1000 people protested for Bradley Manning at Fort Meade.

Confronted by Activists at This Year's Shareholder Meeting, McDonald's CEO Don Thompson Lied And Lied.

Ibragim Todashev's father: FBI 'bandits' murdered my son.

I think the word "thugs" fits them better, since "bandit" implies "thief" and they were not trying to steal.

It appears to be confirmed that the thugs lied to make up an excuse for killing him.

Universal Music bullied four mayors in Denmark for whom a company had made a take-off on Gangnam Style, by demanding an unreasonable sum within a day or else it would demand even more.

I suggest that presenting legal ultimatum of this sort, which gives the target insufficient time for proper consultation with a lawyer, ought to be penalized as a crime.

A search for prior art for a totally absurd patent that is being used to threaten podcasters.

It describes using a web site (or anything somewhat similar) for an activity comparable to publishing a magazine. No sensible person would consider this an invention. The fact that one needs to look for prior art to invalidate this nonsense demonstrates that the US Patent Office still applies ridiculous standards. (And not only in the computing field.)

However, even a "well run" patent system would still be harmful in the computing field, because patents cause grid-lock in any field which involves combining many ideas in one work or product.

To protect against patents by invalidating those that can be invalidated is like trying to protect yourself from malaria by swatting mosquitoes. By all means do swat them, but we need to go beyond that. The US can protect software from patents by exempting them specifically.