The Garrote Vil (vile garrote) was Spain’s favorite way to execute people till the 1970s. After the death of Franco, Spain got rid of the Death Penalty and I guess the device is hidden somewhere or destroyed.

If you are looking for the definition of Cruel and Unusual, this baby here fits the bill so well it will give a collective heart attack to SCOTUS en toto. The condemned man spends its last minute on this planet slowly chocking till the screw pops the cervical vertebrae and decerebrates him. Of course, if the executioner is an asshole, this torture can take forever.

I found a clip of a Spanish movie which did a nice job reproducing an execution by Garrote Vil.

The Minneapolis City Council on Friday unanimously approved a proposal to change the city charter to allow the police department to be dismantled, following mass public criticism of law enforcement over the killing of George Floyd.

The 12-0 vote is just the first step in a process that faces significant bureaucratic obstacles to make the November ballot, where the city’s voters would have the final say.

And it came amid a spate of recent shootings in Minnesota’s largest city that have heightened many citizens´ concerns about talk of dismantling the department.

BREAKING NEWS: Minneapolis city council votes 12-0 to abolish police department after death of George Floyd and will replace it with a ‘department of community safety and violence prevention’

This is the first thing that came to mind.

Now, if the officer of Minneapolis PD are so kind and quit in masse tonight, it should make for an interesting weekend. You know goons are gonna come out and attack them, right? Why risk it?

Get popcorn.

This is why you don’t fly in Third World nations…

… unless you have at least one First World pilot in the cockpit.  That’s been a hard-and-fast rule of mine for decades, and I think it’s one of the reasons I survived living and working in the Third World for as long as I did.  I know I’m far from alone in observing that precaution, too.  Many of my friends and colleagues did likewise.

Peter is right, deadly right. Go read the post. The Pakistani gov found out that 30% of civilian pilots in Pakistan have bogus licenses.

Back when I was in college in the boonies Venezuela, I was given the advice never to take a ride in a private plane unless the pilot was a certified commercial pilot who actually flew by an airline. Truthfully, I would have got into any plane as long as it got me to Caracas for free rather than shed the cash for a plane ticket.

That lasted till one day going back to school, I met a mate at the airport waiting for the same flight to take us back. We got to chat and he told me about his flight home 3 days earlier where he got a free ride from a wealthy ranch owner in his Cessna 172 . It seems after taking off from his private strip, the “pilot” grabbed a cigar, moved the ring till it was about 1/3d from the top end and lit it.  They got to chat and what nots and when the cigar finally reached the ring, the “pilot” said something along the lines of “I guess it is time to turn right” and he did.  My buddy thought it was funny, but then he realized that the guy had never gotten on the radio the whole trip. H e saw the pilot looking all over to the ground as if searching and mumbling about where was the effing strip. My friend trying to be helpful, asked why not check the map and the “pilot” replied

“I can’t read”
“You can’t read a map? You are a pilot!”
“No, I can’t read, period.”

My buddy went both pale and silent and I figure he started to do some heavy rotation of Hail Marys and Our Fathers.  The rancher finally found the strip and landed at another private property he had near Caracas.  Out of the plane, after regaining his breath and composure, my friend asked him how he could fly without a license. The rancher smiled, produced his wallet and pulled a shinny Venezuelan private pilot license, “I have money, I can buy whatever I want in this country”

About six months later, the rancher died in a crash when weather turned on him after take off.  He was alone, thank God for small mercies.

If I have to fly, I do so commercial and only in big planes from established airlines.

From the Sage of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken:

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on “I am not too sure.”

This describes cancel culture perfectly.

Marxism and identity politics is an inferior culture and its practitioners are uncivilized, hence the destruction of monuments, vandalism, and violence we are seeing.

The barbarians have breached the gates and are sacking the city.  The only question is: does civilization have the fortitude to push back?

From the Book of Face:

I wrote about this yesterday.

It seems like Larry’s breaking point is near mine.

I would be more than happy to help him build a killdozer when the time comes.

I don’t think I’m alone in that.

According to the source, this is in a Target store where they are selling masks and you get to try them to see how they look and fit before you buy.
And if you don’t like it you can put it back!

Hat Tip Dale G.