police state goes broke; mustache-grooming budget slashed in half

those of us who were born any time from the end of world war II until the 90's grew up assuming that america was good at everything. we had the best weapons, the best democracy, the best music, and the best movie special effects.

the 21st century sucks. it seems like every day we lose our footing in one field or another: scientific progress, human rights, olympic basketball, and now, our crown jewel is being threatened. we're in danger of losing our status as the world leader in incarcerations (both raw numbers and per capita, 2.3 million and 1 out of every 99.1, respectively).

thanks to a budget crisis, some state governments are being forced to release non-violent inmates early and end parole systems.

Between 1987 and last year, states increased their higher education spending by 21 percent, in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to the Pew Center on the States. During the same period, spending on corrections jumped by 127 percent.

In the Northeastern states, according to the Pew report, prison spending over the past 20 years has risen 61 percent, while higher education spending has declined by 5.5 percent.

California -- which has the country's worst fiscal crisis, with a potential shortfall of $20 billion -- has seen its prison-related spending swell to $10.4 billion for the 2008-2009 fiscal year. About 170,000 inmates are packed into California's 33 prisons, which were designed to hold 100,000. About 15,000 prisoners are being housed in emergency beds, in converted classrooms and gymnasiums.

fuck it, why bother spending money on both education and corrections, or converting classrooms into prison cells? why continue to justify stripping high school kids of their constitutional rights? let's just merge schools and prisons!

law enforcement officials: wondering how you can still bust some heads and kick some asses when your state governments are clearly being run by terror-loving commies? here's a few simple ways that you can still meet quota:

1) racial profiling - just beat up the next raghead that looks at you funny. they don't have rights in gitmo, so why should they here?
2) "accidental" fatalities - seriously...they're gonna get tortured in prison anyways, and it's not like tyree was gonna make anything of himself.
3) find people who look like they got let out early due to budget cuts (see item 1), and taser them on sight, just to "keep them honest".
4) suburban cops: make up new victimless crimes just to pester poor naive middle-class folk. im sure you can convince a few people that picking your butt in public is illegal.
5) lay off busting people for possession charges. seriously.

with the us broke as shit and democracy falling apart everywhere, it's only a matter of time until we get outdone on prison numbers by the chinese. if we lose our perch there, there's only one man left we can depend on to keep amurka at #1: joey chestnut.


keep fighting the good fight, joey! if america's fat ass falls off the top of the competitive eating circuit, all is lost.