January 26, 2008
Les Leyne, Times Colonist
A stock market collapse, some curious musings by the premier from afar and a rock 'em-sock 'em vice-regal visit. It was a curious week for B.C. Do we know how to show visiting dignitaries a good time, or what? Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean dropped by Vancouver with the express intention of experiencing the gritty underside.
The gritty underside rose to the occasion. People yelled at her, swore at her and conducted obscene tirades in the background during one of her appearances on the Downtown Eastside.
The grand finale couldn't have been more representative of B.C. It was the ceremonial Tasering of an agitated man in the middle of the street directly outside the window of the building where she was speaking.
B.C. has an international reputation for Tasering people, courtesy of the Robert Dziekanski debacle at Vancouver airport last year.
So the drama played out at curbside -- city cops piling on a profanity-spewing protester and subduing him with a Taser -- had the feel of one of those traditional ceremonies that the locals stage when visiting royalty arrives.
In the North, they stage a blanket toss when the guv comes calling. In the Maritimes, a fiddling contest. In B.C., we Taser someone.
Now she has a taste for what it's like out here on the wild frontier.
The rest of the story wasn't related to tasers so I have not included it here.
Yes that was appalling. As was the non-reaction of Michaele Jean!
ReplyDelete------------------
But this is the main reason why I came to write here tonight. I can't find any email address for you on this blog btw.
I just came across this strange news about the I-robot Company which manufactures the Roomba floor cleaner. Apparently this company will be teaming up with the Taser Corporation to make Robots equipped with tasers. Yes you read that correctly!
Here are two links, the first one was on a health web site and the site owner does independent product reviews. He was reviewing the Roomba cleaner and mentioned this fact, also provided the link to the Army Times website where they discussed it furtherit also got a mention.
Thought you'd like to know about this.
Here are the links:
http://www.newstarget.com/PhotoTour_Roomba_530_9.html
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/06/ap_armedrobots_070628/
Here's an excerpt from the latter link:
iRobot to add stun guns to military robots
By Mark Jewell - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jun 28, 2007 19:03:31 EDT
BOSTON — RoboCops and robot soldiers got a little closer to reality Thursday as a maker of floor-cleaning automatons teamed up with a stun-gun manufacturer to arm track-wheeled ‘bots for police and the Pentagon.
By adding Tasers to robots it already makes for the military, iRobot Corp. says it hopes to give soldiers and law enforcement a defensive, non-lethal tool.
But some observers fear such developments could ultimately lead to robots capable of deciding on their own when to shoot and kill.
“It’s one more step in that direction,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, an Alexandria, Va.-based military research organization....