We don’t know how he voted, nor are we likely to find out, because grand jury proceedings are secret. But we do know that Raylon Parker served on a grand jury that ended up considering, among other indictments, his own.
A majority of the grand jurors voted to indict him.
This happened in Halifax County, North Carolina, presumably in the town of Halifax because that’s the county seat. Halifax (which as I’m sure you know was named after George Montague-Dunk, 2d Earl of Halifax) only has two or three hundred people, with about 50,000 in the whole county, so it’d be understandable if they were short of jurors. But you’d still think there’d be some sort of arrangement to make sure that juries voting on indictments don’t include any of the people getting indicted.
The highly unusual situation came to light when the clerk examined the indictments and noted that the defendant in one of the cases had the same name as a grand juror. [Judge Alma] Hinton said she was preparing to call Parker into the courtroom when he asked to approach the bench. [Upon learning it was indeed the same person, she] immediately removed him from the grand jury.
Oh, it’s just a procedural issue: they just need to compare the names of the grand jurors with the names on the indictments before the vote, not after. That should take care of the problem. And it may be a problem, because the assistant DA claimed he had seen this happen before (although the judge did not agree that it had).
You could also try asking jurors to raise their hands or something if they notice they’ve been indicted, but that would be an inferior solution, as this case shows. Because we don’t know how Parker voted, but we do know he was there when the evidence was presented against him and that he participated in the vote. “I asked him if he stepped aside when the matter was voted on,” the judge said, “and he did not.” Presumably he was not in the majority.
Although it is possible that he agrees he is guilty of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill—or, I should say, that there is at least enough evidence to prosecute him for that charge. You could be innocent and yet agree that probable cause existed to prosecute you. That’s not impossible, although I would estimate the odds of that ever happening to be about the same as the odds of Mexico paying for that wall. The assistant DA noted that if he did vote against himself, and people found out about it, that would certainly look bad at trial. “If he indicted himself,” he explained unnecessarily, “that’s a statement against him.” It sure would be.
Your typical wage is below what it was in the late 1970s, in terms of what it can buy. Two-thirds of you are living paycheck to paycheck. Almost 30 percent of you don’t have steady employment: You’re working part-time or on contract, with none of the labor protections created over the last 80 years – no unemployment insurance if you lose your job, no worker’s compensation if you’re injured, no time-and-a-half pay for working more than 40 hours a week, no minimum wage, and you have to pay your own Social Security. Over 37 percent of you have dropped out of the workforce altogether because you’ve become too discouraged even to look for work. That’s a near record. As if all this weren’t enough, the schools and infrastructure on which you rely have been neglected, and the ravages of climate change – droughts, fires, and floods – are worsening.
Yet the American economy is twice as large as it was in the late 1970s. As a nation, we are richer than we’ve ever been. We could afford to do so much better.
None of this has happened by accident. Those with great wealth have translated it into political power. And with that power they’ve busted labor unions (to which a third of private-sector workers belonged in the 1950s but now fewer than 7 percent do), halved the taxes they pay (from a top marginal rate of 91 percent in the 1950s to 39 percent today, and from an effective rate of 52 percent then to 18 percent now), cut safety nets, deregulated Wall Street, privatized much of the economy, expanded bankruptcy protection for themselves while narrowing it for you, forced you into mandatory arbitration of employment disputes, expanded their patents and intellectual property, got trade deals that benefited them but squeezed your pay, and concentrated their market power so you pay more for pharmaceuticals, health insurance, airfare, food, internet service, and much else.
This is bad for everyone. Even those at the top would do better with a smaller share of an economy that was growing because the middle class was expanding. And they’d do better in a society that hadn’t become so angry and susceptible to demagogues blaming immigrants and imports for what has happened.
But none of this will change unless we change it. No single person – not even Bernie Sanders, had he become president – can do what needs to be done, alone. You and I and others must continue to organize and mobilize. Do not find refuge in cynicism. Change is slow, and at times seems hopeless. But change is inevitable. Do not wait for politicians to take the lead. We are the leaders.
In the presidential contest of 1824, Andrew Jackson won the most electoral votes, edging out John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and William Crawford. Because Jackson did not have a majority, however, the election was decided in the House of Representatives, where Adams prevailed. Adams subsequently chose Clay as his secretary of state. Jackson’s supporters were infuriated by what they described as a “corrupt bargain” between Adams and Clay. The Washington establishment had defied the will of the people, they believed. Jackson rode the wave of public resentment to victory four years later, marking a dramatic turning point in American politics. A beloved hero of western farmers and frontiersmen, Jackson was the first nonaristocrat to become president. He was the first president to invite everyday folk to the inaugural reception. To the horror of the political elite, throngs tracked mud through the White House and broke dishes and decorative objects. Washington insiders reviled Jackson. They saw him as intemperate, vulgar, and stupid. Opponents called him a jackass—the origin of the donkey symbol for the Democratic Party. In a conversation with Daniel Webster in 1824, Thomas Jefferson described Jackson as “one of the most unfit men I know of” to become president of the United States, “a dangerous man” who cannot speak in a civilized manner because he “choke[s] with rage,” a man whose “passions are terrible.” Jefferson feared that the slightest insult from a foreign leader could impel Jackson to declare war. Even Jackson’s friends and admiring colleagues feared his volcanic temper. Jackson fought at least 14 duels in his life, leaving him with bullet fragments lodged throughout his body. On the last day of his presidency, he admitted to only two regrets: that he was never able to shoot Henry Clay or hang John C. Calhoun.
The similarities between Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump do not end with their aggressive temperaments and their respective positions as Washington outsiders. The similarities extend to the dynamic created between these dominant social actors and their adoring audiences—or, to be fairer to Jackson, what Jackson’s political opponents consistently feared that dynamic to be. They named Jackson “King Mob” for what they perceived as his demagoguery. Jackson was an angry populist, they believed—a wild-haired mountain man who channeled the crude sensibilities of the masses. More than 100 years before social scientists would invent the concept of the authoritarian personality to explain the people who are drawn to autocratic leaders, Jackson’s detractors feared what a popular strongman might do when encouraged by an angry mob.
An anonymous reader writes:The EmDrive, a hypothetical miracle propulsion system for outer space, has been sparking heated arguments for years. Now, Guido Fetta plans to settle the argument about reactionless space drives for once and for all by sending one into space to prove that it really generates thrust without exhaust. Even if mainstream scientists say this is impossible. Fetta is CEO of Cannae Inc, and inventor of the Cannae Drive. His creation is related to the EmDrive first demonstrated by British engineer Roger Shawyer in 2003. Both are closed systems filled with microwaves with no exhaust, yet which the inventors claim do produce thrust. There is no accepted theory of how this might work. Shawyer claims that relativistic effects produce different radiation pressures at the two ends of the drive, leading to a net force. Fetta pursues a similar idea involving Lorentz (electromagnetic) forces. NASA researchers have suggested that the drive is actually pushing against "quantum vacuum virtual plasma" of particles that shift in and out of existence. Most physicists believe these far-out systems cannot work and that their potential benefits, such as getting to Mars in ten weeks, are illusory. After all, the law of conservation of momentum says that a rocket cannot accelerate forward without some form of exhaust ejected backwards. Yet the drumbeat goes on. Just last month, Jose Rodal claimed on the NASA Spaceflight forum that a NASA paper, "Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio Frequency Cavity in Vacuum" has finally been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, but this cannot be confirmed yet.
Meet Marsha Blaker and Paul DeSomma – the talented California-based husband and wife that create stunning glass and ceramic artworks. One of our favorites – their series of glass sculptures representing the ocean.
Inspired by their love of nature and the ocean environment, the couple perfectly recreates the big blue waves in all their glory. “Our immersion in the constantly changing and evolving ocean environment inspires us to develop and grow our glasswork. We love this work to capture the vitality and energy of the ocean,” the artists told Bored Panda. I must say, I’m feeling the energy of the ocean just looking at these pictures! Take a look for yourselves below.
We’re no strangers to science here at TBB, and love featuring these types of builds. Last year, we featured Jason Alleman’s lovely Particle Accelerator (which is part of the upcoming review round on LEGO Ideas). To compliment our collection of scientific stuff, I’d like to submit for consideration -Disty-‘s BERG-LNZ Particle Acceleration Library.
This fantastic build is a great glimpse into what the builder imagines the inside of a particle accelerator to be, and it’s pretty fantastic. The parts use for the two massive components on each end is just great, and it looks suitably industrial.
TUMBLR! Tomorrow, September 3 2016, is once again INTERNATIONAL VULTURE AWARENESS DAY!
If you are already a vulture PRO, it’s all good, keep scrollin’, baby. NOT A VULTURE PRO? THEN READ ON, FRIEND.
VULTURES: SOME ARE LIKELY GOING EXTINCT, RAPIDLY: As you are aware, vultures exist. But did you know that many species of vultures are so critically endangered, that researchers are worried that some might be extinct before the turn of the decade? It’s 2016, bud, so that’s in only four years. Horrifyingly, a handful of vulture species have dropped by a staggering 90% since the 1980s. The White-Rumped Vulture alone has lost 99.9% of its population since the 1990s. You know all those “You were a child of the 80s/90s if you remember ____” memes floating around? Slap some vultures in there with the words “the most abundant raptor in the world during your childhood is now one of the most endangered”. That’s right folks, in the span of your lifetime, this bird has gone from several million, to less than 9,000. Other species have seen similar declines. SO WHO CARES, THEY ARE GROSS/UGLY: First of all, how dare. Vultures are my beautiful children. But seriously, vultures are very important no matter how beautiful (or.. ugly…) you think they are. Vultures are wicked good at eating carrion, and unlike most other scavengers, vultures are a dead-end for many diseases. What this means is that when a vulture eats a carcass that has botulism, rabies, tetanus, anthrax, fusobacteria
(linked to colon cancer), clostridium, (and many more), the vulture’s digestive system KILLS these diseases/bacteria, and does not pass them in its feces. One article suggests that vulture digestive systems can kill in excess of 12,000 species of bacteria that are found in rotting carrion. Not only do vultures provide this “service”, but scientists are hopeful that by studying how vultures digest these notoriously hard to kill nasties, that it will benefit humanity directly.
I DON’T EAT CARRION, SO I WON’T GET THOSE DISEASES ANYWAY: Well no, m… most of us don’t eat carrion, but guess what? We all drink water and share the same planet. Several types of these bacteria can filter down into the water table if not “cleaned up” by vultures. And while I’m sure some of you drink chemically treated municipal water, many people still rely on wells, especially in rural areas where there is more likely to be wild animal and farm animal carrion. Plus, rabies: It’s a thing. Ever since most of the vulture population in India has been wiped out, there has been a rabies breakout. Rabies is scary, do you really want to play around with that nonsense? Not me. Eat all the carrion, PLEASE, vultures. Even if vultures were not so valuable to humans and the environment (though they totally ARE), they are worth saving anyhow. We screwed this up, let’s dang well fix it.
OKAY, I’M DOWN WITH SAVING VULTURES. HOW DO WE DO THIS? Like many conservation issues, this is tricky and the answers are not always easy. Migratory or “wandering” birds in particular are tough to help because they can fly hundreds of miles in a day, and in doing so, cross international boundaries. If you have listened to world politics at all lately, you’ll know getting two countries to agree on something (especially something as “lowly” as helping vultures) is.. well, it’s tough. Vultures may have a lot of protection in one country, then fly across the invisible boundary, only to be poisoned in the next. In Africa, habitat loss, poisoning, poaching (kill the vultures so that their circling won’t lead authorities to rotting, poached animals), power lines, and illegal trade are wiping vultures out at an alarming rate. In India and other regions, much of the same, but also mixed with the devastating use of antibiotics in cattle which is extremely fatal to vultures.
If you can’t donate (I feel ya– I know that all ages and demographics love vultures! And not all can spare money) then that’s okay. Do something for International Vulture Awareness Day. Tell someone how cool vultures are, or draw a little vulture doodle. There are a lot of really neat species to choose from. Do a vulture interpretive dance at the mall, and tell people about vultures. Yell from the rooftop, from your twitter, facebook, or tumblr, about vultures. Wear some vultures on your BODY (by which I mean a shirt. Not actual vultures. Actually, I really need to get this. Look at their faces
❤
). Tag stuff with hashtags like #IVAD and #internationalvultureawarenessday and #lovevultures and make it trend, or whatever social media magic is these days.
Down with rabies, hug a vulture! (d.. don’t, don’t actually hug a vulture. Unless it’s a plush vulture. Oh snap- that’s right, you can totally buy a plush vulture and help vultures with your vulture.)
Also.
❤
Not Ugly
❤
:
(Cinerous Vulture)
* - I’m not affiliated with any of these organizations, I just want vultures to stay on this planet
“Gun purchases are off limits in the U.S. to anyone who uses medical marijuana or holds a state-approved medicinal marijuana card, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday, accepting the government’s view that illegal-drug users are prone to violence.”
no seriously bring on the #TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner, that’s the actual dream. and if there are going to be taco trucks on every corner, at least we know someone who always carries hot sauce with her.
Gabriele Zannotti is one of the most talented virtual LEGO builders creating non-physical LEGO models these days, using Mecabricks.com with Bluerender to create images essentially undistinguishable from the real thing. When I saw this gorgeous, rusty Fiat 500 wreck, I zoomed in as close as I could, trying to figure out if I just wasn’t aware of some of these bricks in the colors Gabriele used, and I was convinced by the sticker on the license plate as well as what I could swear are genuine pieces of dust on the bricks. But then I was heartbroken to see that Gabriele had included this image in his Lego renders album. From the composition to the lighting, along with the design of the vehicle itself, this is a stellar piece of LEGO art, even if there isn’t a single piece of physical LEGO in it.
You can see a shiny new red version of the Fiat 500 in this other render.
A massive spike in insulin prices is causing a health crisis for millions of diabetes patients who depend on the lifesaving drug, doctors say. Now, after years of rapid increases having nothing to do with available supply and not matched elsewhere in the world, those in the U.S. insulin supply chain are blaming each other....
From 2011 to 2013 the wholesale price of insulin went up by as much as 62 percent. From 2013 to 2015 the price jumped again, from a low of 33 percent to as much as 107 percent...
"This borders on the unbelievable," Davidson said, citing an extremely concentrated insulin which "in 2001 had the wholesale price of $45. By last year, the cost had skyrocketed to $1,447" for the same monthly supply....
Pricing of insulin, as with other medications, is controlled by the manufacturers, the insurance companies, and pharmacy benefit managers — the middlemen who negotiate the prices that the insurance companies pay....
"We don't know what the benefit manager is paying for the insulin from the pharma company. It's backroom deals," Hirsch said. "You can call them rebates, you can call them kickbacks, you can call them bribes, but those are secret deals on which we don't have the details."...
"You may not be able to prove who's behind the price rigging, but remember these prices are not an issue in Canada or in Europe or other countries where the governments keep the drug makers from going wild. It's only in America."...Three pharmaceutical companies control almost all the world's supply of insulin. In addition to Eli Lilly, headquartered in Indianapolis, there is the Danish company Novo Nordisk, which says it makes half the insulin used by diabetics around the world, and the French company Sanofi, which says it has 18 percent of the market...
Lilly said it could not speculate on why individual costs went up. "Lilly does not set the final price a patient pays for our medicines. Wholesalers and pharmacies ultimately price the product at retail," said communication manager Julie Herrick Williams. "The patient's insurer, the type of plan, and the individual pharmacy all play a role in the price," she said. "Changes to the U.S. healthcare system are the primary driver for increased insulin cost for consumers. With the adoption of cost-sharing plans, like high-deductible health plans, more direct costs are shifting to the people who need treatments."
A single-payer system would eliminate many of these price-gouging practices. Readers who are in favor of the current system (i.e. those who are healthy and/or wealthy) please chime in with your reasons for supporting it.
More at the link. The Reddit discussion thread makes note of the advantages of traveling to Mexico to purchase meds.
As my two teens head off to high school today for the start of another school year, I’m pretty certain one of the things they won’t see in their laptop / smart board / PowerPoint saturated academic environment is an “overhead projector”. And in case any of you are scratching your heads wondering what that is, how it worked, or what “transparencies” might be, Jeffrey Kong of Artisan Bricks has kindly created a miniature version of one using LEGO to give you a rough idea…
Presented without comment or explanation and leaving Chris McVeigh wishing he’d thought of this first!
For more than five decades, the Sikorsky Sea King has been one of great workhorses of the helicopter world. After returning from the Moon, Neal Armstrong, ‘Buzz’ Aldrin and Michael Collins were plucked from the ocean by a Sea King. US Presidents are routinely flown to and from the White House aboard ‘Marine One’, which is usually a Sea King fitted with a VIP interior.
Originally, however, the Sea King was intended as a submarine hunter and the excellent 1/40 scale model built by Maksymilian Majchrzak ( [MAKS] ) represents one of these, as used by the US Navy aboard aircraft carriers in the seventies and eighties. From the sponsons to the five bladed rotors, it’s as close to real thing as you can get using LEGO parts and it looks about perfect from every angle.
