In these times of intense political discourse (or non-discourse if you're so inclined) it's nice to be reminded why you love this country: our civil liberties.

Many people don’t realize that our most sacred freedom in America isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights, nor in any Supreme Court brief.  Yet, it is inherent in the theoretical underpinnings of this country’s Constitution; it’s the freedom of stupidity - perhaps the most widely used liberty.

I've always been a "the more, the merrier" type of person. So, I think Arlen Specter's decision to switch his party affiliation is a great. Sure, he's made the switch out of pure political survival: he can't win a Republican primary in Pennsylvania next year. But so what? We've got conservative Democrats already. They're a pain in the ass, but they're our pain in the ass.

April 27, 2029

The world's most popular search engine, MyRealittee.com, set a new record with its long-awaited ¥8.3 trillion IPO on the WongDaq stock exchange in Shanghai. MyRealittee.com's unusual IPO process, a reverse double-blind Flemish auction with a half-somersault, left analysts scratching their heads but did not prevent a buying frenzy that drove the share price up to ¥1279 by the end of trading. MyRealittee.com is now worth ¥74.8 trillion, approximately four times the GDP of the United States.

Once again, Jesus Christ has exposed himself to mortals though a tasty snack. This time, his vehicle of choice was toasted cheese bread.

Governor Brad Henry of Oklahoma decisively resolved a major battle over the official state rock song today. I bet you didn't realize that states had official rock songs, least of all Oklahoma.

Well it does now. In an online contest, a majority of Oklahomans voted for Do You Realize? by the weird psychadelicish band, The Flaming Lips. I bet you didn't realize that the Flaming Lips came from Oklahoma.

I  must admit that my claim in an early blog thread that the real price of energy has not changed in 50 years was incorrect.  Over the past 60 years, the price of a gallon of gasoline adjusted for inflation has actually fallen significantly.  Thus, any argument that our country's economic strength in the 50s and 60s was due to cheap energy should be reconsidered.

The following fascinating analysis can be found at http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare

Dear Dark Lord of the Sith, Dick Cheney;

I'd like to take some time to address something that I have seen on the Internets.

Please watch the following video.  It will take about two minutes.

April 24, 2029

There have been many sober pronouncements lately about the end American hegemony, both on this blog and elsewhere. Some have reacted with despondence, others with glee. It may be that the end is nigh--it has to end sometime--but we should keep in mind that the forecasters of doom emerge from their caves during every period of hardship.

First of all, let me just say how awesome dagblog has been of late. In the past few days, we've had fascinating posts and reader discussions about Sri Lanka, California healthcare, incipient deflation, Twitter's raison d'etre, NSA wiretapping, CIA torturing, etc. etc.

I often wish we had more bloggers, a larger audience and even more active commenters, but the folks we do have are so good I worry that if that were so all we'd end up with would be a disappointing dilution in the strength of our output and our community.

Submitted for your approval is this footage of Jane Harman on MSNBC:

Seriously, I'm crying over here.  This is thoroughly magnificient stuff.

Last week, I wrote about the threat of deflation after the news that U.S. consumer prices dropped last year, the first time since 1955. Dagblog's Deadman played down the risk, and I agreed that current deflation levels were not a threat. But now it seems that deflation is knocking a bit harder at Europe's door, particularly Spain's.

Sri Lanka stands on the edge of a massacre. After 26 years of civil war, the Sri Lankan army has ousted ethnic Tamil separatists from vast territories they once controlled and trapped the remaining fighters on a 6-square mile strip of beach. With the fighters are an estimated 60,000 human hostages.

I don’t support torture. I think that the fact that the United States rationalized and engaged in torture is sad and disgusting. I wouldn’t mind seeing the so-called architects of these policies brought to justice.

However…

I just returned to Carmel after a lovely weekend in the city by the bay.  From a gastronomic standpoint, this may have been the best three days I have spent in San Francisco as meals at Hunan Home in Chinatown and Luna Park in the Mission District were outstanding and very reasonably priced.  Both were identified via patient (but not time-consuming) sifting of online reviews.  Even the brat at AT&T Park as well as (of course) the Anchor Steam on tap there were excellent, although neither was reasonably priced.