Mission Statement - De-Spinning the Pro-Taser Propaganda
Yeah right, 'Excited Delirium' my ass...
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The primary purpose of this blog is to provide an outlet for my observations and analysis about tasers, taser "associated" deaths, and the behaviour exhibited by the management, employees and minions of Taser International. In general, everything is linked back to external sources, often via previous posts on the same topic, so that readers can fact-check to their heart's content. This blog was started in late-2007 when Canadians were enraged by the taser death of Robert Dziekanski and four others in a short three month period. The cocky attitude exhibited by the Taser International spokespuppet, and his preposterous proposal that Mr. Dziekanski coincidentally died of "excited delirium" at the time of his taser-death, led me to choose the blog name I did and provides my motivation. I have zero financial ties to this issue.
1 comment:
If the discussion about tasers, "cause and effect" and rational thought is going to take center stage ["Syllogism"], the logical principle "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem" needs to be invoked. It is known as "Occam's Razor" and roughly translated it says that when two or more competing explanations describe a series of connected events, the one employing the least factors is usually also the correct explanation.
By way of example, if we encounter an individual, taser him and he dies, the simplest conclusion is "the taser killed him". Some may want to argue that a postmortem exam of the dead person revealed a heart condition, but Occam's Razor reminds us that the chance the "heart condition" killed the individual at the very same moment of the tasering is so remote, that it just muddies the logical waters and needs to be discarded.
The suggestion by Taser International's lawyer that alcoholism killed Robert Dziekanski is perhaps the most ludicrous example of trying to violate Occam's Razor.
The sequence of events in all "in custody"/"excited delirium" deaths is ALWAYS and SIMPLY this: an official applies a "method of restraint" and the subject dies. Occam's Razor points the finger of causality squarely at the "method of restraint". It leads a logical person to simply conclude that all taser deaths are Homicides.
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