc/GMT"</p>
  
  <p>edit2: I would prefer not to remove timezone information completely. I am coding a server that receives the date from an external user, so perhaps other dates will have other timezones. 
  To be more precise: This specific date I receive is from the receipt from the apple server after making an in app purchase on an iphone app, but I could also receive dates from other sources.</p>