Average Annual hours worked 2006:

United States-----1,804

Netherlands-------1,391

Elderly below 50% of median income 2006:

United States-----24.7 %

Netherlands------2.4%

Children below 50%of Median income 2006:

United States-----21.9%

Netherlands-------9.8%

Per Capital GDP 2006:

United States-----$44,155

Netherlands------$40,167

So tell me again how social democracy is bad and American Capitalism is good?

The Greenhouse has been purchased and sections are starting to be delivered today via FedX freight truck.....it will apparently take several deliveries to obtain all the parts, sections etc. for assembly. We have contracted a contractor to put the greenhouse up since power will have to be run to it for the fans, and heaters, as well as a water line for the misting and watering system which is included with the greenhouse itself. We very well may have the greenhouse up in time for seedling starts for the upcoming gardening season which would be excellent but there are several additional items such as shelving, tables etc. which have to be acquired or made after the GH itself is up and available for use. The greenhouse is a major step forward in our urban homestead.....and for our self sufficient lifestyle. This will seriously take us further off the commercial food landscape....giving us food independence year round if necessary. I am going to try my best to take pictures during the assembly process but i seem to always forget photo's i guess i am not orientated that way i guess---but i will try.

My forced wireless for the homeless process is working out well ok----with no wireless at home i find that i have more available time...and i am not as insane to get on the net as i have been for the past few years----I have been working from my coffee shop at lunch..doing what i need to do like emails, amazon purchases, etc. The time frames are small over lunch to do this so i try to plan out what i need to do on the net in advance. At my now netless home, i try to write to a thumb drive for copy/pasting when wireless is available...... My biggest difficulty is just not having net access whenever i want it---i have been spoiled.

My Lifebook U810 is a godsend during this homeless wireless time---the perfect computing companion for these mobile computing forced circumstances....the keyboard is small but i am learning how to work it and eventually i expect to be at close to the same word per minute level as i am on a larger laptop. I am not going to do a complete review of the U810 they are all over the web. Let me just advise that if you can find a good used one and you are at all into UMPC's and mobile computing .....buy it...I am extremely happy with my purchase and the U810 does everything i hoped it would. I finally managed to photo my U810 pictured below with my tiny Nokia internet device and my Mimo usb monitor which i can hook to either device for a larger screen view. I carry the U810 and the Nokia but the Mimo stays at home although i can remove the screen from the stand and carry it if necessary. As you can see by the cigarette pack i am into a small world now....

The book of this month that I have really, truly, enjoyed reading so much that i will be sad to see it end is "Were you born on the wrong continent" by Thomas Geoghegan.

A wonderful examination of social democracy in Europe and why the European society is light years ahead of American society. When you read this book it makes you want to cry----at our national loss and stupidity. Goeghegan is an excellent and entertaining writer who informs as well. If you are a thinking American you need to read this. Although as I've said you'll cry over what we could be as a society and what we are.

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.
Albert Camus

You may have problems if you are attempting to communicate with me by the email address posted here...it's a dead drop.....if you wish to contact me use the comments section and i will respond. Old habits die hard----

Our world becomes interesting as our temperatures rise..........Wildfires, drought and scorching temperatures in Russia lately. The end result of which is the Russian statement last week that it will not export wheat this year...requiring all it produces to feed it's population. Russian wheat exports are 25% of the world wheat market.....Pakistan is deluged in floods and the world seems numbed by having to give, give give to disaster areas. The Pakistani floods and lack of monetary assistance by the rest of the world is an example of the shape or things to come---we cannot help everyone with everything that is happening.

An interesting piece in the Newsweek from a European describing that the US is considered so 3rd world and out of the real game of life on the planet that we are no longer even the subject of protest--we have destroyed ourselves, our process, our reputation, to the point that we are no longer considered the world leader in anything---which means protesting against a lame giant is useless, just no fun.....................what i find really interesting is that it is in Newsweek. If that still means anything of any importance?

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/09/post-anti-americanism.html

The NewYork Times follows with its own doom like piece.... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10herbert.html?_r=2

As a nation, (if you can actually still call us that) we go down the highway towards the uncertain and threatening future much like dumb and dumber. As a group, we Americans are unable to really do anything any longer. We are unable to put down our personal agenda's, unable to produce leaders untainted by the problem they are "attempting" to solve. We are unable to see a Nationally universal project through to completion at it's proposed original cost or to deal with matters that require personal or regional sacrifice. So the alternative is individual action. To protect yourselves from what is coming. We seem to have even lost, or had bred out of us, the hunter gather ability to work in even small groups. I cannot see a small group working together today...i would stay away from anything involving multiple individuals. Work for and by yourself because it does work.

I understand that some have the desire through groups to work on personal and societal issues that may arise, and that my advice of remaining alone may go contrary to everything else one may have heard....Survival and adaptation to the long descent is not an issue that will work the way of the commune, the coop, or the church tribe working as a group. Cooperation should be limited to trading with those outside your individual unit. Human cooperation for United States citizens would have to be taught to us before releasing us into the wild, much like zoo kept and hand fed mountain lions must be taught to hunt. This is why merely banding together with those "like" you will be a disadvantage not a positive.

Alone you can produce enough to eat, alone you can maintain a specific standard of operation, alone you can plan and carry out the future requirements of stealth living.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10912658

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10912658

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10770674

The Jojo cruiser bike project:

is basically finished (photo below). I am awaiting only a new chain and yellow water bottle for 'walk away finished status'. Sorry for the horrifying Hoarder type background...i had no choice with that. To recap this was basically a frame wheels and parts that were given to me....i painted, cleaned, added a few accessories and reassembled in reverse order...

The Nokia N810 Keyboard Project:

Done! I was like a ferret in a phone booth trying and trying and trying and trying to get my Nokia Internet tablet to pair up with any of two different blue tooth keyboards I have....Finally after much swearing, and combination of trying this and trying that I accomplished the pairing of my N810 to my iGo portable keyboard.

I will try to get some pictures of the mini system in actually use at my coffee shop etc. I believed for a while that I might not be able to accomplish this paring of machines...but stupidity and perseverance won out!

Where's the French Military messenger bag you might ask? Outside airing out for another week now! It came in last week, beautiful condition never issued. Perfect for my new

Ultra Mobile Personal Computing (UMPC) accomplishments. There was one small problem tho..

IT STUNK FROM MILITARY STORAGE LIKE A MONKEY'S ASS! So it's been receiving plenty of fresh air and sunshine to attempt to make the monkey ass smell go away. Hard to be a Geezer Techno Tactical man when people hold their nose and run screaming "Monkey Ass!!! Monkey Ass!!!" So once the smell level drops down to Ode Du Old Guy levels i will transfer all my necessary items to it and provide photo's. The smell is not giving up easily---so the bag is banished to the out of doors for at least another week....

Being the ex-President does not stop George from being kinda weird and/or stupid. I'd really like to know what is going here while he was in Haiti recently? What it looks is.......... "That's a mighty fine backside on you there, young Man, hey you, come over here an look at the bootee on this here youngin!"

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
Blaise Pascal