1993 WTC case highlights the most egregious shortcoming of our jury system

Remember the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, in which Islamist terrorists tried to topple one of the towers into the other in the hopes of killing tens of thousands of people? The bombing, while it did not accomplish its objective, was still quite destructive.

When bad things happen, the legal system immediately swings into action in a quest to find out who is reponsible—not for the purpose of bringing the perpetrators to justice, but for the purpose of opening the floodgates for liability payouts. Because of this, it wouldn't do at all to pin the blame for the bombing on the terrorists themselves. They don't have any money.

So, what to do? Ralph Reiland gives the answer:

Now, after a dozen years of legal maneuvering, a jury in the state Supreme Court of New York has taken the terrorists off the hook for the majority of the blame in their 1993 attack. On October 26, unanimously, the jury said the guys who carried out the bombing were only 32 percent responsible for the damages.

The majority wrongdoer, 68 percent at fault for the death and destruction, said the jury, was the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the then-owner of the World Trade Center. This means that the party with the deepest pockets—also known as the taxpayers of New York and New Jersey—will be picking up the tab for most of the losses.

On the day of the 1993 blast, Mario Cuomo, New York's governor at the time, told journalists: “We all have that feeling of being violated. No foreign people or force has ever done this to us. Until now, we were invulnerable.”

Today, playing Monday-morning quarterback more than a decade after the attack, the New York jury has said the Port Authority “should have known” an attack was coming, even if, as Cuomo said, nothing like that had ever happened before. Further, the Port Authority “should have known” to shut down the garage to the public, and to its upstairs tenants, even if, as Cuomo said, no one had felt vulnerable before to a foreign force in the center of Manhattan.

This highlights one of the greatest shortcomings of our country's jury system: It's no secret that jurors are selected not for their intelligence or their reasoning ability, but for the ease in which they can be manipulated by the prosecutor or the defender. In the hands of a competent attorney, a typical jury is Silly Putty.

UK bank takes time to resolve a customer service problem

I'll give this bank a few bonus points for their creative solution:

NATWEST is removing clocks from its branches in a bid to deter customers from complaining about how long they have to queue, according to staff at the bank.

Getting rid of wall clocks is part of a £150m nationwide refurbishment scheme by NatWest, which has more than 10m customers.

Last week, two of the High Street banking giant's employees said that during redevelopment of their branch the clock disappeared and would not be replaced.

'It's been taken down so people won't complain,' said one, who did not wish to be identified. 'It happened over a month ago. If people have been standing in a queue waiting to see a cashier for a long time, they can get very cross.

'When the clock was there, it was difficult for us to disagree with them about how long they'd been waiting. Now it's more difficult for them to complain. I can't believe it, but it seems to be the policy now. Our manager told us.'

Clever, but not clever enough. If NatWest wants to implement this idea more completely, they need to collect wristwatches, cell phones, PDAs, etc. at the door.

Michael Schiavo ready to rampage through D.C.

Well, now we know that the death of Terri Schiavo has been good for Judge Greer's career, but what about grieving husband Michael?  He's been staying busy, and now he appears to have launched the next phase of his new career as the Culture of Death's version of Cindy Sheehan.  Now he's forming a political action committee dedicated to the defeat of all of those monsters in Congress who tried to keep him from having his wife put down.

Schiavo judge honored by local ACLU as "Friend of Civil Liberties"

Proving yet again that the legal culture in Pinellas County, Florida is twisted beyond belief, now we find out that the local chapter of the ACLU has named Judge George Greer as this year's recipient of its "Gardner W. Beckett, Jr., Friend of Civil Liberties Award":

The Pinellas County Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union confers this honor upon individuals who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to basic civil liberties, principles, and values inherent in the Bill of Rights. In the footsteps of Gardner Beckett, these recipients exemplify an unflinching commitment to the defense of our constitution and it's guarantees of equal protection, due process, and simple justice.

Of course, "equal protection, due process and simple justice" in Terri Schiavo's case involved Greer doing everything in his power to have her put to death, even if it meant doing so using a technique banned as torture by civilized nations everywhere.

 

(Credit: Life News)

OT: Read This First!

One of my favorites from Dave Barry (maybe because I can identify with it so well):

Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT?

How shall we honor a woman whose misguided philosophy led to the death of millions (so far)?

Let's name a bridge after her!

Rachel Carson, a driving force behind the modern environmental movement, grew up in a modest homestead in Springdale Borough near the Allegheny River. For the budding marine biologist, the river's waters were an early inspiration.

Now, more than four decades after Ms. Carson's death, her presence may return to those waters.

Allegheny County Council tomorrow will consider renaming the Ninth Street Bridge in her honor.

...Ms. Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," criticized the harmful effects of pesticides, sparking a prolonged battle with the chemical industry. In 1970, six years after Ms. Carson's death, the federal government founded the Environmental Protection Agency. Two years later, the government banned the use of the pesticide DDT in the United States.

...and in the thirty-plus years since, millions worldwide have died needlessly from malaria because of this junk-science atrocity. Thanks, Rachel!


UPDATE: JunkScience.com lists "100 things you should know about DDT". (Actually, the list has grown beyond 100)