News, Views, and Nifty Stuff

This is the sort of stuff that is so mind bogglingly bizarre it makes me feel like the top of my head might just explode into fiery little pieces:

On October 26, a state civil jury sitting in Manhattan found the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey liable for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (a Port Authority complex). Yes, you read that correctly. In its wisdom, the jury found that the Port Authority was SIXTY-EIGHT PERCENT RESPONSIBLE for the bombing, which killed six (including a pregnant woman), injured over a thousand, and caused damages possibly into the billions.
The jury found that the terrorists who constructed the urea nitrate bomb, cased the WTC repeatedly, planted the bomb in a rented van parked in the underground garage, detonated it, sent letters claiming responsibility for their handiwork, and warned (correctly as it turns out) that the attack was just the beginning, were THIRTY-TWO PERCENT RESPONSIBLE for their bombing.
The Port Authority is asking the court to set aside the jury verdict, which could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in damages once the 400 or so plaintiffs are through. Since that, of course, gets passed along, this means that the citizens of New York and New Jersey would be paying damages for suffering caused by militant Islam’s declaration of war on the U.S. by a bombing that was intended to kill tens of thousands of citizens of New York and New Jersey.

From Andy McCarthy at The Corner

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Via Michelle Malkin I found this very nifty homeschool success story:

A 16-year-old California boy won a premier high school science competition Monday for his innovative approach to an old math problem that could help in the design of airplane wings. Michael Viscardi, a senior from San Diego, won a $100,000 college scholarship, the top individual prize in the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology.Viscardi said he's been homeschooled since fifth grade, although he does take math classes at the University of California at San Diego three days a week. His father is a software engineer and his mother, who stays at home, has a Ph.D. in neuroscience, he said.
"It's unbelievable," Viscardi said of his win. "It's so incredible that I'm in shock right now."
Viscardi tackled a 19th century math problem known as the Dirichlet problem, formulated by the mathematician Lejeune Dirichlet. The theorem Viscardi created to solve it has potential applications in the fields of engineering and physics, including airplane wing design. He said he worked on it for about six months with a professor at UCSD.

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Pulitzer Prizes can now be awarded for work including web-based materials. From Newsday:

"Newspapers vying for a Pulitzer Prize, the top honor in American print journalism, can now include material published online as part of their entries, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced Wednesday."

National Review's Media Blog knows just the web-based writers to nominate. Among them: Michael Yon, Chris Muir, and Stefan Sharkansky of Soundpolitics.com. For other suggestions, click on the link to the NR post.

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Powerline has a thoughtful post on why trade is such an important tool in assisting poorer nations:

"World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz presented an address to the National Press Club on the centrality of trade in combatting poverty, especially in Africa...urged wealthy nations to make concessions at the upcoming Doha Round of trade talks in order to create a level playing field for poor nations. Right now, the field is anything but level. For example, under current rules, rich countries are allowed to keep barriers highest on the goods produced by poor countries. Thus, the U.S. actually extracts more in tariffs (in absolute terms) from its small volume of imports from Mongolia than from its sizeable imports from Norway. And, by virtue of its agricultural subsidies and tariffs, the U.S. denies access to its markets to poor farmers in developing countries. Unless the Doha Round produces progress on these fronts, the outlook for economic development in Africa is grim."

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Finally, from Boing Boing we have another cool innovation in alarm clocks, or an annoying innovatin, depending on how badly you want to sleep. This thing hovers around you like a small helicoptor or a really pesky fly. This sounds like the kind of thing where it would truly be better to give than to receive!