Patterico's Pontifications

6/19/2006

Lawsuits: Initiative Petitions Are Invalid if Written in English Only

Filed under: General,Political Correctness — Patterico @ 3:47 pm



So now the activists are trying to invalidate initiatives by complaining that the petitions are written in English only.

Jesus. How many freaking languages do we have to translate these things into? I mean, we can translate them into Spanish, sure, but what about the poor guy who speaks only Gaelic or Tagalog? And is the initiative invalid if it turns out after the fact that the Swahili or Urdu version mistranslated the number “three” as “two,” or some nonsense like that?

This is the height of multicultural nonsense.

There is a simple answer to this: if you want to vote on an initiative, and the petition is written in English, learn to read English.

Otherwise, stop whining.

Hell, it’s probably written in lawyerese English anyway. It’s not like we can understand it any better than you can.

Kerr’s Challenge for Those Who Say the Knock-and-Announce Case Defied “Originalism”

Filed under: Crime,General — Patterico @ 12:32 pm



Orin Kerr has a challenge for those who say the knock-and-announce decision was not originalist, or somehow a departure from precedent:

What is the first known case of any court in any country suppressing evidence for failure to comply with the knock-and-announce rule?

Here’s a related point: the exclusionary rule itself is not an originalist concept.

Supreme Court Decision on Parolee Searches

Filed under: Crime,General — Patterico @ 9:36 am



A word about today’s Supreme Court decision on parolee searches.

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L.A. Times and Liberal Organization Claim: Study Shows Race Affects Mortgage Rates

Filed under: Race — Patterico @ 6:01 am



The L.A. Times reports:

[A] new two-year investigation in six metropolitan areas suggests that mortgage quotes are not always colorblind.

. . . .

• Brokers discussed loan fees with 74% of the white shoppers but only 31% of the minority shoppers. Yet loan fees — points and a wide variety of other charges — can add significantly to the out-of-pocket costs of one mortgage compared with another, even if the interest rates are the same.

The story goes on to list other ways in which whites were treated better than similarly situated (or better situated) blacks and Latinos.

I am generally critical of such studies for lacking controls — and of the L.A. Times for failing to report the obvious flaws with such studies. The usual study finds disparities based on race, without controlling for the factors that lenders look at. But ths article claims that at least some of these controls were in place:

The six markets investigated were Baltimore, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Atlanta. In each area, African American and Latino couples or individuals visited the same mortgage brokerage firms as white shoppers, all purporting to apply for home loans of similar amounts. All the applicants were assigned specific income, credit and employment profiles to present to loan officers. African American and Latino applicants had slightly higher incomes, credit scores and longer employment backgrounds than their paired white colleagues making separate applications at the same brokerage firms.

That sounds good, if you fully trust the organization that conducted the study, and if you further trust the newspaper to accurately report any potential flaws in the study.

I don’t. Here’s why:

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