Tasemanian gavel

The Justice Thomas Braidwood inquiry, in a beautifully lucid, commonsense finding that should surprise no one, has ruled that Tasers can kill.

There are caveats, but coyotes who have been on about electrical discharge weapons for at least as long as Braidwood has been inquiring, feel that logic has returned to the debate. Taser International, and cops on this country who may stand to face legal and civil action as a result of their, ummm, overenthusiastic endorsement - Tasemania, if you will - of the damned things, may not.

For the first time in ages, Taser International is not ranked first in the Google results for "Taser". News about the inquiry is. That's gotta suck for sales.

In fact, right after Braidwood's news conference yesterday, Taser International's spokesthingy fired off an email slamming the inquiry's report as "politics triumphing over science".

That would be the science fully-funded by Taser and hauled into a series of courtrooms to legally muddy, squelch and steamroll the faintest scintilla of evidence that its weapon had contributed to any death, anywhere. The science Taser used to sell boxcars full of its products to police forces that have come to regard them as really safe electric people prods. The science that Taser has been regularly trotting out at conventions of police chiefs and various rentacops, to show them how their under trained rookies can be handed stun guns with which to zap drunks and, say, subway turnstile jumpers. The science that Taser has been using to impress our more, ummm, law-and-order MPs when it lobbies them...

Oh, wait! Wasn't that all politics? Oops. Some coyotes just don't know when to stop thinkin'...

A salty dog

We regret to report the death of Gidget the Chihuahua of a massive stroke Tuesday, at a pubescent 15 years.

She is best remembered as the dubbed-male-voice spokesdog for a fast food chain that shall remain nameless, because at this blog, we don't espouse free advertising for any commercial ventures but our own.

The gender thing is not unusual. Lassie - through all 163 or so actors - was almost invariably played by a male dog in drag. Or perhaps a (shudder) neuter. Regardless, the quality of the show's human actors was such that I almost always mentally rooted for him/her/it to shove Timmy down the lousy well... and maybe dangle a judicious leg over the hole before buggering off. I digress.

I needn't go into details. Mainstream news is on this like cheese on a burrito. But as long as we're hinting conspiratorially at coincidental links between recently expired celebrities - and hey, these are the dog days of summer news, so what else are we gonna do? - I'll just arch a significant eyebrow and mention that the reasonably alert among you will have noted again very recently that one of the contraindications for those who wish to avoid strokes is sodium chloride. The kind that one might find in massively oversalted tacos, f'rinstance...

I'm just sayin'.

Now that Bluesfest is over ...

Cedric would like to apologize for:

(*) Knocking the cell phone out of that young woman's hands during a beer run

(*) Drooling on Neko Case

(*) The "mustard" incident

(*) Climbing Joe Cocker

Google Poem: Let's Not

* Let's Not Be Fools!

* Let's not be naive.

* Let's not be greedy

* Let's not be afraid to roll our eyes just a little.

* Let's not be unfair.

* Let's not be afraid to tap into that inner reserve of wonder that's known as imagination.

* Ok, let's not be premature with our celebrations!

* Let's not be fussed about appearing as if we are creating conflict to get universal health care, renewable energy, a Global Marshall Plan.

* Let's not be lonely, let's not be strangers. Let's wake up on the same side of the bed today.

* Let's not be afraid of political action.

* Let's not be hasty here, I'm sure there's a perfectly rational reason for this.

* Let's not be distracted by a few wheelbarrows full of cash.

* But let's not be a people who are known for what and who we're against.

* Let's not be timid.

* Let's not be ignorant on the subject.

* Let's not be ridiculous.

* Let's not be too quick to praise Tim Hortons' show of leadership regarding the recycling of paper coffee cups.

* Let's not be too hard on the boy. He's been bowling fantastically well for the last year.

* Let's not be as intolerant as those we criticize! [

* Let's not be too harsh on Cory.

* Let's not be imitations or fakes- we just need to keep it real.

* But while we are at it, let's not follow our pets back into the wild – let's not be like Timothy Treadwell in Grizzly Man

* Let's not be too hard on Courtney Lee.

* But let's not be so sure there isnt a backup plan yet.

* LET'S NOT BE IMPOLITE AND CHASE HER AWAY.

* Let's not be so quick to chase Mora out.

* Let's not be so quick to crown Roger the Greatest

* Let's not be anti-intellectual (Jesus and Paul were not).

* We all love to stick it to the corporate Man, but let's not be too hasty or judgmental.

* So let's not be lame about it, there are some things you should know.

* Let's not be so hard on her. ...

* But let's not be any more anthropocentric.

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When AAs sag

No, no, not those AAs. What were you thinking?

We coyotes lead portable lives. And that means we carry much small, valuable electronic paraphernalia about our ummm, persons. Anti-mayor radar, that sorta thing. If you see a medium-sized 'was that a dog?' someplace weird downtown - and it clanks with hidden gear - that's me. Oops. I digress. Who'da thunk?

Anyway, based on an anecdotal sample of one, I've lately noticed a steep climb in instances where costly gizmos go wonky, and I open them up to floods of corrosive goo from burst AA cells. Which I must clean out, or lose the gadget. This almost never used to happen if one avoided off-brands and dodgy dollar store counterfeits. Lately it's been like, twice a week.

I'm sure our friend Milan has statistics somewhere on the environmental unfriendliness of alkaline cells versus rechargeable, with life-cycle assessments demonstrating that investing in new and rechargeable gizmos is better than pumping one-use alkalines into old stuff. He's all over that sort of thing.

My issue is that rechargeable AAs are often AAAs stuffed in bigger AA cases. They're weak, and wear down fast. Still-working, but power-mad older stuff is what I have, and I am loathe to replace it. Especially that anti-mayor radar. It saves my tail sometimes... Oop. Digression detector's beeping!

Ummm, I blame Wall-to-Wall-Mart. And globalization. Among others.

Wall-to-Wall is a retail gorilla that tempts potential suppliers with huge markets. Under contract, they start relying too heavily on that fat, high-volume, low-margin cash cow. Then Wall-to-Wall orders 'em to slash supply costs, so it can undersell Target or Sears. Suppliers have to cheapen themselves or die. Win for the consumer, right? Or maybe once-reputable brands fatally debase themselves on Wall-to-Wall's altar. And maybe Wall-to-Wall throws 'em away when they're so lousy nobody buys 'em anymore. It's bidness.

Something similar can happen when formerly home-grown businesses contract out to far eastern factories for hire. Factories low ball contract bids insanely, then do test runs to prove they can actually make a thing to a "carefully monitored" North American or European firm's specifications. Once they snag the contract, they squeeze already low-paid workers, and find all sorts of cheesy, sleazy ways to progressively save a few cents per unit here, a penny a unit there, until they get a profit. Who cares if there's lead in the toys or venetian blinds? Or carcinogens in the baby formula? Or that flimsy MP3 and DVD players fail in weeks? And batteries vomit? We're only really talkin' about makin' money here!

Which may be why I keep running old, still-serviceable, but power-hungry electronic thingies on alkaline AAs. Years later, they still work. They wear out, not break. Just as long as I can keep those cheap fucking batteries from screwing 'em up...