In a nation that incarcerates more people than any other, New York City hopes to jail a hefty proportion of its residents, too. The Daily News reports that the City now boasts more than a million "open bench warrants" for such heinous "crimes" as "drinking a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon on a West Village stoop" and "walking a dog without a leash." The News lies somewhere to the left of Pravda, but even it marvels that an eighth of New Yorkers could languish in the pokey, which "number of outlaws ... nearly matches the population of Dallas."

What is the NYPD's response to this horror? A spokesliar sniffed, "Clearly, we see the police department doing what they’re supposed to be doing ... They’re following up on warrants and having people get their day in court. It’s a civics lesson. A good civics lesson.”

Indeed. The grad student who quaffed his brewski on a stoop agonized for 27 hours behind bars -- the vertical kind, not the polished wood, horizontal type -- as punishment. He asks, “Is my civics lesson that the NYPD is arbitrary and brutal or that I should never trust a cop in New York again?”

Go to the head of the class, buddy. And thanks to Charles Everett for the link.