blogger is killing us...congrats to us for not killing it ourselves.

Blogger, the blogging tool that we use here at Lowbar will no longer support FTP publishing after May 1st. That means that our method of updating this blog will be kaput. So I'm thinking of upgrading Lowbar to be a full featured site run on a CMS. This site will probably be devoted to my libertarian rantings and erroneous stock predictions. Given that it will now be run on a CMS it will be easy to adminster, reuse said rantings in multiple places and quickly delete erroneous stock predictions when they prove to be erroneous. More murky details soon.

Lowbar invented blogging in its present common form.

That's it.

Is lowbar.com the longest running unproductive .com site in America? That's really saying something. We suck harder than anyone.

Having lived for many years on both coasts I feel I am qualified to make certain distinctions between the two. Specifically, on the East Coast, I've lived in Washington DC, North Carolina and I've spent good amounts of time in Boston. On the West Coast I've lived in San Diego, Orange County and San Francisco.

Bathroom etiquette:
On the East Coast if there is a bank of urinals and a person is urinating at one of them, an east coaster will go into one of the stalls to urinate rather than stand next to another gentleman. West coasters have no qualms about peeing in stereo.

Bars:
East coast bars are loud. The people yell at each other to communicate. West coast bars may have loud music but loud conversation can be construed as you've had too much to drink and unless you want to get the stink eye from the bartender you may want to tone it down.

Beer, wine and other drugs:
People from the West Coast are veritable connoisseurs in comparison to their East Coast counterparts in this arena. There are infinite styles of beer, wine and weed to choose from. On the East Coast you'd be lucky to find a bar that features any taps of beer that are not made within a 100 mile radius of the bar. As a result West Coasters have come to expect freedom of choice and are disappointed when travelling East. Conversely it is easy to spot the West Coast visiting East coaster who goes with the default Bud or Bud Light.

Architecture:
Here the East kicks the West squarely in the teeth, with the exception of Washington DC. The West Coast is just too young and has suffered through many years of horrendous architecture styles. The East Coast in comparison can have an 18th century church next to a Mies Van Der Roh-esque skyscraper offering a feast for the eyes.

Government:
They both suck in slightly different ways but the fringes, outside of the major metropolitan areas have the right idea. New Hampshire has arguably the freest state in the nation. Northern California/Southern Oregon has been a hot bed of liberty and secession for years. California will probably implode faster than New York but they're all based on the same failed economics (but I digress).

Mating:
There are more women to men on the East Coast and vice-versa. This makes getting a date much easier on the East Coast as the women are slightly more aggressive. Dating in California is more of a communal thing, i.e., groups intra-dating between members. Because of this, picking up women in bars in California is almost non-existent. I have only seen this occur a few times whereas on the East Coast it is commonplace. Women have the luxury of pre-qualifying their suitors through friend references, which they do not enjoy to such an extent in the East.

Dress:
No surprise here, Californians are still more laid back in dress than they are in the East. The difference is subtle however. In the East men will wear checked dress shirts whereas in the West a t-shirt will do. In the East men will wear dress shoes with jeans, the West: sandals. Women seem to wear more high heels and hose in the East.

Attitude:
In the East men like to be "johnny on the spot", what can I do for you? etc. In the West the attitude is more wait for the person to tell you what they want and then give an informed answer if and only if you know what you are talking about. There is much less B.S. in the West.

Service:
East Coast generally beats the West on this one, probably due to the attitude reasons mentioned above although when service is bad on the East Coast it's really bad.

Cops:
Believe it or not, West Coast cops are much more intrusive into the lives of citizens than East Coast ones, although both are pretty bad. West Coast cops are a bit more militant and there is a more palpable police society there.

Beauty:
It's hard to argue that the sun setting under the Golden Gate Bridge is more beautiful than the vast sandy beaches at Ipswitch, Mass but I'll go ahead and give my preference. The West is stunning, almost too much so. It's hard to take it all in. The East Coast is beautiful but it seems that one has to seek it out a little harder.

Yesterday I asked my five year old son what he did in school. He replied that all of the kids from all of the classes got together in the auditorium and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. And then he repeated it to me: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America" "Yeah I know it." I said. "And to the republic for which it stands..." me: "ugh" "One nation under god, indivisible (he actually pronounced this word pretty well), with liberty and justice for all."

I tried to think of something to say. I hate that they make little kids recite a pledge to a flag of a country and that pledge has a lot of misinformation in it. My son, or any five year old, doesn't know an better and in fact doesn't know what most of those words mean. It might as well be a fun song that he's just singing along to with the group. So I said to my son, "I don't like that." "Well, Mrs. So-and-so told us to say it." He said.

I'm sure for those of you indoctrinated in our public school system, my exception to reciting the pledge may seem like a disconnection. Here then is my reasoning for why I hate the Pledge of Allegiance.

First a little history: The pledge was written, mostly, by a Baptist/socialst minister named Francis Bellamy in 1892. In the pledge he is expressing the ideals of his first cousin, Edward Bellamy, who wrote utopian socialst novels in which the government runs the economy.

In 1954, Congress, after being solicited by the the Knights of Columbus added the words "under god" and therefore made the oath a pledge to the State and a public prayer.

Bellamy, in his own words:

"The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the 'republic for which it stands.' ...And what does that vast thing, the Republic mean? It is the concise political word for the Nation - the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Lincoln used to repeat in his great speeches."

This is the #1 reason I hate the pledge. The nation isn't "indivisible". It is very divisible. The Constitution is an agreement between the states. Inherent in any agreement is the ability to break the agreement or to nullify certain actions undertaken by the whole which the contractees deem outside the bounds of the original agreement. This has been tried a couple of times in the history of the U.S. The most famous time came during the War Between the States. Lincoln (a despotic tyrant in my book) violated the Constitution repeatedly in order to keep the Southern States against their will in the union. The reason the nation became "indivisible" was by force, violence and bloodshed. This is not an ideal I believe five year olds should be chanting.

Secondly I hate that this is a pledge of allegiance to the State. And by State here I mean not the country, which is the place where we physically live, but the government. The government is not us. The opposite of this pledge would read: "I pledge allegiance to myself, to my inherent rights and I dedicate myself to knowing what those rights are and I will defend them against all who try to take them away."

Thirdly, yes, I hate that this pledge mentions god. "God" is not mentioned in my house because I do not believe in telling my son lies that promote errors. Santa Claus is a benign (and fun) lie but god is not. Some people dedicate their entire lives and money to that lie. I hate that my son is being forced to chant the word.

So what can I do about it? Sadly, not a lot. They've got me by the short and curlies. School is free and the private option is too expensive. I could homeschool him but my son needs interaction with other kids. I could complain to the school but I am realistic about their potential reactions. I could file a complaint and let them know how I feel which would give me about a 2% chance of having an effect but at least they'd know and they'd be a little more aware, more so than if I don't say anything. I'm sure they don't hear this complaint too often and they probably don't even think about what they are doing so maybe, just maybe they'll think twice about it as they force the little ones to chant it. I'm not holding my breath though.

Today CNBC.com asked in an online poll when we think the Dow will reach 10,000. The available answers were this week, next week, this month and this year. Notice there wasn't a "not in my lifetime". Why CNBC is perpetually bullish is beyond me. I suppose they wouldn't have any viewers if the stock market truly tanked.

Here's how I would have posed the question: "Will the stock market stay in the 10,000 range or will it continue the downward slope it started last year?" Answer: It'll continue the tank-a-thon.

Here's what's going to happen. This current upward shoot is nearing its apex. The year will end below 9,000. By the middle of next year, say July, the Dow will be at 5,500.

After all of the fear mongering that I did a few years ago about H5N1 Avian Flu it is appropriate that I provide a postscript and update given our current swine flu (H1N1) pandemic. It appears that I currently have the swine flu. Those in the know tell us that this year's seasonal flu is indeed the swine flu but that it is mild (so far). I concur. The illness that I am currently enduring is fairly mild, irritating but mild. My entire office has been infected however and about a third have gone home ill with complaints of headaches, sore throats, coughing and malaise. I found it interesting (ironic?) that as our government started ramping up the hype to get injections for the flu that I found myself completly opposed to said action. I counseled my wife not to get our son vaccinated even if it meant having to pull him out of school should vaccinations become mandatory. The government does not have a good track record with rushed flu vaccinations and they historically have done more harm than good. And as this particular flu has not posed a more serious threat than the normal seasonal flu, I wasn't about to buy into the hype to get shots. I was willing to take the risk. And like I said it appears I have it and it's no big deal. Yawn.

Little Timmy Geithner, Obama's 48 year old Secretary of Treasury, wants to "give the Federal Reserve new powers to oversee systemic risk in the banking system and grapple with companies “too big to fail." This is akin to giving a drug pusher control of your morphine drip. Just for review: The Federal Reserve is The Big Banks. Think OPEC but for banking, not oil. OPEC sets the price of oil. The Fed sets the interest rate (or the cost of money). They can do this because they are a cartel. Wikipedia tells us that a cartel is

"A formal agreement among firms that agree to coordinate prices and production. Cartel members may agree on such matters as price fixing, total industry output, market shares, allocation of customers, allocation of territories, bid rigging, establishment of common sales agencies, and the division of profits or combination of these. The aim of such collusion is to increase individual members' profits by reducing competition."

Americans have been duped into thinking that the Fed is something other than what it is. They hear the word "federal" and think it must be part of the government (it isn't). They see the chairman appointed by the President and they think that government controls the Fed (it doesn't). They hear economist tout the benefits of the Fed but what they don't understand is that those same economists are on the Fed payroll (see the enlightening article about this at Huffington Post). The only thing "federal" about the Federal Reserve is that Congress uses the Fed to bankroll all of the crazy schemes it can come up with (think war, ICBMs, new federal buildings, stimulus packages, health care, insert boondoggle here).

The Fed works in secrecy, unlike government. The Fed, up until now, has successfully staved off requests to open its books. Although recently Bloomberg News has sued and won a ruling to have the Fed name the financial firms it lent to or disclose the amounts or the assets put up as collateral under 11 programs. This is great news for those of us that want to see the Fed's true colors but I'm not holding my breath. The Fed is a wily animal with friends in the highest places. They won't go quietly. Also of note is the House of Representative bill, HR 1207, to Audit the Fed, which would allow the GAO the ability for the first time to actually look at the books of the Fed. This is nirvana. It gets even better in that Democrat Barney Frank, who heads the Financial Services Committee has finally agreed to allow hearings on HR 1207 this Friday. The fact that this bill has gotten so far is amazing. I hope it goes further, but again I'm not holding my breath. This is a cartel of bankers. Most congressmen would be out of a job if it were not for the Fed's funding of their emergency spending du jour and many Fortune 500 companies would not exist if it were not for the Fed's intervention, price-fixing, propping up or its Plunge Protection Scheme (I mean Team).

So who is this young man who wants to expand the reaches of the banking cartel? Timmy Geithner is the Federal Reserve. In 2002 he worked for the Council on Foreign Relations (don't get me started on this New World Order organization, we'll be here all day). Then he goes to the IMF. Then he becomes President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York where he also become Vice-President of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee. Then, as we all know, in 2008 he orchestrates the bail-out of Bear Stearns and AIG. I'll say it again, Timmy Geithner is the Federal Reserve. Of course he wants more power for himself and his cronies and of course he wants the Federal Reserve machine to keep churning, to keep funding bail-outs, unecessary wars, make-work projects, "stimulus" packages and socialized medicine.

As long as Americans fail to notice what is going on, as long as Americans allow thier pockets to be picked through loss of purchase power, higher taxes and increased indebtedness and as long as Americans allow this pseudo-government cabal to operate in secrecy, little Timmy Geithner and his irksome ilk will continue to suck blood from the viens of the rapidly emaciating American consumer.