Shock 'n' awesome

Sam de Brito, I salute you. The "popular All Men Are Liars blogger", as he's termed on the video clip, was hit by a Taser yesterday to prove that they're safe. De Brito's willingness to be a human guinea-pig for a debilitating weapon is both impressively dedicated and highly entertaining. But while I admire his willingness to have metal barbs fired into his body so he can be electrocuted by 50,000 volts, let the record show that I am not in the least bit willing to be zapped by a Taser – or in fact attacked with any weapon whatsoever – in the service of this blog.

If only Carl Scully had been willing to let de Brito take the heat, instead of organising a demonstration in the Parliament today, he wouldn't have gotten into such trouble with Meredith Burgmann. She refused him permission to bring in the Taser on the basis of a long Parliamentary tradition that forbids anyone from bringing in weapons because they could lead to coups. You can't be too careful these days – ask the former Thai Prime Minister.

And although this may seem preposterous in NSW, I think she's got a point. Peter Debnam is far more likely to be made Premier of NSW through a coup d'état than he is to win the next election.

And why couldn't Scully just have organised the zapping out the back, on the Domain? I can guarantee you that if the Police Minister had announced that some guy was going to get electrocuted for the entertainment and information of the Parliament, everyone in the whole building would've left their desks and rushed down to watch faster than you can say "Please, can we test it on Michael Costa?"

Tasers are pretty hilarious. The company has put together a brilliant website that looks like an American cop show, REAL TASER STORIES, where cops take down perps with a bolt of lightning reminiscent of the Emperor in Return Of The Jedi. Better still is the Taser Cam series, where dodgy testimony is compared with footage captured by the cops. It seems like cops in the US can't do anything without filming it these days. And it certainly makes for good cable footage.

But the most amazing thing about the Taser, though, is that ordinary citizens can carry them in most US states without a license. Got to say, though – in an American context, anything that stops police simply gunning down bad guys has got to be a good thing.

But I do admire de Brito's willingness to go out there and do stuff on camera in the service of entertaining Herald readers. It shows dedication above and beyond the call of blogger duty. So here is a list of things I am officially prepared to road test for the information of Radar readers.

• Holiday resorts
• Cars, especially convertibles
• Alcoholic beverages
• Nifty electronic gadgets
• Restaurants
• That same Taser, but on Hotdogs

Dominic Knight