Judge William Haskell Alsup, I salute you. I'm outside the US and have been steadily losing faith in it's legal system because of the rampant patent trolling and idiotic laws, but it is very refreshing to see someone take the time and effort to finely hone a decision like this. Very nicely done.
BTW, I hope you are aware of the massive selection bias you have going on. You are only reading about the decisions you disagree with because the forums you choose to read are those you agree with. (And because the decisions no one agrees with will be featured on the news.)
If you read all - or at least a random sampling, of decisions you will reach a different conclusion.
Whilst I concur that all of us exhibit both selection and confirmation biases, it's unfair to the parent poster to assert that his/her dissatisfaction is primarily due to these factors.
For example, I too am an outside observer who quite deliberately reads both the left-wing and the right-wing media. My perspective chimes with the parent, viz. that the US constitutional model of law, starting with the novelty of "a list of things you're allowed to do" (vs most nations' "blank slate + a list of things you must do or must not do"), and combined with a tripartite governance model that separates the executive from the legislature (thus allowing both to duck accountabilities) has been an interesting experiment but ultimately produced such a colossal proliferation of impenetrable ancillary legislation, powers, regulations and case law - far beyond the ability of any citizen to grasp - that it can only, at this point, be deemed a failure and not to be repeated, or at any rate not on this scale.
And so I breathe a huge sigh of relief that the legal jurisdiction under which I operate is one that can be approached and engaged with individually, even absent a small personal army of motion-waving attorneys; one in which the selection of judge is not, as it has been here, such a part of the lottery of outcome.
