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aberrate_junior_beatnik (he/him) @ aberrate_junior_beatnik @midwest.social
Posts
2
Comments
334
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • In addition to what @JakenVeina@lemm.ee said, a lot of universities have endowments that are invested in stocks, bonds, etc., to provide a baseline level of passive income. Divestment would mean getting rid of any existing investments and barring future investments in Israeli companies and companies that do extensive business with Israel. The result is to lower the access to cash and value of said companies.

  • Lethal injection gets botched badly enough that people notice it 7% of the time, the highest of any execution method. And again, those are the botchings we know about, because the method is designed to hide its failures. We have evidence (which I've already cited) that this may happen up to 40% of the time. In contrast, the next highest rate of botchings is gassing with 5%. I stand by my statement (which was hedged). Between how awful the botched deaths might be and the sheer number of them relative to how many are performed, it could well be the most brutal method.

    https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/botched-executions

  • If performed correctly, without human error, it should kill inmates quickly and painlessly. Yet each of the four main steps involved — securing IV access and then injecting each of the three drugs — has raised medical concerns. Starting an IV can be very difficult on a person who is obese, nervous or cold or who has a history of IV drug use, any one of which is not an unlikely complication in an inmate about to killed. Sodium pentothal is not packaged in solution, meaning the executioners must mix the powder with water just before killing, a somewhat delicate thing to do. The pancuronium bromide, or paralytic, prevents observers from determining if the inmate is properly anesthetized, since he can’t speak or move. Potassium chloride, which stops the heart, creates a burning sensation in the veins and might cause excruciating pain if the inmate is not properly anesthetized. (These concerns, and others, appear in the 1953 British report.)

    https://web.archive.org/web/20170203051825/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/magazine/11injection.t.html

    Anaesthesia during lethal injection is essential to minimise suffering and to maintain public acceptance of the practice. Lethal injection is usually done by sequential administration of thiopental, pancuronium, and potassium chloride. Protocol information from Texas and Virginia showed that executioners had no anaesthesia training, drugs were administered remotely with no monitoring for anaesthesia, data were not recorded and no peer-review was done. Toxicology reports from Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina showed that post-mortem concentrations of thiopental in the blood were lower than that required for surgery in 43 of 49 executed inmates (88%); 21 (43%) inmates had concentrations consistent with awareness. Methods of lethal injection anaesthesia are flawed and some inmates might experience awareness and suffering during execution.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20130729013249/http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2805%2966377-5/abstract

    I mean, it's all subjective. The electric chair is up there, for sure. I do think I'd rather be gassed. But the thought of being paralyzed, unable to move, while my veins are burning? That's terrifying. My main question is: why the paralytic? The barbiturates are supposed to put you under, and the potassium is what kills you. The answer is the comfort of the executioners and witnesses.

  • The method of execution was lethal injection, Karen Pojmann, a spokesperson for the department, said at a news conference, adding it “went smoothly, no problems.”

    We don't actually know that, because lethal injection (needlessly) includes a paralytic. His death could have been slow agony and there would be no way to know. Lethal injection is quite possibly the most brutal method of execution the US has ever employed. If I end up on death row I'll pray for the firing squad.

  • My guess is that it's related to the Weber-Fechner laws of perception. This is the same principle that explains why turning a second light on doesn't make a room seem twice as bright. Fechner's formulation is "the intensity of our sensation increases as the logarithm of an increase in energy rather than as rapidly as the increase."

  • If I say someone is my ally, I’m automatically their ally.

    You might be lying; you also might not understand what the person needs or wants, to the point that the actions you are taking or endorsing are harmful to them.