We're #1! (in prisoners)

According to a report released today by the Pew Center on the States, more than 1 in 100 American adults is in jail or prison.

More than 1 in 100.

You probably know someone who is behind bars.

The actual number of Americans in jail or prison: 2,319,258.

"Not that many," you say? Uh, yeah, it is. Whether per capita or in raw numbers, it's more than any other nation.

WE'RE NUMBER ONE!

The cost of all that incarceration? More than $49 billion last year. Twenty years ago it was $11 billion. That's a rate of increase six times greater for "corrections" than for higher education.

Hmmm. Wonder if there's a connection?

Source

Security lapse puts Obama at risk

This is scary. At an Obama campaign rally in Dallas yesterday, the Secret Service ordered Dallas police to stop screening people for weapons while they were still arriving at the rally.

Why would the Secret Service do such a stupid, risky thing? Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence said the intention was to speed up seating of the thousands who came to hear Obama speak.

Lawrence said he was concerned about the large number of people being let in without being screened, but that the crowd seemed "friendly."

Yeah, friendly. Just like the people who came to see John F. Kennedy in Dallas back in 1963.

Source

Chronic Back Relief?

Perhaps they mean "Chronic Back Pain Relief"?

Krugman: Clinton's health plan superior to Obama's

Points worth considering.

It's not easy being Kristol

In his column in today's NY Times, neoconman William Kristol discloses the difficulties of being a conservative:

It’s not easy being a conservative movement in a modern liberal democracy. It’s not easy to rally a comfortable and commercial people to assume the responsibilities of a great power. It’s not easy to defend excellence in an egalitarian age. It’s not easy to encourage self-reliance in the era of the welfare state. It’s not easy to make the case for the traditional virtues in the face of the seductions of liberation, or to speak of duties in a world of rights and of honor in a nation pursuing pleasure.

It's also not easy reading Kristol without choking on our own vomit.