PC Magazine discussed the inconsistency in how some forms of the same topic are allowed; for instance, "lesbian" was blocked, while "gay" was not, and "cocaine" was blocked, while "crack" and "heroin" were not. The report further stated that seemingly normal words were also blocked due to pornographic innuendos, most notably "scat", likely due to having two completely separate contextual meanings, one for music and one for a sexual practice.[114]
advanced aircraft analysis 3.5 crack cocaine
1st Circuit reverses where recorded conversations did not show second 152-gram crack transaction. (254) Defendant pled guilty to crack cocaine distribution. Based on recorded conversations between defendant and a confidential informant, the PSR concluded that defendant had acquired at least 152 grams of crack for distribution. The government argued that the recorded statements actually showed that defendant had purchased at least two distinct 152-gram supplies of crack. The district court so found, and attributed 304 grams to defendant. The First Circuit reversed, agreeing with defendant that the recordings did not establish a second 152-gram sale. The broken and garbled exchange in the recording was not a reliable estimate of weekly sales, and did not appear to be an admission by defendant that his weekly sales were 152 grams. The district judge was entitled on this record to treat defendant as a more serious offender than one who only distributed 152 grams, by either sentencing him at the high-end of his guideline range, or varying upward from it. But this must be an exercise of judgment rather than as part of a drug-quantity formula. U.S. v. Marquez, 699 F.3d 556 (1st Cir. 2012).
2nd Circuit upholds conservative estimate that contained deductions for losses and disruptions. (254) The government argued that defendant was responsible for between 5 and 15 kilograms of cocaine base. Defendant argued that he was only responsible for the much smaller quantity that police actually seized. The district court attributed between 1.5 and 5 kilograms to defendant. The Second Circuit approved the estimate, finding it was carefully considered, conservative, and based on the evidence presented. One conspirator stated that he packaged 800 vials of crack two to three times a week for about a year, which amounted to between 5.5 and 8 kilograms. The district court used a calculation of 800 vials twice a week, and then made reasonable deductions for losses and disruptions in the organization. U.S. v. Moore, 54 F.3d 92 (2d Cir. 1995).
6th Circuit considers drugs from tally sheet. (254) Defendant was convicted of possessing crack cocaine with intent to distribute. The court considered at sentencing a drug tally sheet identified by an associate as written in the handwriting of another conspirator. The tally sheet stated that defendant owed this conspirator a debt of $1000. The district court relied on testimony and evidence at trial that $1000 would purchase 28 grams of crack, and inferred that the $1000 was an amount that had been purchased by defendant from this conspirator. Defendant argued that the accomplice did not see the conspirator writing on the tally sheet nor did she have first hand knowledge that defendant owed the conspirator $1000. The Sixth Circuit found that the district court reasonably inferred that defendant owed $1000 to the conspirator for 28 grams of crack. U.S. v. Bingham, 81 F.3d 617 (6th Cir. 1996).
7th Circuit upholds classification of drugs as crack rather than powder cocaine. (254) Defendant supplied crack cocaine to a distribution network. The district court calculated the money defendant received by Western Union wires and used an estimated price for the crack cocaine to estimate the quantity of distributed drugs attributable to defendant. Defendant argued that the district court erred in classifying the entire quantity as cocaine base rather than at least partially as cocaine powder. The Seventh Circuit upheld the classification of the entire drug quantity as crack. Defendant delivered cocaine either in crack form or the other participants converted it into crack before selling it. Defendant knew or reasonably should have foreseen the conversion to crack. There was no evidence that the participants who actually did the selling sold anything but crack cocaine. U.S. v. Shorter, 54 F.3d 1248 (7th Cir. 1995).
8th Circuit upholds estimating quantity of drugs based upon amount of cash seized. (254) The district court determined that $112,867 seized was the monetary equivalent of 940 grams of crack, in light of testimony that crack was routinely sold for $120 per gram. Adding 940 grams to the 233.88 grams of drug seized, the district court determined that the conspiracy involved the distribution of 1,173.88 grams of cocaine base. The 8th Circuit upheld the calculation. The commentary to guideline 2D1.4 suggests that where the amount seized does not reflect the scale of the offense, the sentencing judge may approximate the quantity, and may consider the price generally obtained for the substance. U.S. v. Stephenson, 924 F.2d 753 (8th Cir. 1991).
The main focus of petroleum refineries is the production of transportation and heating fuels, either by atmospheric distillation or by the cracking of distillates produced from vacuum distillation. Such petroleum refining processes generate some aromatic-rich petroleum residues. For example, the generation of substantial quantities of residue, i.e. clarified oil (CLO), from fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is unavoidable during the production of large volumes of transportation fuels. In addition to being rich in aromatics these petroleum residues generally have a high C/H ratio and can be good feed stocks for making mesophase pitches, that is, petroleum pitches which contain mesophase spheres. Mesophase pitches are considered to be good starting material for many industrial and advanced carbon products, such as carbon fibres [1], needle coke [2], graphite electrodes [3-5], C-C composites [6], fine-grained sintered carbons [7,8], Li-ion battery anodes [9], mesocarbon microbeads [10,11], carbon foam [12] and plasma-facing components for fusion devices [13] etc.
The elemental analyses of the petroleum pitches prepared from the three petroleum residues are presented in Table 4. The results of the elemental analysis show that the petroleum pitches mainly consist of carbon (>90.40%) with a little amount of nitrogen and sulfur. It was further observed that for each petroleum residue, the percentage of carbon and the C/H ratio in the pitches increases with increasing thermal soaking time. However, the percentage of hydrogen and sulfur decreases. This increase in the percentage of carbon and decrease in the percentage of hydrogen is due to the polymerization and condensation reactions which take place during thermal soaking [26]. During thermal soaking of petroleum residues, cracking of alkyl side chains also occurs because the length of alkyl side chains attached to the aromatics is reduced. This is evident from the lowering of the Hβ value. However, the petroleum pitches still contain some side chains with shorter chain length with increasing thermal soaking time. Further, in the second stage these side chains tend to crack at the alpha position to the aromatic ring [27]. This leads to the formation of free radicals, which on dimerization leads to formation of aryl-aryl bridges in the pitch dimers. Therefore, the C/H ratio increases with increasing thermal soaking time. 2ff7e9595c
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