Have We Gone Soft?

Cold Equations, discussing the Omaha Race Riot, writes:

Nowadays, the crime that inspired this riot would barely be newsworthy. Sites like American Renaissance post six cases like that before breakfast. Nobody cares except for some grumpy racialists. The idea that whites would react like this seems absurd now, but there it was.

A few possibilities:

• “Whites”, in this instance, is misleading.  According to Wikipedia, the rioters were drawn from Irish and Eastern European immigrant communities.  I’m not an expert on the period, but I would speculate that their posture in regards to the WASP establishment (Omaha’s mayor was named Edward Parsons Smith, a WASP name if there ever was one) was not unlike contemporary black attitudes toward whites today.  For instance, WASP industrialists were using blacks as strikebreakers, and the rioters may not have believed that justice would be forthcoming from the establishment.
• We’re richer now, and can afford more morality.  The working class was hard pressed back then in a manner that we can only imagine in the era of the welfare state.  Today we have more to lose by engaging in extrajudicial violence.
• A corollary of the first two is a "woman shortage"; and one potentially more severe than what we face now. Again, I have no specific knowledge of this, but I'm pretty sure that men were overrepresented among turn-of-the-last-century immigrants. Combine poverty with outsider status and I would expect that a great many men in Omaha had neither a wife nor good prospects for obtaining one. Thus, news that one of "them" had forcibly poached one of "our" women would have had a much bigger psychological impact in 1919 than in 2010.
• Whites are in the final stages of decadence, and can no longer be roused to collectively defend ourselves.

Thoughts?

The E-Verify Database

New to the blogroll is a link to the E-Verify database, courtesy of NumbersUSA. E-Verify is a DHS program whereby a business can check a worker's citizenship and/or immigration status and confirm his eligibility for lawful employment in the United States. The database at the first link allows you to check to see if a business is using E-Verify.

The History of Terror in One Easy Lesson

A friend in the Armed Forces sent me this list of terrorist incidents, allegedly taken from government anti-terrorism training.  With a few of my own additions:

Historical Example	Year	Location(s)	Individual/Group	Attack Method(s)
Fort Hood Shooting	2009	Fort Hood, TX	Nidal Malik Hasan	Automatic Weapons Fire
M/V Maersk Alabama	2009	Off the Coast of Somalia	Somali Pirates	Ship Boarding / Hostage Taking
Christmas Day Bomber	2009	Detroit, MI	Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab	PETN Explosives
Mumbai Terrorist Attacks	2008	Mumbai, India	Lashkar-e-Taiha	Assault Weapons / IEDs
Serena Hotel	2008	Kabul, Afghanistan	Taliban	Vehicle-Borne IED, Suicide Vest, Automatic Weapons Fire, Grenades
Islamabad Marriott Bombing	2008	Islamabad, Pakistan	Harkatul Jehadul (Suspected)	Vehicle-Borne/Backpack IED (Suicide Bombing)
Fort Dix Plot	2007	Fort Dix, NJ	Muslim Extremist Terrorist Cell	Automatic Weapons Fire
London Subway Bombing	2005	London, England	Muslim Extremists (possibly linked to Al-Qaeda)	Backpack IED (Suicide Bombing)
Thomas Hamill	2004	Balad, Iraq	Multiple Insurgent Groups	Hostage Holding
Madrid Subway Bombing	2004	Madrid, Spain	Muslim Extremists (possibly linked to Al-Qaeda)	Backpack IED
Camp Pennsylvania	2003	Camp Pennsylvania Kuwait	Hasan Karim Akbar	Grenades, Weapons Fire
DC Sniper	2002	Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C.	John Allen Muhammad, Lee Boyd Malvo	High-Powered Rifle/Sniper
Bali Nightclub Bombing	2002	Bali, Indonesia	Jemaah Islamiyah	Vehicle-Borne/Backpack IED (Suicide Bombing)
Paradise Hotel and Civilian Airline Attack	2002	Mombasa, Kenya	Al-Ittihad al Islamiya With Al-Qaeda Support	Vehicle-Borne IED, Surface-To-Air Missiles
Los Angeles Airport Shooting	2002	LAX, CA	Hesham Mohamed Hadayet	Small Arms Fire
Singapore Plot	2001	Singapore	Al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah, Moro Islamic Liberation Front	Explosives Comprised of Ammonia Nitrate
US Anthrax Attacks	2001	New York, NY Washington, D.C. Boca Raton, FL	Unknown	Biological Weapon
Shoe Bomber	2001	Paris, France	Richard Reid	C-4 Explosives
United Flight 93	2001	Shanksville, PA	Al-Qaeda	Skyjacking of passenger jet liner
USS Cole	2000	Aden Harbor, Yemen	Al-Qaeda	Vessel-Borne IED (Suicide Bombing)
African Embassy Bombings	1998	Nairobi, Kenya El Salaam, Tanzania	Al-Qaeda	Vehicle-Borne IED (Suicide Bombing)
Deir el-Bahri	1997	Luxor, Egypt	Al-Gamd'a al-Isamiyya & Jihad Talaat al-Faith	Automatic Weapons Fire
Japanese Ambassador's Residence	1996	Lima, Peru	Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA)	Hostage Holding
Khobar Towers	1996	Dahran, Saudi Arabia	Dahran, Saudi Arabia	Vehicle-Borne IED
Tokyo Subway Attack	1995	Tokyo, Japan	Aum Shinrikyo	Chemical Weapon
Oklahoma City Bombing	1995	Oklahoma City, OK	Timothy McVeigh	Vehicle-Borne IED
World Trade Center Bombing	1993	New York City, NY	Ramzi Yousef, et al.	urea nitrate-hydrogen explosion
CIA HQ Shooting	1993	Langley, VA	Mir Aimal Kasi	Automatic Weapons Fire
CAPT Nordeen	1988	Athens, Greece	November 17 (N-17)	Vehicle-Borne IED
Pan Am 103	1988	Lockerbie, Scotland	Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi	Explosives
La Belle Discotheque	1986	Berlin, Germany	Libyan and Syrian Governments	Suitcase IED
Edward Pimental	1985	Rhein-Main, Germany	Red Army Faction	Vehicle-Borne IED
Zona Rosa	1985	San Salvador, El Salvador	Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front	Small Arms Fire
TWA Flight 847	1985	Athens, Greece	Lebanese Radicals	Skyjacking of passenger jet liner
Achille Lauro	1985	Egypt	Palestine Liberation Front	Cruise ship hijacking
Terry Anderson	1984	Beirut, Lebanon	Hezbollah (with Iranian Support)	Kidnapping/ Hostage Holding
Marine Barracks Bombing	1983	Beirut, Lebanon	Islamic Jihad Organization (under direction of Iran)	Vehicle-Borne IED (Suicide Bombing)
CAPT Tsantes	1983	Athens, Greece	November 17 (N-17)	Gunshot from Passing Motorcycle
Albert Shaufelberger	1983	San Salvador, El Salvador	Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional	Small Arms Fire
General Dozier (part 1)	1981	Verona, Italy	Red Brigade	Kidnapping
General Dozier (part 2)	1981	Padua, Italy	Red Brigade	Hostage Holding
Stockholm Syndrome	1973	Stockholm, Sweden	Jan Erik Olsson	Hostage Holding

For those of you keeping score at home, I count 29/42 perpetrated by Muslims, 9/42 by communists (the last being in 1996), and 4 miscellaneous. 

A few quibbles:  Dozier gets counted twice.  We can quibble about whether the insurgent attacks in Iraq (combined under “Thomas Hamill”) are appropriate on this list.  Finally, I’m not sure what Aum Shinrikyo is doing here.  If we’re going to count terrorism by foreigners against foreigners on foreign soil, the list would necessarily be a lot longer.

On the other hand, the original list neglected several:  the Christmas Day Bomber, the Fort Hood shooting, the Los Angeles Airport Shooting, the Shoe Bomber, the 1993 WTC bombing, the CIA HQ shooting, the Lockerbie bombing, and the Achille Lauro hijacking.  Weird.

Still, though, a pretty comprehensive look at who our enemies are.

Mental Health Break: "Come to the USA"

Meh. Kinda funny. Mostly depressing.

Religion of Peace? Or Mere Gangsterism?

Via AmericaBlog, a video example of Taliban justice in Pakistan.

The internet has its full quota of shock and horror at this video, so let me offer a different thought: by Taliban standards, this girl got off easy. My understanding is that Islamic law calls for death by stoning of alleged adulteresses, and those so accused are routinely murdered by their families even in Western countries. Yet this girl escaped with only a beating, and one she could walk away from.

It's an old story at this point, but somewhere I read an alternative narrative: the girl had rejected the advances of a Taliban warlord. So the accusation of “an illegal sexual relationship” was his revenge.

“Obama at the Bat”

Meh.

Parenthood on Adultery

In episode 10, the adult children confront Zeek about his financial woes stemming from a bad real estate investment. For some reason, they do this in front of his wife Camille, who is predictably upset. In her anger, she reveals what we had long suspected: Zeek had an affair.

The show is remarkably honest about how the dynamics of this play out. Camille had turned a blind eye to the affair while she believed Zeek to be financially successful. But, a few years after the affair had already run its course, and Zeek is on the rocks financially, now the affair becomes her justification for putting him out of the house.

In an era in which no-fault divorce is a moral norm, obviously Camille can divorce Zeek for any reason or no reason. But to those who, like me, believe that adultery is a singular justification for divorce, I ask you: is there a "statute of limitations" beyond which an affair can't be considered the real reason for divorce, as opposed to a mere pretext?