The story about the gang of Jewish kids who beat up a Pakistani in Brooklyn continues to fascinate me.  For the life of me I just can't imagine a group of religious American Jewish kids beating anyone up for now reason at all, and actually less so as part of a racial/religious attack.  If anything, it's usually the Jewish guys from Brooklyn who are on the receiving end of this stuff (worse actually), as far as I know.

Now they say that aside from the five teenagers they arrested they may be looking for five more.  I've read some Jewish blogs in the past few days that claim that one or more of the boys are from broken homes, the attackers were the ones who called 911 and wondering why the attackers waited around for the police to come to the scene.  Assemblyman Dov Hikind seems to defend them somewhat here, but not every Orthodox person is happy with Hikind's reaction.

The Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee condemned the attack. Now the Council on American-Islamic Relations is getting involved.

It's all very strange.

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Remember this?



Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has the same question.  (Apparently it's free access week at TimesSelect so that conservatives like me can have access to the truth.)

Let Karl know that you think this is a critical election, because you know as a citizen that if the Bush team can behave with the level of deadly incompetence it has exhibited in Iraq — and then get away with it by holding on to the House and the Senate — it means our country has become a banana republic. It means our democracy is in tatters because it is so gerrymandered, so polluted by money, and so divided by professional political hacks that we can no longer hold the ruling party to account.

It means we’re as stupid as Karl thinks we are.

I, for one, don’t think we’re that stupid. Next Tuesday we’ll see.

Of course he's wrong, because roughly half of us will still wind up voting Republican.  I mean, 41% of us voted for a second term for Jimmy Carter whose list of economic and foreign policy successes was pretty damned short.  Were those people stupid?  Fuck you, Friedman.  While you and Lou Dobbs bitch and write books about how we're outsourcing millions of jobs, our unemployment rate is as low as it's been in 40 years.  Shmuck.

Colleague John Tierney has a message for Mr. Friedman, even if it's not meant to directed at him specifically:

You can always find a group online to affirm your brilliant opinions. It’s immensely satisfying, but it can also make Election Day a miserable experience. Tonight, you can’t help noticing how many ignorant people out there disagree with you.

Touché.