Some stuff I didn't have time for #1

Of course it wasn't ethnically or religiously motivated. Who would ever have thought?

A police security tower rose into the sky [over New York City] Monday, keeping watch over a globally prominent Islamic cultural center that was firebombed amid a handful of attacks being investigated as possibly linked bias crimes.

Possibly? At about 8 pm Sunday evening, a possible firebomb was thrown at a counter of a corner convenience store. Ten minutes later, a nearby home was firebombed. About a half-hour after that, the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation was hit with two Molotov cocktails. Eighty people were gathered inside for a dinner. Forty-five minutes later, a private house used as a Hindu house of worship was similarly attacked.

It's unclear if the attacks are related.

Unclear? Four firebombs within two and a-quarter hours of each other and we are supposed to think this could just as easily be coincidence? Just how common are firebomb attacks in New York?

Happily, although one of the homes was extensively damaged, no one was injured in any of the attacks. Sadly, it reminds us that, contrary to the claims of some, hate crimes are not "just crimes," but something much more and whose effect is more pervasive.