Ah, America.

[pyat]

Currently occupying two foreign nations, dealing with ongoing violence in both, with a worrisome economy, a major port city still crippled by natural disaster, more than 1 in 100 adults currently in prison, tax rolls supporting a defense budget larger than that all the other nations of the world combined, spending more per capita of state money on healthcare than any other nation yet no socialized healthcare and a declining life expectancy, serious questions about the conduct of the military and CIA, the perpetrator of 9/11 basically forgotten, and there's an election in a few months.

And of course, the most important topics in that election are gay marriage and abortion.

Comments

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Where do they keep them all???

Prisoner hosting has been something of a growth industry near where I live in East Texas. The County and the Feds were forward thinking and overbuilt their accommodations to make room for the future, and the extra beds ended up being filled by convicts from distant places esp where the cost of living is considerably higher. The County actually made lots of money for years hosting medium security convicts from the State of Colorado, though that broke down when Colorado's auditors said conditions did not meet the requirements.
This was at least partially political and cultural, as for example one of the negative items was recorded as witholding of amenities from inmates with no records of poor behavior turned out to be the Sheriff's refusal to replace the second communal television broken within a week's time. There were also some suits from families of inmates who claimed undue hardship for having to travel to Texas for visitation, and some of us locals were a bit creeped out by the transport buses' occasional stops in town as the guards wore all black with grey patches, and generally looked like a bunch of gun-toting mercenaries securing a bus in the Baskin-Robbins parking lot. This was no _Smokey and the Bandit!_