LOUSY SITUATION: This article draws my attention to our own internal gulag archipelago:

The United States has achieved the dubious honor of boasting the largest prison and jail population on Earth. It reached this zenith by surpassing cash-strapped Russia -- long its only rival as a society of mass imprisonment -- after Russia released thousands of inmates so as to save money.

A few years earlier, as America rushed to lock up ever more of its population for ever-pettier offenses, the absolute size of its incarcerated population surpassed that of China -- despite China's population being more than four times that of America. According to research by the British Home Office, America now incarcerates over one fifth of the world's prisoners.

Well great. Via the Legion of Doom.