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.



Thursday, July 3, 2008

Do you believe in Santa Claus?

The pro-Taser machine has barfed-out [LINK] four more 'studies' that purport to demonstrate taser safety. All four studies have Dr. Jeffrey Ho listed as an author.

Who is Ho? [LINK]

There seems to be enough Ho-Taser connection that taser-critics will dismiss anything he is involved with out-of-hand. Some of the other author(s) are connected with Santa Barbara Police Department.


See also: [LINK]


Also, review what Dr. Chambers said on studies with inadequate sample size [LINK].

If an experiment is structured from the outset with an inadequate sample size (by people with letters after their name that should know better), then you need to ask: 'What is the true purpose of this study? The sample size is obviously too low to prove anything about the risk, so why was this study undertaken and what is the true motivation?'

Answer: Nifty press release, ever-growing pile (*) of flawed studies.

(* In science, unlike Stalin's Red Army, quantity does NOT have a quality all it's own.)

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