A thoughtful item by a New Yorker on the need for racial profiling:

But it is deeply disingenuous of Bloomberg to deny the fact that not just “most” but nearly every jihadi who has attacked a Western European or American target is a young Arab or Pakistani man. In other words, you can predict with a fair degree of certainty what an Al Qaeda terrorist looks like. Just as we have always known what Mafiosi look like—even as we understand that only an infinitesimal fraction of Italian-Americans are members of the mob.

Well, what, if anything, does that mean? Maybe I'm a bit slow because I don't live in the big metropolis where everyone is Einstein, but there are a few questions to be explored.

• What do these Al Qaeda fellows look like, then? I mean, saying they're kind of beige or something won't really help.
• What "race" do Pakistanis and Arabs share, if I may be so bold? Was Timothy McVeigh of that tribe? Some kind of darky, despite appearances?
• Did the FBI just go around bothering people of Italian descent, hoping that eventually they would find Al Capone?
• I don't think "infinitesimal" means what you think it means.