Hell has frozen over:

NEW YORK (AP) - A judge sentenced a man to 240 years in prison Wednesday for taking hostages in a bar and telling patrons that "white people are going to burn tonight."

State Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley told Steven Johnson, 39, who is black, that he had forfeited his "right to live in society."

Johnson, 39, was convicted March 1 of attempted murder, assault and other charges, including some designated as hate crimes.

A black man has actually been charged with hate crimes against white people? Such a thing is normally unheard of, but there you have it. Whether or not these will stand on appeals is anyone's guess, knowing how the judiciary can often pull crap explanations out of its posterior, but it's still an interesting development nonetheless. It's the sort of thing that might actually bring about some racial reconciliation if carried out enough. As I have said before, until minorities are held to the same anti-racism standards that white people are, namely "hate breeds hate," there will not even be a hope of a genuine second breakthrough in race relations in America, like the first one that people like Martin Luther King brought about.

The defense attorney is trying to pass this off as a mental illness, and the result of sexual abuse, rather than what it is, pure racism. By his own words, he was motivated by a pure hatred of white people. He might be able to be legitimately called insane if he thought that white people should all die because his dog got run over, as that would be a firm warning sign that he is detached from reality. This, however, smacks of nothing less than cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder, something that is evil, not insane.

(Disclaimer: I do not support hate crimes laws, but I do support equal suffering under them while we have them.)