"'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.' So goes the old saying. Yet conditions in some American facilities are so obscene that they amount to a form of extrajudicial punishment." Mother Jones is profiling "America's 10 Worst Prisons." Facilities were chosen for the list based on "...three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with reform advocates." [more inside]
posted by zarq on May 14, 2013 - 88 comments

The most-watched show in the history of the National Geographic Channel isn't Wild, Taboo or even the longest-running documentary series on cable tv: Explorer. It's Doomsday Preppers, a show that documents the "lives of otherwise ordinary Americans" as they prepare for the end of the world. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Dec 21, 2012 - 115 comments

In May of 2010, Michael D. Higgins (now President of Ireland) had an exchange on an Irish radio station with Tea Party supporter Michael Graham, about the state of politics in the United States. [more inside]
posted by gman on Aug 26, 2012 - 40 comments

Visit Madison, Indiana. Why? We're not New York City! Sure you can be opportunistic about selling gas masks if you're an internet entrepreneur, but what if you're a small town in Indiana and you want to cash in on fear of terrorism. Why, tout what you don't have, of course. "A safe place to visit...When you visit Madison you will discover that we have no tall buildings to fear, no nuclear power plants, airports or anything anyone would want to blow up."
posted by m@ on Aug 15, 2003 - 16 comments

PATRIOT forever. Toppling one regime to build another, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and a Republican coalition are pushing legislation to make the PATRIOT Act permanent. It's daylight forever.
posted by four panels on Apr 9, 2003 - 47 comments

The 1940s Again? While this in't to internment level yet, I find it terrifying. What to do about this government? This article was originally LA Times, but has been reposted to Common Dreams....
posted by pjgulliver on Aug 15, 2002 - 78 comments