Maybe the underlying point is that people, on average, rush to believe in something that they don't understand when they are under stress. For people who have rejected religious belief but do not understand science, it is natural that they would rush to "believe" in science. This is a well-understood phenomenon.

Assuming that there are negative effects of the current patent system in terms of seeds, there is still another side to the coin. Without patent protection, would Monsanto have developed Roundup Ready (TM) soybean seeds? Or, for that matter, Roundup (TM) herbicide? Without these complementary items, soybean production would be much lower. (Due to decreased production by using other means of weed control and/or increased cost of weed control.) Maybe both products would exist without the seeds being protected by patent law, but if, on average, the total production is increased by the availability of such protections, they give society a net gain.

Extradition does not decide guilt. It decides whether you are the person being sought to face charges in the other jurisdiction and whether the charges are extraditable to the other jurisdiction. Evidence of guilt is mostly irrelevant to those questions.

Keep in mind this is an extradition matter. At an extradition hearing, the issues are basically limited to (1) whether you are the person being sought by the other jurisdiction and (2) whether the charges in the other jurisdiction are the type of charges for which a person can be extradited. I am not as familiar with international extradition as I am interstate extradition within the United States, and certainly there will be specific rules spelled out in an extradition treaty between New Zealand and the United States (possibly by way of the UN, for all I know). But those are the real issues: are you the right guy and are the charges extraditable. The extradition hearing is held in and under the procedural law of the court in New Zealand.

Once arraigned in the court where the charges are pending (the United States federal court), the issue becomes whether you are guilty of the offense charged. And the evidence against you is relevant to that issue. The evidence is largely not relevant to whether you can be extradited. And that's essentially what it sounds like the New Zealand court concluded.

It's not just you, but your conclusion is correct: You just aren't used to it. Once you get used to it, Scheme (or any other modern Lisp) is a very easy language to write clean, effective code in.

That's why books have covers, so you can judge them without having to read them first. It's the same reason Slashdot articles have blurbs and comments have subject lines.

It's also proof of concept. If you can launch a nuclear missile from Earth and detonate it on or near the surface of the moon, particularly if you can get reasonably close to a specific position on the surface of the moon, then you can likely do the same in reverse. If you can't nuke the moon from Earth, then you can't nuke Earth from the moon.

I really enjoyed reading all the comments so far. The submission itself was nice and hyperbolic. You can tell it's good journalism because of all the exclamation points and strong bias. There's just nothing quite as insightful, though, as a discussion by people with strong feelings and almost no understanding about what is right or wrong with this news.

Frankly, I hope nobody bothers to educate himself about any of this. Indeed, the shareholders of BP should all be in prison for life. And BP should also write a check for 120% of its total equity ... to ... um ... I don't know, maybe the dolphins? Anyhow, it should be illegal to enter into a plea agreement on criminal charges. If you are charged with a crime, you should be found guilty and sentenced to ... well, maybe the death penalty. You're a corporation? Then .. well ... oh, I know, let's kill the shareholders. But if there is any dispute over your guilt, you should not have an opportunity to reach a plea agreement. It should be all or nothing. And your guilt should be decided by the jury! Wait, no, not the jury, because the jury system is broken. How about a judge? No, he could be bribed and was probably put on the bench by corrupt politics in the first place. So, your guilt should be decided by ... a duck!

Because, if anyone bothered to read the article, understand the situation, understand the system at play, educate himself on the reason things work the way they do, and so forth, how else would I get any entertainment without having to pay for cable TV?

Get a haircut and get a real job.

What they're forgetting to take into account is who subscribes to Newsweek: Doctors who often have patients waiting for an appointment. Who is going to subscribe to a Newsweek that can't be left out for patients to read while they wait for the doctor to see them?

There are a few people claiming "you assume this" or "you assume that." You're all wrong. I, a conspiracy nutter, assume that the aliens are law-abiding and did not want to violate FAA regulations.

How would such disputes be resolved?

They will be dismissed.

Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.

Exactly.

How would such disputes be resolved? You have to assume that a fair, negotiated agreement is not possible because, when it is, jury trials already do not happen. You are talking about replacing what happens when a fair settlement cannot be reached. And who decides which disputes can and cannot be understood by "street people"?

Right now, if a party believes that the assumed layperson jury needs expert help to understand an issue, the party can present expert testimony to explain it and other parties can present their own expert testimony as well. Almost every civil case that is actually filed makes use of expert testimony because there is some issue that the average person off the street will not be able to understand without some explanation. That can take the form of anything from how a user interface is designed (something that I, a lifelong computer programmer, would want explained to me) to how a person's spine gets broken in a head-on collision.

Are there first world countries where judges who are subject matter experts specific to the issues in each case decide the facts of civil disputes?