Which method of execution would you prefer, if you HAD to choose?

[Endangered Specie]

Poll question: Which method of execution would you prefer, if you HAD to choose?

[Magrittes Pipe]

1. Only one of those is also the title of a Penetration song.

That's the one I chose.

[flamingyouth]

42. That would be Firing Squad

Great band! :hi:

[soothsayer]

2. Off with her head!

Gotta go with the guillotine. Classic!

[eyesroll]

3. Electric chair.

I have a thing for "The Mercy Seat," whether it's Cave or Cash.

[Richardo]

4. I'll take Maxwell Smart's choice...

KAOS Agent: "Look, I'm a sportsman. I'll let you choose the way you want to die. "
Max: "All right, how about old age? "

:D

[Deja Q]

28. I wanted to say that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:cry: :D

Awesome show, that... pity it won't get released on DVD yet "Survivor" does. x(

[Richardo]

37. I'm hip, my brother.

I'd buy all the Get Smarts if they were on DVD. One of the all-time greats. :D

[Dookus]

5. guillotine

all the way. Probably as painless as it can get.

[Dogmudgeon]

18. Guillotine spookiness

The Guillotine was greatly feared, not for the amount of pain it produced (which was little or none), but because a number of its victims' heads are reported to have remained conscious after being severed from their bodies. Although the stories produced great fear in the minds of the French, a large number of them were certainly fictional. But the possibility of the head surviving can not be ruled out entirely -- which gave the legend its power.

The most persistent conscious-head story is about Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier. Lavoisier, best known as the scientist who described and named the element Oxygen, was a tax collector when the French Revolution began. He was sentenced to die on the guillotine as a traitor to the French people. According to the story, he arranged for a friend of his to stand by the head-catching basket; if he remained conscious, he would blink his eyes, and his friend would count the number of times he blinked.

Nearly all the on-line articles on his execution appear to be drawn from this Wikipedia entry:

A possibly apocryphal story relates how Lavoisier arranged a final experiment at his death intended to determine whether and for how long a severed head remains conscious after decapitation (though standard biographies have never mentioned the incident). Supposedly, Lavoisier decided to blink as many times as possible, and had an assistant count the blinks, which numbered between 15 and 20.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier

The story of Lavoisier's execution has not been definitively proved or disproved (at least the last time I looked into it in any depth), but its plausability is reinforced by several well-documented reports of heads surviving being severed, some for as long as several minutes -- though 15 seconds to 1 minute is a more believable length of time, based on observations of patients who have remained conscious after cardiac arrest.

Cecil Adams takes up the question of post-decapitation consciousness in an article at The Straight Dope.

Whether or not most, many, or even some convicts' heads survived briefly will be impossible to determine without a large-scale return to decapitation as a form of execution. But the fear of surviving one's decapitation produced as many nightmares as that other durable legend-with-a-grain-of-truth, the horror of being buried alive and awakening in one's coffin.

--bkl

[forgethell]

6. Impalement.

Hey, if we're gonna do it, let's do it right.

[iconoclastic cat]

7. Death by fork.

I don't wanna be a canoe!

[sniffa]

8. death by ungabunga

;)

[Inland]

9. The slow death of

old age.

[curse10]

10. Vive le Resistance! The Guillotine!

:-)

[YellowRubberDuckie]

11. Do you realize that if you get your head chopped off...

...while you're still conscious, that you'll still be conscious for at least ten seconds? That means you'll see your body separate from your head...How horrible would THAT be?
Duckie

[VOX]

15. But after those few seconds, you'd have no memory of that...

Or anything else, for that matter. :)

[YellowRubberDuckie]

25. True...but that's still horrible.

[redqueen]

12. 20,000 volt dildo

[DS1]

13. that's one way to keep the morticians at bay, I suppose

:scared:

[redqueen]

31. How would it do that, exactly?

I've been trying to figure that out... and have just now decided to give up and ask.

[DS1]

32. I would imagine you'd be fused shut after a 20,000 volt charge

or otherwise crispy.

[redqueen]

33. Oh!

Ok, now I get it. Thanks.

And now I have that song in my head. hehehehehehe

[eyesroll]

16. Ah! The patented electric chair/ungabunga hybrid!

:D

[redqueen]

19. I meant to ask... what *is* ungabunga?

My method was featured in the movie Forbidden Zone, which is why I picked it for today.

I considered choosing being burned at the stake, just for dramatic flair. :)

[Spider Jerusalem]

21. The punchline of a joke.

Which, in the version I heard it, goes like this: an explorer is captured by a tribe in the heart of a vast jungle, after engaging in amorous activity with some of their more comely females,and brought before their chief. The chief tells the explorer that he has abused their hospitality and there must be punishment. The explorer is offered a choice: death, or "ugabuga". The explorer, not wishing to die, naturally, chooses "ugabuga". At which the chief turns to the assembled tribe and shouts "Death by ugabuga"! (note: spelling varies, but the way I have it is how I remember hearing it.

[redqueen]

22. Thanks!

I got a much raunchier version via PM... :)

[Endangered Specie]

23. The version I was told... (vulgar)

It was three explorers, the first two choose ungabunga, and they are both F***** in the A****** with a tire iron (that is ungabunga)... The third guy really didnt like what he saw (the chief really got into it, so to speak) so he picked death over "ungabunga"... of course, unfortunately for him, its DEATH BY UNGABUNGA.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

14. Carbon monoxide.

Just be put to sleep. Pure, without foul-smelling engine fumes.

[Endangered Specie]

24. How about being smacked shitless by a mentally-ill drunk Irish?

(ala Athens 2004 marathon ;) )

[VOX]

17. As long as you're anesthetized first, injection is the least violent...

choice of this group.

If I have any say in my passing, however, I'd much prefer to live in excellent health to a very ripe old age, then take a nap one afternoon, and just let go while asleep.

[Spider Jerusalem]

20. Other: injection of a fatal overdose of heroin.

Most painless and (probably) pleasant method I can think of.

[Merrick]

26. Lethal injections - a chemical hell

potassium chloride injection (what the state gives you if you've been really naughty) probably ranks somewhere below setting yourself on fire as far as a painless way to be killed goes. After you've been sentenced to death for extreme naughtiness, they strap you in and give you a series of three injections. The first is a short-acting barbituate, the second is a muscle relaxant that paralyzes you without doing much else while the third is the potassium chloride which blocks cellular aerobic respiration (stalls the creation of biochemical energy within the mitochondria) which stops the heart but effects all the cells in your body in a way that could be understated as 'most uncomfortable', especially as the barbituate they give you begins to ware off. Of course the muscle relaxant will prevent any movement on your part, thus sparing the audience the unpleasantness of any distasteful convulsing or discontented grimacing by you the bad guy.

related article:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/07/national/main576918.shtml

so yeah, an overdose of morphine or heroin would be a lot more humane and is what I'd choose, but those are narcotics and the state couldn't just go around using those for euthinization purposes now could they? Especially not if the prisoner wouldn't suffer probably...

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

30. Some people think that is a good thing.

Sadly, that includes some DUers. Although the most mental cases may already have been tombstoned.

[Endangered Specie]

34. Why not an overdose of novacaine or some other anestetic?

how about a bottle of nyquil or a bottle of Tylenol PM's?

[St. Jarvitude]

27. Other - snuh snuh, ala Futurama episode 3ACV01

http://www.gotfuturama.com/Information/Encyc-128-3ACV01/

[Deja Q]

29. I second that!

Imagine that, a skeleton with a smile. :D

[CBHagman]

35. I'm glad to see no one chose burning at the stake.

Apparently that's a horrific way to go, not that I have any firsthand knowledge of that.

And as for being decapitated, I don't care to test the "you feel no pain" theory. It's not as though we can interview somebody who's experienced it, unless you've been channeling St. Paul or the like.

[WoodrowFan]

36. eating cheeseburgers

until I had a heart attack.

either that or being a drummer for Spinal Tap

[AngryAmish]

38. The comfy chair!

[DS1]

39. licked to death by hot chicks

said it before, say it again

[Nikia]

40. Not injection

I hate needles. I guess it would be fitting though because I always feel like I am going to die and have passed out a couple times when they've taken my blood. I don't like unpleasant things injected into me either. The contrast die they used on me for medical tests was bad enough.
I'd probably opt to be shot while trying to escape.

[Mara Steele]

41. WALK THE PLANK!!

Most definitely, walk the plank. What a dramatic way to go...

[JohnLocke]

43. Firing squad (nt).