Certainly, but when the public has been fully indoctrinated into the Hollywood church of DNA, often no amount of reason can fully persuade them to question their faith.

I think, what it comes down to, is that what every prosecutor, lawyer, solicitor, etc... wants are winnable cases. Unfortunately, due to shows such as CSI, many members of the public honestly believe that DNA evidence is fool-proof. While this is certainly not the truth; law professionals are more then willing to run with no other evidence because they can win those cases. So, until the general public get's inclined to increase their level of knowledge in this area (so not likely) more innocent people will be put behind bars due to lazy bureaucrats.

I find this to be more a comment on the media driven nature of government officials then on free speech. This is the story of a man's life ruined by government officials who did not have the common sense nor decency to tell the media that there is no story here and that they should bugger off. Instead these morons put a man on trial for his sense of humor. I have said similar things in the past with no intent of committing any actual act of violence. I have heard or read a great many such comments made (admittedly generally by young men). Any one of my friends could be up on charges right now if a journalist had decided to take interest due to a slow news day, and then applied pressure to get more information. So, who is more guilty; the journalist who ignored his public responsibility to find real news stories and used the power of the press inappropriately, or the officers who knew darn well that this man was not a threat to the public, but charged him anyways due to the pressure applied by bored journalists. You decide. The second to the last sentence is a horrible run-on, but an English major I will never be.

Lol, armed men, do not necessarily mean an army. The threat of massive mob violence is often enough. However, as far as I know the GDR was never deposed. Merely engulfed within the larger German government. However, I am no expert on Germany and could certainly be wrong.

The patent system has been bubkis for a long time now. It is merely a feeding ground for the way too many lawyers that graduate each year with nothing to do. It's original purpose was to protect the hard work of engineers and inventors while providing the governments with a way to track the technological explosion of the last few centuries. It unfortunately is not designed to handle the fact that ideas can be separately developed in isolation. This weakness combined with the overpopulation of lawyers has lead us to this point where we have to deal with these worthless legal battles over and over again.

Uhm, all economic and political systems came into being and have been enforced by armed men. Not once , ever, have the people in power just said "You have a great idea so I am going to step down and let you take charge". They had to be forced out of power. To try to pin that fact solely on capitalism is downright silly. Everyone's hero is someone else's evil foe. Marxism is a beautiful Utopian dream that can never exist in reality. Capitalism, while no where near perfect, is at least realistic.

While philosophically we are indeed seeking to conserve energy and improve energy efficiency; economically, convenience will trump green in the market place every time. It is the world we live in.