For a while, I thought Matt had the most unbelievable news item for the day... but as it turns out, he got beat pretty handily by this one. A jury in New York has found the Port Authority negligent for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing:

In a verdict that could prove costly for the Port Authority, the six-member jury in State Supreme Court unanimously found that the agency did not heed warnings that the underground garage was vulnerable to terrorist attack and should be closed to public parking. This failure, the jury said, was "a substantial factor" in allowing the bombing to occur.

How substantial a factor you ask?

In order to reach a verdict, at least five of the six jurors had to agree. The jury voted unanimously that the Port Authority was negligent. It found the authority 68 percent at fault for the bombing, while the terrorists who carried it out were 32 percent at fault.

Mr. Dean, the plaintiffs' lawyer, said that because the jury apportioned more than half the blame to the Port Authority, the agency will have to pay 100 percent of any damages for pain and suffering, the so-called non-economic damages, that might be awarded.

I believe after reading that paragraph, that my head came the closest it's ever come to exploding. How the smoke alarms didn't go off is still a mystery to me. In order to help the rest of you understand where this jury is coming from, I thought I'd share with you other helpful notes about how people in New York City apparently think:

• Rapists are only 32% at fault for their crime if the woman is wearing slutty clothes. If he wears a condom, then it's totally the woman's fault.


• A robber is allowed to take 68% of the stuff in your home if you mistakenly leave your door unlocked.


• People who keep their wallet in their back pocket deserve to be pick pocketed. No percentage breakdowns on that one... it's a petty crime after all.

I have to wonder. How much blame would that jury affix on the terrorists for 9/11? Are they fucking out of their God damned minds?! There now... I feel better.

H/T to Ann Althouse on this one... though she seems to only find this mildly amusing from a legal perspective. And people wonder why we're so cynical about the legal system.