Hear That Sound? It's Feces Hitting the Fan.

[ShadowHM]

I almost threw myself out of the boat during the 15 minute "It's a small world" ride I got roped into taking at Disneyland. 
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:lol: Me too ! The torture we endure for our children's sakes !

[Occhidiangela]

Who cares whether it is painless or not.  The end result is death.
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You ought to know better, given your line of work. ;) Process is important. :whistling: If it weren't, we'd still be hanging people on a nearby tree. I've heard such human habits are part of what is called civilization, just as using utensils to eat is a matter of civilization.

*Stands back to await witty riposte. Sips coffee.* :)

I almost threw myself out of the boat during the 15 minute "It's a small world" ride I got roped into taking at Disneyland. Imagine that 24x7 for weeks... No one, sane or not, could take that.

Earlugs, man, earplugs. I first saw that abomination as a boy at the New York World's fair. (I was 5 or 6.) My grandfather took me there. He was an alcoholic, I have since learned, so I think I know how he handled it.

When I took my then 3 year old daughter to Disney land in 1992, I had earplugs pre loaded in both front pockets. "It's a Small World" is much more bearable if you can't hear it, as is the average emo band. :P

Occhi

[GenericKen]

If the prick of a needle is too severe, what is left?

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In this case, it is not the prick of the needle, but the idea that the paralytic agents in the lethal injection are actually masking ridiculous amounts of pain the lethal agent itself induces.

[Archon_Wing]

We could always subject them to watching reality Tv shows nonstop for the rest of their lives. That would murder their mind and soul to an extent which no normal person deserves, and would probaly cause them to want death. -_-

[kandrathe]

In this case, it is not the prick of the needle, but the idea that the paralytic agents in the lethal injection are actually masking ridiculous amounts of pain the lethal agent itself induces.
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But...

... the first drug causes unconciousness.

Sodium Pentothal

Lethal Injection dose: 5 grams

Sodium Pentothal (also known as sodium thiopental) is an ultra-short acting barbiturate, often used for anesthesia induction and for medical induced comas. The typical anesthesia induction dose is 3-5 mg/kg (a person who weighs 200 pounds, or 91 kilograms, would get a dose of about 300 mg). Loss of consciousness is induced within 30-45 seconds at the typical dose, while a five gram dose which is fourteen times the normal dose is likely to induce unconsciousness in 5-10 seconds.

Pentothal reaches the brain within seconds and attains a peak brain concentration of about 60% of the total dose in about 30 seconds. At this level, the patient is unconscious. Within 5 to 20 minutes, the percentage in the brain falls to about 15% of the total dose since the drug redistributes to the rest of the body. At this concentration in the brain, the anesthetic effects wear off and consciousness returns.

The half-life of this drug is about 11.5 hours[2], and the concentration in the brain remains at around about 5-10% of the total dose during that time. When a 'mega-dose' is administered, as in lethal injection, the concentration in the brain during the tail phase of the distribution stays higher than the peak concentration found in the induction dose for anesthesia. This is the reason why an ultra-short acting bartbiturate, such as sodium pentothal, can be used for long-term induction of medical comas.

With a five gram dose, consciousness will probably be regained in about five to six half-lives which occurs in about 57-69 hours. The side effects of such a high dose, however, are respiratory depression (depression of the brainstem respiratory center) and vascular collapse (cardiovascular myodepression), and therefore without medical intervention such as intubation this is in itself a lethal dose.

Given that reality, I don't see how they would feel any pain other that the needle prick. The subsequent two injections insure death.

[Assur]

[quote=Artega,Jan 27 2006, 04:54 AM]
Harvesting the deceased's organs might be impossible, since lethal injections involve concentrated potassium; can't use the organs if they're destroyed by the potassium.

There is a solution for that problem. Harvest the organs when they are alive and just switch of the lifesupport when there is nothing useful left.

[kandrathe]

...
There is a solution for that problem. Harvest the organs when they are alive and just switch of the lifesupport when there is nothing useful left.
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Hmmm, sort of a more modern version of being drawn, and quartered. No need for life support though, since you would just take the heart last. The problem would be the propensity for abuse for the organ trade.

[Occhidiangela]

Hmmm, sort of a more modern version of being drawn, and quartered.  No need for life support though, since you would just take the heart last.  The problem would be the propensity for abuse for the organ trade.
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A new twist on Edgar Allen Poe's "Telltale Heart" story. I don't know, harvesting eyes and various other bits and pieces might not be an undue risk when a blind person might benifit from an upgrade to sight.

On second thought, naaaah. Ghoulish. There are a lot of us, me included, who are donors of record. All it takes to start filling the crying need for more organs (my liver is a worker, let me promise you) is to rescind drunk driving rules to allow for a higher rate of fatal accidents and an ensuing increase in supply of harvested organs. Hey, why stop there? A PSA campaign encouraging people to commit suicide --

Nah. Bad Idea™.

Forget I mentioned it. :whistling:

Occhi
EDIT: thanks Artega

[whyBish]

Well, there are more than 3 reasons for a penal system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment#Po..._for_punishment

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You forgot my favourite reason, economics. The only reason I prefer death penalty over life imprisonment is pure economics. I don't know about the U.S. situation, but over here the cost per prisoner per year is (order of magnitude of) 5-10 times the average wage. With our current system that means it takes the taxes of about fifteen to thirty workers to fund one prisoner (also note: workers, not citizens).

[whyBish]

You ought to know better, given your line of work.  ;)  Process is important.  :whistling:  If it weren't, we'd still be hanging people on a nearby tree.  I've heard such human habits are part of what is called civilization, just as using utensils to eat is a matter of civilization. 

*Stands back to await witty riposte.  Sips coffee.*  :)

Occhi
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Yeah, I figured I hadn't expressed that properly.

I'll have another go, but it'll probably still just fail all the same.

Whether it is painful or not, the person is dead at the end of it. The pain or lack of is irrelevant as a learning device. The pain or lack of is irrelevant on humanitarian terms because you are killing the person.

So am I missing something or are you saying lethal injection is somehow more civilised than a hanging?

[Artega]

An PSA campaign encouraging people to commit suicide --
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I'd call that giving natural selection a jump-start :)

Also, shouldn't that sentence start with "a" instead of "an", given that P isn't a vowel? :)

[Occhidiangela]

So am I missing something or are you saying lethal injection is somehow more civilised than a hanging?
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That is apparently the reasoning behind it. It is more humane and civilized.

Maybe I understand it imperfectly.

Occhi

[Occhidiangela]

I'd call that giving natural selection a jump-start :)

Also, shouldn't that sentence start with "a" instead of "an", given that P isn't a vowel?  :)
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Yeah, typo, fixed it. :)

Occhi

[Doc]

Well, while we are campaining to mollycoddle these murderers, how about we campaign for the victims too.

Getting shot HURTS LIKE HELL. Having a hole blown through your liver or your lungs is no friggin picnic. Getting shot in the face hurts like a meatball forker. So I demand that murderers kill their victims in the most humane way possible. Real gentle and cuddly like. Like... With cutesy little teddy bears and butterflies and rainbows and crap.

Of course, the other solution is not so gentle or humane. Bring back prison islands. Have prisoners grow their own food and manufacture all their own goods. No work = no eat. By the sweat of their brow they can earn their own bread.

Death row is a pretty sweet gig compared to previous life standards some of these sorts of guys lived in. Air conditioning, several meals a day, hot, and brought right to them. Room service. TV. Cable or even dish TV now. Snacks. All these things to coddle them and keep them from being "stressed." A lot of folk on the row even have a computer with high speed net access in their cells now. To keep them from being "stressed." Why, I was just reading about right here where I live how some prisoners are getting that Sirius or XM or whatever it is radio. Because it keeps them pacified, and there is some talk about letting prisoners have "rec time" with an xbox or some kind of game system for a couple of hours a day to keep them from being "stressed."

Sorry... But people in this situation being stressed is the least of their concerns. There is being dead. Which is the end of the line. Put them in their cell with a few books and that's it. Let them think about what they did and get themselves right with whomever they call God. Don't distract them. Let them sweat over their coming date with Thanatos.

Or, like I said, get rid of the death penalty and bring back prison islands. Not for everybody, only for the unrepentant and the incurable.

[kandrathe]

...
Of course, the other solution is not so gentle or humane. Bring back prison islands. Have prisoners grow their own food and manufacture all their own goods. No work = no eat. By the sweat of their brow they can earn their own bread.
...
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I think the world is too small for that now. It's too easy to find the way to spring Lex Luther from Devil's Island.

Let's review societies response to the murderer. First, justice needs to be delivered comensurate with the crime. Not merely for deterence, but to bring a reconciliation for the survivors. Someone getting away with murder, or getting a pat on the wrist is bad for moral. Everyone begins to measure their own lifes value to the society by the penalty for taking anothers life away. This is why, for thousands of years the penalty for intentional murder has been death (Code of Hammarabi). Next, removal of the offender from the society to prevent further harm to the society. If Devils Island is a paradise, then it does not seem like much of a punishment. And finally, a more modern humanitarian (and more expensive) approach to justice introduced rehabilitation during incarceration, to transform the offender into a better citizen upon release. I think most of us would agree it is a noble goal, and that our system has mostly failed with rehabilitation. In fact, quite the opposite is most likely true. If a person spends time in prison they will more likely emerge as a worse threat to the society. Also, our system is heavily weighted against identifying and treating mental illness which manifests itself as criminal behavior. Too often the anti-social masquerade as mentally ill, causing prosecutors, judges and juries to be sceptical of real illness.

[Drasca]

Like... With cutesy little teddy bears and butterflies and rainbows and crap.
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Somehow, I think you're intimately familiar with this part.

[Griselda]

While I realize that the singular of evidence is not anecdote, I have two cents to add.

Just because the murderer can't bring the dead back to life doesn't mean that they can't help the process of restoration in some circumstances. I recently read Goneboy by Gregory Gibson. It's about a school shooting that took place in 1992 (back when school shootings were pretty rare and "going postal" was still all the rage). In my case, it was a very emotional read because I attended the school at the time of the shootings and know most of the people and places involved. So, it's hard for me to be impartial. For that reason, I'm really not trying to make a case for or against the death penalty, but just to add another layer to the topic.

A tough part of these random shootings is trying to figure out exactly why a particular event happened, and what the perpetrator was thinking at the time. Unfortunately, our legal system is not designed to reveal that sort of information. The courts tackle who, what, where, and when just fine, but the why is left to haunt us.

The book does a good job at revealing the hole that was left in the lives of the victim's family (well, one of the victims) and the shooter's family, precisely because there weren't any easy "whys" in this case, and the shooter wasn't particularly responsive for years afterwards.

It turns out that years later the shooter claims to have changed from having no remorse (saying that he had been following directions from God) to demonstrating remorse for his actions to the point where he has initiated ongoing communication with one of the victim's families. It sounds like his change has also been comforting to his parents, who had felt like their son wasn't even "there" any more when they visited.

I don't know if the shooter truly feels remorse for his actions. In a sense, it doesn't matter. The point, to me, is that he has been around to somehow facilitate the healing process for some people who were hurt badly by his actions. He couldn't have done that if he had been put to death, and probably not if he had still been working on legal action to appeal a death sentence. So, in this one case, perhaps it worked out for the best.

Not that anything can be "for the best" once something terrible like this has happened, of course.

It was an interesting read, in any case, although my opinion is far from unbiased.

[Doc]

Uh... Er... Well, there is no delicate way to say this. So I wont even make the effort.

School shootings have been around for quite some time. In the PJs... Projects, housing developments, inner city ghettos, you know, places that the news tends to ignore, school shootings have been a common thing since the late 70s and through the 80s. South Central LA for example. Watts. The Robert Taylor Homes of Chicago. Or the Jeffries in Detroit. Can't even keep count how many little kids were killed in those schools that served those districts. And nobody kept count either. Nobody gave a damn. Nobody cared. It was a killing ground. A place to dump, and eventually be rid of, undesireables.

But you see, it took some rich white kids dying in a school shooting before everybody got all pissed off and upset about it.

Bother.

[Griselda]

Uh... Er... Well, there is no delicate way to say this. So I wont even make the effort.

School shootings have been around for quite some time. In the PJs... Projects, housing developments, inner city ghettos, you know, places that the news tends to ignore, school shootings have been a common thing since the late 70s and through the 80s. South Central LA for example. Watts. The Robert Taylor Homes of Chicago. Or the Jeffries in Detroit. Can't even keep count how many little kids were killed in those schools that served those districts. And nobody kept count either. Nobody gave a damn. Nobody cared. It was a killing ground. A place to dump, and eventually be rid of, undesireables.

But you see, it took some rich white kids dying in a school shooting before everybody got all pissed off and upset about it.

Bother.
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I'd venture that we're talking about two very different things. The similarities are that they both happen at schools and people die. I'm concerned about both, but am only talking about one at the moment. And I'm not willing to argue with you about that.

[Doc]

I'd venture that we're talking about two very different things.  The similarities are that they both happen at schools and people die.  I'm concerned about both, but am only talking about one at the moment.  And I'm not willing to argue with you about that.
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Ok. So lets not argue.

A kid goes in to school, pulls out a gun, and kills a couple of classmates. Now, this happens in the projects, it's just one of those things.

Happens in Columbine, and it's a national frigging tragedy, gets its own theme song, a national day of mourning, is turned in to a tv movie, books, the whole bit. The whole kit and kaboodle.

Now, I ask you, if you could, please explain to me how these two things are different? In both situations, lives were taken. Kids, children, wee ones, they died. Badly. In pain. They died in a school. They died by bullets. Fired from guns, which were held by other kids. Children. Wee ones. Both the Robert Taylor Homes and the Jeffries were losing on average one student life a day. Averages mind you, but that still comes out to ONE LIFE A DAY. How many days in a school year? You are a teacher, maybe you could let us know how many days are in a school year, and we can sit down and do the math... The loss of one human life a day on average over the course of a school year. That's quite a few kids aint it? Enough to fill a couple of classrooms I'd say. All these lives lost... And it went on for decades, DECADES mind you, till finally some of these horrible abominations called PJs were finally torn down and something was done about the problem when the death toll became so absurdly large it could no longer be ignored, and the crime, and the atrocities, and the death, and the human misery. Nobody could turn a blind eye to it no more and pretend it didn't exist.

So if you could, please, explain to me how it is "different." The cause, the effect, the outcome. All the same. Kids with guns, killing other kids.

I don't see any difference, other than skin colour here. A life is a life is a life.