Current Facts 9

Lethal Injection
Death by lethal injection may be more painful than was previously thought, a new study has found. Developed in 1977 as a humane alternative to the electric chair and gas chamber, the lethal injection process actually involves three injections: sodium thiopental, to render the inmate unconscious; pancuronium bromine, to induce paralysis; and finally potassium chloride, to stop the heart. But autopsies of executed prisoners found that 43 of 49 cases the level of anesthetic in the corpse's blood was very low, lower than the levels typical in patients going into sugery. That means inmates may sometimes be conscious after the first injection, study author Dr. Leonidas Koniaris tells the Los Angeles Times. If so, they would experience paralysis and be unable to breathe after the second injection. The third injection "will cause nerve fibers to fire, and you really get a profound burning sensation," Koniaris says.
The Week. May 6, 2005, Vol 5, Iss 206, pp. 21

Blog Citations
The BBC has been the most-cited news source among bloggers from January-May 2005, topping 2004's top media sources, Yahoo! News and the New York Times. While BBC employees in London staged a one-day strike over job cutbacks. In the first five months of 2005, the BBC was cited 73,422 times by bloggers, followed by Yahoo! (70,299 citations, dropping from No. 1 to No. 2), CNN (63,347, moving from No. 4 to No. 2) and the Times (52,985, dropping from No. 2 to No. 4). One of the biggest news winners in 2005 is the alternative TruthOut.org, which jumped from 89th among 2004's top-cited news sources to No. 7 on the January-May 2005 list (with 17,490 citations).Taken from BlogPulse May 24, 2005.

UK Slapping Craze
A craze known as 'happy slapping' which is sweeping the UK whereby kids are assaulting innocent passers-by on the street by slapping them while filming the incident on a mobile phone, is being blamed on TV shows such as Jackass and Dirty Sanchez. Recordings of slapping incidents are appearing on the internet, with police and anti-bullying groups getting increasingly concerned. The phenomenon was first reported in south London about six months ago but has since spread nationwide. Taken from ShortNews 5.12.05.

Toad-splosion
1000 toads in a Hamburg, Germany pond swelled up and exploded. "This phenomenon doesn't seem to have appeared anywhere before," said a puzzled government health official.
The Week. May 6, 2005, Vol 5, Iss 206, pp. 6

Lake Drain
A large lake east of Moscow disappeared overnight. One witness said the lake was sucked into a mysterious hole so quickly that the trees surrounding it "flew downwards, under the ground."
The Week. June 3, 2005, Vol 5, Iss 210, p. 8

War on Terror
If the war on terror began on September 11, 2001, the US now has been fighting that conflict longer than than it did the entirety of World War II.-National Review.
The Week. May 27, 2005, Vol 5, Iss 209, pp. 16

No Fly List
The government's "no fly" list of potential terrorists has grown over the past eight months from 19,000 names to more than 31,000.-Time
The Week. May 6, 2005, Vol 5, Iss 206, pp. 18

Threat Level
Former Homelands Security Chief Tom Ridge said that the Bush administration repeatedly raised the terrorist threat level in 2002 and 2003 to "high" based on flimsy intelligence. "There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it," Ridge said, "and we said, 'for what?"
The Week. May 20, 2005, Vol 5, Iss 208, pp. 8

Bush Politics
Under President Bush, the Republicans have opened the door to their own demise by turning their backs on their own principles, and becoming the party of intrusive, expensive big government. Bush and the Republican Congress have presided over the largest federal spending increase since LBJ, and the budget surpluses of the 1990's have been washed away by a flood of red ink. Bush, who in 2000 scoffed at the hubris of "nation building," now struggles to build Iraq into a civilized nation at the cost of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.-Steve Chapman Chicago Tribune
The Week. May 20, 2005, Vol 5, Iss 208, pp. 16