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Racial profiling "is not a myth"
Quad=Cities Online ^ | July 23, 2007 | AP

Posted on 07/23/2007 3:08:59 AM PDT by skimbell

After three years of tracking every traffic stop and reporting each incident in detail, Illinois police have a mountain of data, a few clear trends in how drivers are treated and difficult questions.

For the third year, police in 2006 pulled over about 2.5 million drivers. And just as in the first two years, minorities were stopped in larger percentages than population numbers would suggest, and were much more likely to be searched than whites.

But it's not clear who will answer questions

(Excerpt) Read more at qconline.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: govwatch
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To: skimbell

As a white driver my own impression after living in a virtually all-white area of the country is that most drivers, whatever the ethnic makeup, are seriously disturbed. When I drive about seventy mph on Wisconsin’s I-90 and 94 I will be passed like I’m standing still by what it seems is every other driver on the road. People drive like maniacs on Wisconsin’s highways. And they’re just about all white from what I’ve observed.


41 posted on 07/23/2007 11:43:01 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: driftless2

The essence of good transportation is speed. People are making rational economic decisions, in the face of poor regulatory ones making speed limits ridiculously low, when compared to the capabilities of modern vehicles.


42 posted on 07/23/2007 11:45:52 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Guns themselves are fairly robust; their chief enemies are rust and politicians) (NRA)
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To: FreedomPoster
"rational decisions"

Going eighty miles an hour in packed circumstances is not exercising rational judgment in my opinion. I'm not against fast speeds in fact I'd like to see Wisconsin's speed limit raised five mph. However in my observations too many Wisconsin drivers exhibit poor habits and not just by speeding. Tailgating, risky passing maneuvers, and failure to obey common road rules and courtesy are huge problems here.

43 posted on 07/23/2007 11:53:15 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: ModelBreaker
That said, the study does not answer question 1.

There are two studies, first the improper one this thread started off about and second, the The New Jersey Study linked to later on. The New Jersey study answered question 1. It was not based on arrests but on pictures of all drivers and their speed.

44 posted on 07/23/2007 12:08:27 PM PDT by On the Road to Serfdom
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To: ModelBreaker
It does not answer the harder question of who is committing crimes. ...crimes are committed in private and most are not solved.

One way to look at that is to use victimization studies. A victimization survey gets data from victims who report the race of the offender, not the criminal justice system. These studies consistently confirm criminality rates observed in arrest and conviction studies.

45 posted on 07/23/2007 12:11:33 PM PDT by Dan Evans
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To: skimbell

Posted Online: Posted online: July 23, 2007 12:16 AM
Print publication date:
Studies suggest crops contribute to steamy weather
Comment on this story

Gene Strathdee D.D.S.
Releave the pain and suffering of migraines

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — All hot and sweaty this summer? It could be the corn.

Climatologists are building evidence that crops, particularly corn, are driving up dew points as they put water into the atmosphere through evaporation. They also may make corn-growing areas cooler and alter rain patterns.

Some say the extra moisture could even add energy to thunderstorms, with one study arguing that a 2001 tornado in Benson got a power boost from corn evaporation.

“I think there’s a new realization that there is a two-way interaction between weather and agriculture,” said Richard Raddatz, a climatologist at the University of Winnipeg, who has studied the transformation of the Canadian prairies from grassland to cropland.

In some ways, researchers are taking a second look at a 19th century adage — “rain follows the plow.” Popularized by Charles Dana Wilber in an 1881 book touting the agricultural promise of Nebraska, the phrase supported a grand notion that the western Great Plains, which in the early 19th century had been labeled the “Great American Desert,” could be transformed into a garden if people would expose its moist soil to the atmosphere.

Rainy years added credibility to the idea, but it was discredited as pseudo-science after homesteaders who flooded the plains were trapped by drought and bankruptcy.

Raddatz, however, said there is a growing body of research indicating that contemporary crops do indeed change the way water, heat and energy interact with the atmosphere.

By “transpiring” more heavily than the prairie grasses that preceded them, and in relatively short periods, crops can generate air movements that can lead to storms, and intensify the season during which water is cycled through the atmosphere.

Raddatz published a summary of studies of cropping and weather in February in the journal Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. They add some oomph to a 2002 study of dew points by Northern Illinois University climatologist David Changnon, which pinned a 40-year trend toward higher dew points in the Midwest, and record-high dew points during recent heat waves, on changes in farming. (Excerpt)


46 posted on 07/23/2007 12:43:09 PM PDT by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, and writes again.)
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To: driftless2
I drive in Wisconsin nearly every week. I drive the west side of the state and during the past decade or so I notice that I've been stopped more frequently by the state police concerning my rate of travel. I usually get by explaining that as I live in Illinois I am simply mesmerized by the quality of Wisconsin's roads. That line works no more. Several weeks ago I was stopped for doing 59 in a 55. After a discussion with the trooper he decided to give me a warning but cautioned me that Wisconsin had just reorganized their traffic policy and that the standard 5-8 mph over the limit was no more. He also cautioned me that the next time would not be a warning and that the new minimum fine was $160+ court fees.

It's not as wild as Virginia but $160 is $160.

I've slowed down.

You are correct about the typical driver in Wisconsin though. It seems as though I now get passed by everything including the Amish horse drawn buggies on their way home from church.

47 posted on 07/23/2007 1:33:25 PM PDT by skimbell (Conservatism Works)
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To: driftless2

I’m all for those other behaviors being ticketed (and taught). All too often, only speeding is, because it’s an easy revenue generator.


48 posted on 07/23/2007 2:15:16 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Guns themselves are fairly robust; their chief enemies are rust and politicians) (NRA)
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To: FreedomPoster

We already know that blacks commit homicide at a disproportionate rate. Blacks constitute nearly 50% of homicide victims and 94% of those are killed by other blacks. But due to the pernicious influence of the intellectual scourge of our time, political correctness; the study that might confirm this is unlikely to be released if it is ever conducted. It is so much easier to fan the fires of racial grievance.


49 posted on 07/23/2007 6:30:35 PM PDT by DMZFrank
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To: TypeZoNegative

“I also hear minority drivers are more likely to eat fried chicken. I hear having a greasy steering wheel makes it hard to drive and causes all of those accidents </sarc>”

That made me think of something that almost made me have an accident once.

I was driving home from work and I passed this car just in time to see a rather large woman stick a chicken leg completely in her mouth and pull out nothing but the bone. The jokes for that one write themselves.


50 posted on 07/24/2007 6:52:56 AM PDT by L98Fiero (A fool who'll waste his life, God rest his guts.)
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To: skimbell
When red head midgets are committing crimes out of proportion of their population then LE will profile red head midgets

It has to do with the "R" word. And that word is REALITY

51 posted on 07/26/2007 2:15:44 PM PDT by RedMonqey ( The truth is never PC)
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