---BREAKAWAY CIVILIZATION ---ALTERNATIVE HISTORY---NEW BUSINESS MODELS--- ROCK & ROLL 'S STRANGE BEGINNINGS---SERIAL KILLERS---YEA AND THAT BAD WORD "CONSPIRACY"--- AMERICANS DON'T EXPLORE ANYTHING ANYMORE.WE JUST CONSUME AND DIE.---
The Office of Inspector General explained in a March 20 “management alert”
to department leaders that approximately $6 billion has gone
unaccounted for over the past six years. The note said the number of
missing documents “exposes the department to significant financial risk” and is a dangerous lack of oversight.
“It creates conditions conducive to fraud, as corrupt
individuals may attempt to conceal evidence of illicit behavior by
omitting key documents from the contract file,” the inspector general wrote. “It
impairs the ability of the Department to take effective and timely
action to protect is interests and, in turn, those of taxpayers.”
There is no indication that representatives within the Bureau of
Administration’s Office of the Procurement Executive (A/OPE)
fraudulently filed any of the missing contracts, only that State
Department brass misplaced the necessary paperwork. The omissions are
especially notable, though, because of similar memos that have noted
budgetary oversights in the past.
In one instance, the State Department could not locate files
regarding payments to contractors assisting US military forces in Iraq.
That incident, one of the “repeated examples of poor contract file administration,” according to the inspector general, included contracts worth $2.1 billion.
An unrelated audit of the Bureau of African Affairs indicated the department could not supply the “complete contract administration files” for even one of the eight contracts, worth a total of nearly $35 million, under examination.
“The failure to maintain contract files adequately creates
significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control
over the Department’s contract actions,” the report noted.
While no proof of fraudulent payments was mentioned, the Office of
Inspector General did warn that lax record-keeping standards does create
the potential for abuse.
“OIG recommends that the Under Secretary for Management ensure
that contracting officers and their supporting personnel, and A/OPE
specialists conducting oversight visits, have resources sufficient to
maintain adequate contract files in accordance with relevant regulations
and policies,” the officials recommended.
The report also encouraged the State Department to hold employees
accountable when they are found to have committed such infractions.
The State Department, which is responsible for a vast number of
duties relating to international relations, has also announced that it
will publish ambassador qualifications from now on. The Obama
administration has come under fire because of the perception that not
all newly appointed State Department ambassadors were up to the task of
heading up US relations in other countries. The necessary “certificates of demonstrated competence”
were previously only available to lawmakers, but will now be made
available to the public, American Foreign Service Association President
Robert Silverman told USA Today.
“We believe transparency of the nomination process is an important step,” he said Friday. “We
very much appreciate the efforts of the White House and State
Department, and AFSA – as the voice of the Foreign service – looks
forward to working to assure that our country is represented by the very
best men and women at our diplomatic missions abroad.”
Source: rt.com
Why Doctors Still Use Pen and Paper
The healthcare reformer David Blumenthal explains why the medical system can’t move into the digital age.
The health-care system is
one of the most technology-dependent parts of the American economy, and
one of the most primitive. Every patient knows, and dreads, the first
stage of any doctor visit: sitting down with a clipboard and filling out
forms by hand. David Blumenthal, a physician and former Harvard Medical School
professor, was from 2009 to 2011 the national coordinator for health
information technology, in charge of modernizing the nation’s
medical-records systems. He now directs The Commonwealth Fund, a
foundation that conducts health-policy research. Here, he talks about
why progress has been so slow, and when and how that might change. James Fallows: From the lay public’s point of view, medical records seem incredibly backward. Is the situation any better than it looks? David Blumenthal: It’s on the way to
getting better. But we still have a long way to go. The reason why the
medical profession has been so slow to adopt technology at the point of
contact with patients is that there is an asymmetry of benefits.
From the patient’s perspective, this is a no-brainer. The benefits
are substantial. But from the provider’s perspective, there are
substantial costs in setting up and using the systems. Until now,
providers haven’t recovered those costs, either in payment or in
increased satisfaction, or in any other way. Ultimately, there are of
course benefits to the professional as well. It’s beyond question that
you become a better physician, a better nurse, a better manager when you
have the digital data at your fingertips. But the costs are
considerable, and they have fallen on people who have no economic
incentive to make the transition. The benefits of a more efficient
practice largely accrue to people paying the bills. The way economists
would describe this is that the medical marketplace is broken. JF: This is a subset of the general brokenness of the medical marketplace, right? DB: Yes. There are many problems
that come from the brokenness of the health-care market. To put it
another way, if the medical market functioned like the car industry or
the computer industry or the service industry, with true competition
based on quality and price, providers would have adopted electronic
records long ago. I’m not advocating pure market competition in health
care. But there are many ways in which the medical marketplace should
work better, and this is one of them. JF: What’s the best thought-experiment example of medical-marketplace incentives working the right way? The VA? DB: When the benefits of using
better technology are “internalized,” as the economists would say, there
has been much more rapid, complete, and effective adoption of
electronic medical records. So, the VA: the benefits are internalized,
because the VA has to live within a budget. In private health-care
organizations like Kaiser or the Geisinger plan in Pennsylvania, or the
Group Health Cooperative in Puget Sound, electronic medical records were
adopted decades ago, and are widely used and highly effective. You
don’t need a thought experiment to find living, breathing examples of
what happens when the incentives work right. JF: What’s the connection between the electronic-records effort you directed and the larger Obamacare strategy? DB: This may be a Beltway detail,
but the law that I implemented was not in the Affordable Care Act. It
was actually part of the earlier and much maligned stimulus bill. The
hope was that promoting medical records would lay the groundwork for a
more efficient health-care system, and thereby make universal coverage
more affordable to the country— JF: And— DB: And you’re about to ask whether it did. JF: Yes. DB: It would have. And it will. But it needs time to realize its potential.
“If the medical market functioned like the car industry … providers would have adopted electronic records long ago.”
I think the parallel is the time it took from when computerization
became prevalent in other industries to the time when worker
productivity improved. We are only three years into the process of
making digital information widely available in health care. And health
care is an extraordinarily complex, knowledge-intensive industry. If you
want a thought experiment, you could ask yourself how good modern
medicine is when physicians and nurses know nothing at all about the
patient. So information is absolutely the critical resource in health
care, more important than steel in making cars. When you change the way
information is used and collected in medicine, you change everything
about the way work is done. It is an enormously disruptive process
within the health-care system. It takes time to accommodate. In places
like Kaiser and Geisinger, electronic medical records are already making
a big impact. But that is mostly because those organizations started
using them a long time ago. JF: What about when you switch from
too little technology in the patient experience to too much? When the
doctor is staring at a laptop rather than looking at you? DB: This is a transition issue. Most
physicians’ offices, and I’ve been in a lot of them, are set up so that
when the physician looks at the screen, he or she can’t look at the
patient. Often they have their back to the patient. That is because no
one has given a lot of thought to how to maximize the ergonomic quality
of inserting this technology into the office.
That will come. I also think that voice-recognition technology is
going to be an enormous relief both to the physician and to the patient,
because the physician will be able to talk to a machine rather than
typing into it. Those technologies are improving—as you can tell from
your smartphone—and as they do, a lot of this ergonomic problem will go
away. JF: In the broadest sense, what difference will better information technology make in our lives and health? DB: Fundamentally, every medical
record is a tool for collecting information: the information a physician
collects when looking at you in a physical examination; the results of
lab tests. The constant automatic information collection is going to
increase, whether it’s your phone monitoring your heart rate or your
scale sending information about your weight to your health provider, or
the contact lenses Google wants to market that measure blood glucose
levels.
They all are sources of information about your health and well-being.
And the challenge we face collectively, inside the health-care
establishment and outside it, is how to take all this information,
separate what’s useful from what’s not, and then apply it to improve the
decisions of patients and care providers.
This is a generic problem in society. We have lots of information,
and we don’t always know what to do with it. Your doctor, your nurse, is
not prepared to process the information they already have. It’s already
overwhelming. And adding more in will just make it even more
anxiety-provoking and overwhelming. That is, in a sense, the big data
challenge facing health care in the future.
This will move us into a field that is taking shape right now, that
of analytics. It will help us take these data and turn them into
diagnostic information—into recommendations a physician can give a
patient or that patients can get directly, online.
That’s where the future lies, and of course people want the benefit
of it right now. Before, there was no market to make this sort of
analytic product. Now that we have a growing electronic infrastructure
for health information, there is a surge of traditional capitalist
interest in turning that information into valuable knowledge, and
selling it back to patients and doctors. That will happen. But it could
never have happened until we got the data into digital form.
9/11 and other lies
truther
Paul Craig Roberts
Disinformation succeeds because so many people
and interest groups across the political spectrum find that it serves
their agendas as well as the agenda of the government. Consider for
example the explanation of 9/11 that blamed Muslim terrorists for the
attack.
This served the interests of the neoconservatives, the private armaments companies, the US military, the private security companies, government security agencies such as the CIA, the left-wing, the right-wing, the Israel Lobby, and the print and TV media.
The official explanation gave the neoconservatives the “new Pearl Harbor” that they needed for their program
of invasions of Middle Eastern countries. The private armaments
companies could look forward to decades of high profits. Wars always
bring the military rapid promotions and higher retirement benefits. Private manufacturers of security equipment
and spyware enjoy a rising demand for their products and have grown fat
from the products sold to the TSA and NSA. Homeland Security has vastly
expanded the federal workforce and administrative positions.
The left-wing has proof of “blowback” caused by US interference in the
internal affairs of other countries. The right-wing has proof that
America has enemies against whom defense at all costs is necessary. The
Israel Lobby has the US to overthrow the regimes in the way of Israel’s
territorial expansion. The media has the story of the century with which
to boost ratings and curry the favor of government.
These are formidable interests arrayed
against the mere obvious truth, obvious, that is, to any educated
person. The 2,100 Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth have no vested
interest in any explanation of 9/11. Indeed, they are harmed by disproving, as they have done, the government’s explanation. None of them will ever again get a government contract,
and many of their former clients have turned their backs on “those damn
anti-Americans who don’t believe their own government!” Cass Sunstein, a
Chicago and Harvard law professor who sold out his integrity, if any,
to the Obama regime by accepting an appointment and arguing that the federal
government should infiltrate the 9/11 truth movement with agents and
set-up truth-tellers so that they could be discredited, possibly even
prodding them into actions for which they could be arrested.
In other words, the government’s story cannot stand the light
cast by the facts and independent experts, and the government’s false
story must be protected by shutting down the truth-telling experts. The
government, Sunstein argued, needs to either gain control over these
experts or to shut them down.
Just as many different collections of
interest groups and people have stakes in the Obama regime’s story of
the killing of Osama bin Laden by US Navy
SEALS in Abbottabad, Pakistan. This story and its selling by an
enthusiastic media guaranteed Obama’s reelection. It served the emotions
of super patriots desperate for revenge who wear their gullibility on
their sleeves. It served the myth of CIA and NSA prowess. It served the
reputation of the killing power of US Special Forces teams. It proved
that America won even though it lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All the trillions of dollars spent were worth it. We got revenge on the
guy who did 9/11.
No one remembered that the US
government, unable to find bin Laden for 10 years, had settled on a
different “9/11 mastermind,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and had him
water-boarded 183 times until he confessed to being responsible for
9/11.
If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed “was
responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z,” why were SEALS sent,
illegally, into Pakistan to murder bin Laden? As the FBI says, there is
no evidence that bin Laden is responsible for 9/11. That is why bin
Laden was not wanted on that charge by the FBI, as the FBI publicly
stated.
How was bin Laden, who was known in 2001
to be suffering from terminal illnesses, including renal failure, and
whose death was widely reported in 2001 still alive ten years later to
be murdered by SEALs?
What sense does it make that the
greatest terrorist leader of our time only had two unarmed women to
protect him. What sense does it make that the US would murder the terrorist
mastermind with all the plots in his head instead of capturing and
questioning him? How can anyone be so gullible as to believe such a
nonsense tale as told to them by Obama and the presstitute media? Is
America really a nation of utter fools?
Like the 9/11 story, the story of bin
Laden’s murder is losing credibility with the US population. Pakistani
National TV shot Obama’s story down with an eyewitness interview that
reported that not one single person, dead body, or any piece of evidence
left Abbottadad, because the only helicopter that landed blew up when
it attempted to leave and there were no survivors. No other helicopters
landed. So there was no dead bin Laden to be buried at sea (there are no
known witnesses to the alleged burial) and no photographs of a dead bin
Laden.
Yet the nonexistent photos of a dead bin
Laden have now emerged in controversy. Allegedly, the US government had
photos of bin Laden’s corpse after he was blown away by trigger-happy
SEALs who didn’t have enough sense to keep the “mastermind” alive for
questioning. The tough macho SEALs were so threatened by two unarmed
women that they just opened fire.
Judicial Watch has been trying to pry
the (nonexistent) photos of a dead bin Laden from the government’s
hands. For “national security reasons” the US government does not want
anyone to see evidence that supports its far-fetched tale of bin Laden’s
murder. The photographic evidence of a successful raid are off limits.
They are like the alleged videos of the airliner hitting the Pentagon that we are not permitted to see for “national security reasons.”
In other words, the photos and videos
do not exist and never did. No government, not even the American one,
would be so totally stupid as to withhold the evidence for its claims.
The government, seeing its unbelievable
stories lose believability at home and abroad used Judicial Watch’s
lawsuit to boost the credibility of its story. Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act
lawsuit for the photos that the Obama regime alleged to have of the
murdered bin Laden but refused to release. Obviously, the government has
no such photos and never had any such photos. But the government does
not need evidence when it can rely on the gullibility of the American
people.
As the government had no photos to
release, the US government decided to use the opportunity presented by
Judicial Watch to bolster its story that photos of bin Laden murdered
and dead were once in its possession. The government released to
Judicial Watch a document under the Freedom of Information Act
that is an order from Special Operations Commander Admiral William
McRaven to “destroy immediately” the photos of the dead bin Laden.
Judicial Watch took the bait. Instead of
realizing that there was no reason whatsoever for the government to
destroy the only evidence that might support its claim to have murdered
bin Laden, Judicial Watch focused on the illegality of destroying the
evidence.
Judicial Watch says that “Federal law contains broad prohibitions
against the ‘concealment, removal, or mutilation generally’ of
government records.”
Judicial Watch played into the
government’s hands. Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton was maneuvered
by the government into defining the scandal as the destruction of
evidence, “revealing both contempt for the rule of law and the American
people’s right to know.” To the contrary, the real scandal is the
massive lie that bin Laden was killed by a SEAL raid and the acceptance
of this lie by the American people and Judicial Watch.
By damning the government for destroying
evidence, Judicial Watch has given credibility to the government’s
claim that SEALs murdered Osama bin Laden.
The SEAL team credited with bin Laden’s
murder was quickly eliminated when the team was loaded onto a 1960s
vintage helicopter in Afghanistan. Apparently the team members were
asking one another, “Were you on that mission that killed bin Laden?” Of
course, no one was, and this information was too dangerous for the
Obama regime.
$4 Trillion In "Fake" Euro Bonds Seized At Vatican Bank
Italian police have arrested two men who were allegedly trying to deposit trillions of euros in fake bonds in the Vatican bank.
Officials say the pair, an American and a Dutch national, claimed
they had an appointment with bank officials to gain entry but were
handed over to police.
Fake bonds with a face value of 3tr euros ($4.1tr; £2.5tr) were found in their briefcase, the officials say.
...
The bank - officially called the Institute for the Works of Religion -
runs thousands of private accounts held by cardinals, bishops and
religious orders all over the world.
The two suspects were later released pending further investigation,
Financial Guard police officer Davide Cardia told AP news agency, as Italian law does not require arrest for fraud investigations.
Financial Guard police Lt. Col. Davide Cardia said the would-be
swindlers, who were wearing business suits, tried to convince Swiss
Guards at a Vatican City gate earlier this month that "cardinals were
expecting them."
Cardia said the fake documents purported to be bond
certificates for non-Italian companies. "The sum -- worth some 3
trillion euros (more than $4 trillion dollars) -- is impressive, even
though it's only symbolic because we're talking about false"
certificates, said Cardia, in charge of the financial police's operations in Rome and surrounding area.
Investigators suspect the men might have planned to use the fake
bonds as security to open a hefty line of credit through the Vatican
bank.
But this is not the first time,
Both suspects, whose names weren't released by police, had
been previously investigated for attempted fraud in Asian countries,
Cardia said without elaborating.
With trillion of freshly minted dollars, yen, euros, and yuan
floating around the world (and all the subsequent monetized debt); and
in light of increasing capital controls in a desperate world, who knows
with any of these "frauds." Just the sheer scale of trying to pull of a
trillion dollar fraud would be incredible were it not for the Central
Banks numbing us to the new normal.
THE BEARER BONDS SCANDALS REVISITED: ATTEMPT TO DEPOSIT FAKE BONDS THWARTED AT VATICAN BANK, PART ONE
We
may be witnessing a new chapter in the saga of the Bearer Bonds
scandals, or then again, we may not be; we’ll get to that eventually.
But in this last week, there has been a new story involving yet more
trillions of dollars in fake bonds, this time involving the Vatican
Bank. Before we go any further with this story, however, I want to make
note of soomething else very significant. As many of you know, many
people send me articles on various topics, and part of my weekly(and in
some cases, bi– or tri-weekly) ritual is to go through all the articles
from various people that I have archived, and then select those which,
by dint of sheer numbers or other factors, seem to be of most interest
to regular readers here. I can honestly say that on this particular
story, so many of you sent me various versions of the coverage of this
story that it would literally take a paragraph of mentioning just the
initials of all of you who sent this story. In a way, I find this very
consoling, because it means many people are watching the international
financial news, and doing so with en eye to detail, and rational
speculation on what it all might mean.
Reviewing all of this, we end with the following intriguing data set of alleged facts in the case:
Two men claimed to have appointments with someone in the Vatican, though this is unclear. One source, the International Business Times, the last article referenced above, claims that officials, presumably Vatican officials, state that the men did have appointments, while another source, Newser, the
second to last source linked above, claims that the men themselves made
such statements, but that no appointments were officially logged;
One man appears to have been an American, and another was, according to the third
article linked above, was a Dutchman of Malaysian descent, an
intriguingly suggestive heritage, given the conspiracy obfuscation being
pushed both in the lamestream and alternative media over the
disappearance of Malaysian Air flight 370;
The Two individuals were allegedly known for similar fraud attempts
in Asia, according to the third and first articles linked above;
The Two individuals were subsequently released by authorities,
ostensibly because Italian law does not permit the arrest of individuals
who merely attempt fraud;
According to the Newser article(the third article linked above), a
search of the men’s hotel room recovered the stamps and seals used to
create the false bonds; and finally,
The bonds themselves were apparently denominated in US and Hong Kong dollars, euros, and were counterfeits of corporate
bonds and securities, rather than of alleged sovereign debt instruments
– a fact which distinguishes this affair from the bearer bonds
scandals, when gold-backed USA bearer bonds were recovered. The amount,
involved in this latest incident, however, some 3 trillion euros, or $4
trillion dollars, recalls the amounts of the Spanish and Italian Bearer
Bonds scandals, which were for 2 and 6 trillion dollars respectively. As
in all three bearer bond scandals, however, the bonds here are claimed
to be counterfeit. However, unlike in all three Bearer Bonds Scandals –
the Japanese, Spanish, and Italian scandals about which we have blogged
on this site previously - no pictures of the allegedly counterfeit securities accompany any of the articles.
III. PECULIAR PARALLELS
There are a number of peculiar parallels that emerge from these stories, and readers of my book Covert Wars and Breakaway Civilizations
will recall a couple of them. In that book, I detailed a Mafia scheme
that was uncovered by detectives of the New York City Police Department
to counterfeit some $900,000,000 of US corporate bonds and securities
and use them to create a fraudulent system of credit within the Vatican
bank, a scheme allegedly involving the then head of the Vatican
Archives, the well-known French bishop, Eugene Cardinal
Tisserant(readers will also recall that I reproduced the actual document
signed by Cardinal Tisserant confirming the “arrangement” with a Mafia
representative). Thus, the scheme at one level seems to parallel
activity that surfaced in connection with the Vatican bank some decades
earlier.
Other parallels closely resemble the
Japanese Bearer Bond scandal, in which two men(again!) were intercepted
by the Italian financial police, the Guardia di Finanza, at the
Swiss border, attempting to smuggle in $134.5 billion in allegedly
counterfeit US bearer bonds, ten of which, it will be recalled, were
denominated in one billion dollars each, in the so-called “Kennedy
Bearer Bonds.” What is interesting to recall in this connection is that,
at the time of the Japanese Bearer Bond scandal (2009) a number of
articles appeared in the Asia News, a Vatican-connected news service,
and these articles maintained, somewhat contrary to US government
pronouncements that the bonds were all fake, and that no such
billion-dollar denominated bond had ever been issued, that some of the
bonds were so skillfully “counterfeited” that they were almost
indistinguishable from the genuine items.
Additionally, like this most recent affair,
the two Japanese men’s counterfeit bonds were discovered in a
briefcase, and the two men were subsequently released by the Italian
authorities. Then, as now, their names were never released. We have then
not just one, but three points of resemblance between the two
affairs, and resemblances with yet another affair involving the Vatican
bank and Eugene Cardinal Tisserant.
What all this might mean for our customary High Octane Speculation will have to wait until tomorrow.
Buried Evidence: The Strange Death Of Brittany Murphy Revisited – Part Two
Brittany
Murphy met an untimely end and her case has become one of the most
enigmatic celebrity deaths in recent Hollywood history, revealing a cast
of characters in a bizarre tale that has led many to believe that the
death of the 32 year-old actress involved foul play.
This is Part Two of The Strange Death Of Brittany Murphy Revisited…
After looking back on Brittany’s rise to fame in Hollywood and her eventual untimely death at 32, we last left off discussing the forensic side of her case,
examining some of the troubling details associated with her apparently
incomplete autopsy, the questionable examination by The L.A. County
coroner’s office and the private investigation of Brittany’s father Angelo Bertolotti into the death of his daughter.
We
were told that Brittany had died of ‘natural causes’ following an
autopsy performed on December 21st 2009, even though certain toxicology
samples were not examined, most notably her hair, tissue and
fingernails. In addition, a Mees’ line examination was not conducted during the autopsy due to the polish that was apparently still present on Brittany’s fingernails.
Buried evidence
Mees’ lines, are prominent horizontal marks that can appear on a person’s fingernails when they’ve died due to - toxic heavy metal poisoning. It
is often listed that renal failure (kidney failure) occurs when Mees’
lines are present, particularly when acute kidney failure takes place, giving them the appearance of shock kidney’s from the traumatic septic shock they have undergone.
Even though Brittany is said to have suffered from diabetes and
hypoglycemia, it is clearly listed in the apparent autopsy report, she
had ‘shock kidney’s’ according to the coroner, suggesting the strong
possibility that she could have been poisoned.
If Brittany
did display some acute trauma to her kidney’s why wouldn’t the coroner
perform a mees’ lines examination, as the sudden shock to her kidney’s
could have suggested a different cause of death?
In February of 2010 the TheLos Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner once againconcluded that Brittany died of community acquired pneumonia, citing -pneumonia, iron deficiency anemia and multiple drug intoxication. It should be stated that No illegal drugs were found in her system,
as the substances in her blood were consistent with medicine taken for
cold and respiratory infections. Here is an excerpt from the autopsy
report that confirms the types of over-the-counter medications in her
system at the time of her death:
If
this autopsy excerpt is real, then what was behind the massive push to
portray Brittany as a drug addict, claiming she was hooked to illegal
substances, surely the coroner’s office could have set the media
straight with these facts following her death?
It’s well-known
the ‘dead circus’ that is Hollywood media likes to cook-up trashy
headlines and bloated tabloid features but in the case of Brittany
Murphy it appears as though there was a blatant disregard of facts
contained within her autopsy.
IMAGE: Angelo Bertolotti
Brittany’s
father Angelo Bertolotti (AKA AJ) has had two independent tests
conducted with Brittany’s DNA samples, revealing that it looked as
though she was poisoned by “a third party perpetrator with likely criminal intent.”
Both test have been funded solely by Bertolotti after filing a
subsequent lawsuit against the LAPD and the L.A. County coroner (Los
Angeles Superior Court Case No. 12E09661) to obtain hair, blood and
tissue samples for testing in 2012.
Bertolotti has been very
outspoken in his quest to find out what happened to his daughter and has
been unfairly attacked through many larger media outlets, some
inaccurately reporting that he wasn’t Brittany’s real father, a claim
that has undoubtedly been proven false. With all the recent gains in
Brittany’s case, Bertolotti was also seen on many talk shows and news
segments explaining the new results that were released in November of
2013:
“I expected to be attacked for embarrassing the LA
Coroner. These tactics of planting red herrings in media hit pieces were
predictable, but I’m still surprised at how low they are willing to go.
I’m sure that intelligent people can see through it all. There is
nothing natural in the way Brittany and Simon died. I don’t intend to
stop searching for answers, until their deaths are properly and
thoroughly investigated.”
After Bertolotti’s struggle to
obtain forensic results, it was revealed that Brittany’s hair contained
very high levels of heavy metals, most notably, the toxic metal Barium –
a common ingredient in rat poison. There were also abnormally high levels of Uranium, Selenium, Manganese, Antimony, Aluminum, Copper, Silver, Tin and Platinum.
The
possibility of foul play surrounding Brittany’s death was first brought
to Bertolotti’s attention by an unlikely source, a woman formerly
connected to the Depart of Homeland Security as a Customs and Border
Protection Officer, by the name of Julia Davis.
Terror within
On
the 4th of July, 2004 Davis had overseen the San Ysidro port known as
one of the largest border crossing points in the world, she was told
that this was a ‘date to watch’ by her superiors, as they claimed “Al Qaeda leaders were purportedly planning to penetrate porous U.S./Mexico land borders.” Julia had detected that 23 illegals from terror listed countries had entered the United States border without being properly processed over the course of a 24 hour period.
According
to Davis, the Department of Homeland Security failed to take proper
action after being alerted to her findings. Following their apparent
inaction, she sent her information to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task
Force, going outside her agency subsequently revealing the country’s
border gaps.
Davis was known as an exemplary
employee with an outstanding record, regularly receiving certificates
for her job performance. Following her border revelations, she was
subjected to some 54 investigations by the very organization she worked for and for a brief time was labeled as – a domestic terrorist, before later proving her case in a court of law.
Davis’s
home was subsequently raided by 27 DHS agents and a Blackhawk
helicopter during her arrest, a raid apparently larger than that sent to
the fabled Bin Laden compound. Footage obtained by a next door
neighbor was used in her documentary Top Priority: Terror Within.
IMAGE: Julia
Davis whistleblower and former Customs and Border Protection Officer
at San Ysidro Port of Entry – the largest and busiest land border
crossing in the U.S. and in the world.
During one of the 54 investigations into Davis, DHS, apparently installed a new supervisor named Susan Boutwell,
who had previously only worked as a clerk before managing the more
experienced Davis, after the former supervisor was forced from his
position.
According to Davis, Boutwell’s daughter was trying to
break into the film industry and it was ‘pure coincidence’ that
Boutwell’s daughter crossed paths with Brittany Murphy during an
audition.
Susan Boutwell used this information under oath and
apparently fabricated a story that Julia Davis was working on a film
during that period of time with her husband BJ Davis (film producer).
The date in question was on July 4th 2004, where Davis was apparently
alerting her supervisors that 23 illegals were improperly processed as
they entered into the United States at the port in which she worked.
Boutwell’s
incredible tale, according to court records was a statement given by
Brittany Murphy. This was later found to be a false claim, as Murphy
denied the statement, leading her to become a witness on behalf of
Julia Davis during Davis’s whistleblower trial. Murphy was unable to
testify due to her sudden death.
Was the Julia Davis case a motive in Brittany Murphy’s death?Certainly
a large media frenzy would have followed if Murphy had testified on
Davis’s behalf. Adding that to the strange forensic evidence that has
been buried, it leads many to question the official story.
Watch Red Ice Radio’s interview with Julia Davis and her husband BJ below.
This is part two of the interview where she describes the Brittany Murphy connection…
Red Ice Radio - Julia & BJ Davis - Hour 2 - Top Priority: The Terror Within
IMAGE: Following
Murphy and Simon Monjack’s passing their home was demolished apparently
a year after Sharon Murphy was said to have sold the property to new
owners.
Molding the story Sharon Murphy
sold the Hollywood Hills property formerly owned by Brittany, narrowly
avoiding foreclosure after claims of toxic mold being in the house. She
subsequently filed suit against her attorney’s after not being aware of
the possibility that Brittany and Simon could have died from mold.
What’s odd here is that coroner Ed Winter, put the
toxic mold queries to rest following Brittany’s autopsy, stating they
specifically looked for evidence of mold in the death of both
celebrities and did not find that it was a factor in their death.
Why
was Sharon trying to sue for wrongful death, when there clearly seemed
to be no case for it and why has she tried to put to rest theories about
her daughter’s death, when there seems to be evidence of foul play?
Was
this to distract from the attention she received in selling off many of
Brittany’s belongings on an auction site following Brittany’s death?
IMAGE: Simon Monjack and Sharon Murphy – a loving gesture with all the hallmarks of an Oedipalpossession. Hollywood love goes darkThe
dynamic at the Hollywood Hills home that Brittany owned was odd to say
the least, as there appeared to be something amiss among the trio that
lived there. Brittany was the real ‘bread-winner’ as Simon and Sharon
seemingly floated through their own prescription filled haze at the
residence, with Simon occasionally working.
Simon Monjack grew up in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire with his parents Linda and William Monjack, he
was said to have an above average IQ but often struggled to ‘finish
projects’ with very little output in terms of a film career, most
notably a screenwriting credit on Factory Girl, a 2005 film about Andy Warhol‘s drug-sex-kitten Edie Sedgwick. Monjack had apparently filed a suit to get listed on the film credits, claiming he had his script stolen.
He was raised by a hypnotherapist mother and a father who worked for
the manufacturing company 3M, a business known for tape and post-it
pads, that also has a hidden past in defense manufacturing in the 40′s after WW2.
Monjack’s father passed away of a brain tumor in 1986. Recently in 2010
3M broke into the biometrics industry with a $943 Million dollar
purchase of Cogent Systems, Inc. a manufacturer of automated fingerprint identification.
Some
say Brittany and Simon were friends when she was younger, however,
others have suggested that the couple met at a party in 2006, as it has
been stated that Simon talked his way into the New York and Los Angeles
film cult, befriending Hollywood insiders when he could.
In
2007, Brittany and Simon tied the knot in a private ceremony at her
home, prompting those around her to denounce the wedding, as some saw
Simon as a gold-digger, who was in custody for overstaying his visa just
one month before.
In the hours before Simon died he apparently
phoned his mother Linda, leaving her a message to tell her how sick he
was, Sharon was allegedly heard in the background saying that he should tell the doctor he had a temperature of 104 degrees. Linda stated she called up the Hollywood residence as she ”pleaded with Sharon over and over during those last hours to get medical help, to get him to a hospital, but she didn’t.”
Why wasn’t 911 called in time, as it apparently took hours for Simon to die?
When
the coroner came to gather evidence after Simon’s passing, it was
revealed that Sharon had apparently been sharing a bed with her
son-in-law, as her belongings were observed in the same bedroom. IMAGE: The scene at Brittany’s Hollywood Hills home following her death on December 20th 2009.
IMAGE: Lakshman Sathyavagiswaran
A catalog of errors
We
may never know the answers to Brittany’s case unless forensic evidence
is throughly looked at and a motive in her death is properly
established.
The manner of her death was determined as ‘accidental’ By Dr. Lakshman Sathyavagiswaran, the chief medical examiner -coroner and well-known pathologist in the L.A. County office.
Lakshman had also overseen the Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman murder case and was called to testify in the O.J. Simpson trial.
What’s important to note here is that Lakshman’s team of coroner’s were seen on video footage disturbing the crime scene, walking all over the place and going up and down the bloody steps leading up to the Simpson residence.
There
was also evidence of ‘passive dripping blood’ on the back of Nicole
Simpson, suggesting it could have been blood from the killer. According
to leading forensic scientist Henry Lee, they never even checked that blood sample. In
one piece of evidence against Simpson, a forensic blood coagulate known
as EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) was found. EDTA does not
occur naturally, suggesting it was mixed with the DNA in a post treated
crime scene, indicating evidence was tampered with. So
the question is, how has Laskhman and his associates at the L.A. County
corner’s office remained employed, when you consider the that they have
forensically botched cases before, according to experts in their field?
It appears as though Brittany’s case has also suffered at the hands of the L.A. County coroners office.
How many other Hollywood cases are like this?
BBC - OJ Simpson the Untold Story
“all their evidence, isn’t evidence, its corrupted.” – Peter Harper a crime scene expert, discussing the gathering of evidence at Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman’s murder scene. IMAGE: Was Brittany becoming more engaged as a political activist before her death? 21Wire
has made some recent inquires into this case, contacting the L.A.
County Coroner’s office, it seems at the moment there will be ‘no’ new
investigation from authorities into the strange deaths of Brittany
Murphy or her husband Simon Monjack.
Will we ever know what happened to this iconic star?
Sentencing Corrupt Bankers to Death by Firing Squad
By Patrick Winn
For the most part, American bankers whose rash pursuit of profit
brought on the 2008 global financial collapse didn’t get indicted. They
got bonuses.
Odds are that scandal would have played out differently in Vietnam, another nation struggling with misbehaving bankers.
The authoritarian Southeast Asian state doesn’t just send
unscrupulous financiers to jail. Sometimes, it sends them to death row.
Amid a sweeping cleanup of its financial sector, Vietnam has sentenced three bankers to death in the past six months.
One duo now on death row embezzled roughly $25 million from the state-owned Vietnam Agribank. Their co-conspirators caught decade-plus prison sentences.
In March, a 57-year-old former regional boss from Vietnam Development Bank, another government-run bank, was sentenced to death over a $93-million swindling job.
According to Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre news outlet, several of his colluders
were sentenced to life imprisonment after they confessed to securing
bogus loans with a diamond ring and a BMW coupe. And last week, in an
unrelated case, charges against senior employees from the same bank
allege $47 million in losses from dubious loans.
None of this would impress Bernie Madoff, mastermind of America’s
largest ever financial fraud scheme. The combined amount from all three
Vietnamese cases adds up to less than 1 percent of his purported
$18-billion haul.
But these death sentences nevertheless are high profile scandals in Vietnam.
That’s the point. Human rights watchdogs contend that splashy trials
in Vietnam are acts of political theater with predetermined conclusions.
The audience: a Vietnamese public weary of state corruption. But these
sentences also sound loud alarm bells to dodgy bankers who are currently
running scams.
“It’s a message to those in this game to be less greedy and that
business as usual is getting out of hand,” said Adam McCarty, chief
economist with the Hanoi-based consulting firm Mekong Economics.
“The message to people in the system is this: Your chances of getting
caught are increasing,” McCarty said. “Don’t just rely on big people
above you. Because some of these [perpetrators] would’ve had big people
above them. And it didn’t help them.”
Like most nations that crush dissent and operate with little transparency, Vietnam is highly corrupt.
According to a World Bank study, half of all businesses operating
within the communist state expect that gift giving toward officials is
required “to get things done.” Transparency International, which
publishes the world’s leading corruption gauge, contends Vietnam is more
corrupt than Mexico but not quite as bad as Russia.
Unlike in America, where judges can’t sentence white-collar criminals
to death, Vietnam can execute its citizens for a range of corporate
crimes.
Amnesty International reports that death sentences
in Vietnam have been handed down to criminals for running shady
investment schemes, counterfeiting cash and even defaulting on loans.
This is unusual: United Nations officials have condemned death for
“economic crimes” yet Vietnam persists with these sentences — as does
neighboring China.
Though statistics on Vietnam’s opaque justice system are scarce, a state official conceded that more than 675 people sit on death row for a range of crimes, according to the Associated Press.
It’s still unclear how the bankers will be killed. Vietnam’s
traditional means of execution involves binding perpetrators to a wooden
post, stuffing their mouths with lemons and calling in a firing squad.
The nation wants to transition to lethal injections.
But European nations refuse to export chemicals used in executions
(namely sodium thiopental) to governments practicing capital punishment.
Fraudulent bankers are receiving heavy sentences at a moment when Vietnam is enacting major financial reforms.
For decades, Vietnam has been slowly transforming its
communist-style, state-run market into a more open and competitive
arena. In the post-reunification era, the government owned every bank in
Vietnam. Today, state-run banks control only 40 percent of all assets.
This push to bank in a more Western style has ushered in improvements as well as temptations to swindle. According to the UN economist Vu Quang Viet,
Vietnamese credit laws passed in 2010 “simply copied the lax US law now
widely believed to be at least partially responsible for the financial
debacle in 2008.”
Campaigns to root out corruption are promoted as a way to entice
foreign investment, which could help prop up Vietnamese banks whose
growth has slowed from a sprint to a jog.
But the recent death sentences aren’t really intended to prove the
reformers’ sincerity to the outside world, according to McCarty.
“They don’t care about foreigners. It’s all internal politics,”
McCarty said. Foreign banking honchos wouldn’t be impressed by a few
executions anyway. “If you really want to want to resolve the problem,
you can’t just arrest people,” he said. “You’ve got to improve
accountability and transparency in the entire system.”
A leading Vietnamese newspaper, Thanh Nien, is also pushing for
system-wide cleanup in lieu of showcase trials against a few corporate
criminals.
An op-ed in the paper recently compared death sentences for corruption to fighting fire with fire.
The preferred approach would be dousing corruption before it burns
through public funds. “It is better to prevent corruption,” the paper
opined, “than deal with it after the fact.”
Copyright Patrick Winn, Reader Supported News, 2014
Originally published April 5 2014 It's happened before, in 1859; known as the Carrington Event, a large flare fried telegraph lines around the globe.
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) To the mainstream media, whose editors and reporters are
in lockstep with certain political ideologies and social mores, global
warming/climate change is an inevitable apocalyptic nightmare looming
just over the horizon. This was in evidence again recently, as
most media around the country breathlessly reported the details of a
just-released UN report that world leaders have just a couple of years
left to act to reduce man-made carbon emissions or we're all going to
die a horrible, smog-filled death. "There is potential for
crossing a threshold that leads to large system changes, and that's a
very unknown world that has severe consequences," declared Kelly Levin, a
scientist who studies climate change impacts at the World Resources
Institute in Washington, D.C., regarding the report's findings. So
the press, along with government-sponsored scientists who have been
funded by taxpayers to conduct climate "research" that has a
pre-ordained outcome, believe that man-caused pollution will destroy
Earth. Got it. Though real research has the jury still out on such
declarations (that, and the fact that earlier press reports have outed
some climate scientists, like those at East Anglia University in
Britain, who purposely falsified data in order to make it seem like
"global warming" was real [http://www.telegraph.co.uk]), the media largely remain wedded to their version of climate change "facts." But
what about genuine, provable and well researched findings which
conclude that the earth's modern technology could be destroyed by
massive electromagnetic storms generated by the sun -- storms that have
occurred, on smaller scales, for millions of years? No, that
kind of talk is "apocalyptic" and foolish (if for no other reason than
that the press has a real political and ideological problem with one of
the people who are trying to warn us about it). Mocking and derision for such a serious, and proven, occurrence It was that kind of mocking tone taken by one writer at National Journal,
known as a bastion of Left-liberal thought and political ideology, when
it came to "reporting" on concerns expressed by former GOP House
Speaker Newt Gingrich and a high-profile team of experts that sun-caused
electromagnetic pulse storms could destroy America's -- and the world's
-- power grids: Within a year, nine out of 10 Americans could
be dead. And whatever causes the national apocalypse--be it North
Korean malice or the whims of the sun--the downfall will ultimately be
our own fault.
That's the fear of Newt Gingrich and other members
of a high-profile coalition who are convinced that our fragile
electrical grid could be wiped out at any moment.
Their concern?
Electromagnetic pulses, the short bursts of energy--caused by anything
from a nuclear blast to a solar flare--that can wreak havoc on
electrical systems on a massive scale. And the coalition believes it's
coming soon. Indeed, according to Peter Pry, a former CIA
officer and head of a congressional advisory board on national security
-- not really the kind of position you get for being an alarmist or a
crackpot -- the threat is real enough. "I think we're running out
of time," Pry says. And if the worst does happen? Calamity -- no, not
the "rise-of-a-few-degrees" kind of "calamity" (warmer temperatures
would actually be good for Mankind, as this Stanford paper argues) -- but the society-ending kind of calamity. "This
gets translated into mass fatalities, because our modern civilization
can't feed, transport, or provide law and order without electricity,"
Pry said. As for Gingrich? Pry says he's known about it -- and
cared about it -- for years. Indeed, last year Gingrich told members of
Congress that an attack using EMP "could be the kind of catastrophe that
ends civilization--and that's not an exaggeration." And, as
Gingrich has argued, an EMP blast would not have to come from a nuclear
weapon; it could very well come from a gigantic solar flare that
triggers a geomagnetic storm that would wipe out not just America's
technology but the world's, throwing the planet back into the 19th
century. What's the harm in being prepared? It's happened before, in 1859; known as the Carrington Event, a large flare fried telegraph lines around the globe. And, as Pry notes, such events tend to happen every 150 years or so, meaning the world is currently living on borrowed time. Why mock that? Would a global meltdown of the world's power and technology be a laughing matter? What's
more, the solution is simple: surge protectors, in essence -- the same
kind we use to protect our PCs, laptops and devices -- only on a larger
scale, Gingrich and Co. say. Also, as National Journal reported: The
coalition wants such protectors placed across the electrical grid to
block harmful currents. In addition, advocates want to protect the
extra-high-voltage transformers we depend on with metal,
current-absorbing boxes called Faraday cages.
And more
replacement parts, especially the giant transformers that can take years
to make, need to be at the ready in case we lose critical pieces of the
grid. That way, even if an EMP damaged key infrastructure elements, the
U.S. would have replacements ready to go. As those in the
global warming mindset are fond of saying, if no such event happens,
what harm would it cause to prepare, considering that the results of not
doing so would be, well, catastrophic?
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is
protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole
responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products
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be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner.
Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this
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It
is time that we all became a little more self reliant? I think so. When
we look at the fact that the mainstream idea of food production is
becoming more and more out of touch with nature, it becomes clear that
we need to begin thinking about growing our own food.
While we can take the organic route at
the supermarket, sometimes the costs can be high and in the end we still
don’t quite know where our food is coming from. Not only that, many
times even organic food you are buying has traveled many miles before it
gets to your table -this means that there are less nutrients in the
food. Also, this method of traveling food around simply isn’t
sustainable nor a good practice that we put the environment through.
So what can we do to grow our own food? Here’s one option to get us thinking and possibly growing. This
is a hoop house green house. The plans included below will produce a 11
feet wide, 15 feet long and 7.5 feet tall finished product. You can of
course make this greenhouse as big or small as needed and you can build
it for anywhere from $50 – $200. Not bad considering that the food you
produce will be healthier, fresher, more nutrient dense and of course
you will know where it’s coming from.
I built my 50 dollar greenhouse
about 6 months ago and I thought some of you might be interested in
what I’ve done with it and how it’s performed so far. I have not used
any artificial heat in my greenhouse at all – so it does get cold in
there – but the climate in the greenhouse is much more temperate than it
is outside. I’ve found that even in the worst weather we have here in
zone 6 cold hardy things like spinach and lettuce keep on growing all
winter long – although at a slower rate than if it were warmer.
I haven’t installed any kind of automated ventilation system so far –
I just watch the weather forecast and if it’s supposed to be a warm
sunny day I open one of the doors in the morning, and close it in the
evening. This has worked pretty well, but I must admit that there have
been times that it was already in the 90s before I got around to
ventilating. I’ve really been surprised that all of my lettuce hasn’t
bolted because of it, but so far (April 15) none of it has. I must
admit that during periods of moderate weather the greenhouse is almost
like having livestock in that it requires a little bit of attention
every day. Also, it should be obvious that you have to water in the
greenhouse even if it rains outside – however your plants are protected
from the trauma of snow, hail, and torrential rain.
In Middle Tennessee (zone 6b) you can’t grow tropical plants or
produce fruits like tomatoes through the winter in an unheated
greenhouse like this. There are growers in our area which do grow
“hothouse” tomatoes so I know that it’s possible to do it, but I don’t
see that as being practical for me. If you live in a warmer zone
however it might be for you – check around to see what other people are
doing in their greenhouses. What I’ve Used My Greenhouse For So Far Fresh salads all winter – Because I built the
greenhouse so late in the fall I didn’t really get the salad greens
cranking until after Christmas, but once they did get rolling I’ve had a
steady stream of salad greens ever since. I grew many varieties of
lettuce, Teton (F1) spinach, and arugula (planted in mid February –
arugula planted outside on the same day failed completely while that in
the greenhouse literally grew like weeds) and they have all done great –
despite single digit temperatures on multiple occasions these crops
continued to grow all winter long, and I’m still picking greens from
seeds that were planted in November. Being able to eat home grown
produce all winter long was one of my main goals when I built the
greenhouse, and it looks to be easily doable. Extra early broccoli – Broccoli is one of our
favorite vegetables, so as soon as sets became available at the local
farmers co-op I planted some in the greenhouse. Well, I am
getting broccoli extra early, but the plants are also bolting to flower
extra quick because of the extra heat units that they are getting.
Next year I’m going to plant the spring broccoli under a simple poly tunnel row cover
to get a fast start and then remove the cover when florets start to
form. Broccoli as well as the other members of the cabbage family are
not freeze tolerant so wont grow throughout the winter in my greenhouse,
but should produce extra late in the fall – I’ll see in a few months. Extra early tomatoes – I’m still working on this. I
planted out celebrity and early girl tomato plants amongst the greens
about March 15 – a month before our traditional last frost date – and
they have grown very nicely so far. I don’t know if I’ll actually get
early tomatoes out of this experiment, but I have high hopes that I
will. I’ll let you know in a couple of months. Update – I am getting early tomatoes
from the early girl plants that I planted out in the greenhouse, but
they are only about a week ahead of others that weren’t in the green
house. However, I removed the cover from the greenhouse in April and a
few days later we had a cold front go through that might have been a
factor – I think I should have waited a bit longer, but the weather had
been really nice. I’ll try again next year. Enjoy gardening on a cold winter day – This is one
of the few things that you can do with a greenhouse that you can’t do in
a cold frame. Even when the sun isn’t shining the complete shelter
from the wind makes a remarkable difference in your comfort level, but
when the sun is shining it’s like a trip to the Keys. I took this picture on a sunny day in January when it was 5 degrees outside -
5 degrees outside - 50 degrees inside.
Notice the ice on the inside of the greenhouse plastic – also notice
the 70% relative humidity – on a 5 degree day the humidity outside is
like zero. It’s amazing how good 50 degrees can feel when the sun is
shining on you and you’re out of the wind. Garden when it’s raining or snowing – even if all you want to do is pick some lettuce or plant a few seeds – you are always in out of the weather. Grow out bedding plants – We grew about 6 flats of
pansies from seed last fall, but because we got that bright idea a bit
too late they weren’t ready to set out until late winter. The
greenhouse was the perfect environment to grow out the tiny plants to a
good size to set out. By the time we had spring bedding plants that we
needed to grow out we were out of room in the greenhouse. Next year I’m
going to try to plan for this a bit better. Things I haven’t done yet Extra late tomatoes – With some luck we should be able to pick garden fresh tomatoes until almost Thanksgiving. New potatoes for Thanksgiving – Potatoes are a cool
season crop, and I’ve read that you can have fresh new potatoes for
Thanksgiving or even Christmas if you plan right. Propagation – This year we had great success starting seeds indoors under lights by using a home made bottom heat propogating table. If you have electric service to your greenhouse (I don’t) you could start your seeds in the greenhouse using bottom heat in a cold frame, and you wouldn’t have to have artificial lights. Forced flowers – This isn’t something that I’m into,
but you should be able to force tulips and other spring bulbs into
bloom much earlier than normal by bringing them into the greenhouse.
Force strawberries – This is something that I am into. Next fall when I transplant strawberry daughter plants I might put a few of them into containers so that I can try this.
Kiln dry lumber – in the heat of the summer, cover
the floor to minimize humidity, stack stickered lumber, ventilate to
remove humidity while elevating temperatures as much as possible. If
you have electric service in your green house you could also seal it up
and run a dehumidifier – almost all of the water will be coming from
your lumber. I doubt if I ever do this, but it sounds like a good idea
if you can’t use the greenhouse in the heat of the summer anyway.
I don’t know of anything that I would want to grow in my greenhouse
in the heat of the summer (cacti?) and I intend to take the plastic off
of the frame once the weather is reliably warm so that I can use the
space for regular crops during the summer, and also to make the plastic
last longer. Weeds
It’s turned out to be a good choice to grow in raised beds instead of
in containers – containers would require much more frequent watering,
and would be much more likely to freeze than the soil in my raised
beds. However, next fall I’m going to add a thick weed free layer of
enriched soil to the top of the greenhouse beds to help suppress
weeds. Weeds haven’t been a huge issue in my greenhouse because it’s
relatively small, and fortunately most of them have been chickweed –
which is quite tasty. Pests Fungus gnats – These little buggers hatched out in early winter for a few weeks every time the weather would warm up for a few days.
Fungus gnats look like tiny mosquitos and hatch out in the soil to feed on organic matter.
Supposedly they damage your tender young plants by feeding on the
roots in the larval stage, but I couldn’t really see any evidence of
this. They mostly just beat their selves to death on the inside of the
plastic. Moles – Our area has been experiencing a biblical
type plague of mole for the last few years. Some areas of my yard are
solid with mole tunnels, and they have done some damage in the garden as
well. So far I haven’t found any way to control them that I’m
comfortable with. I’ve seen plenty of evidence of moles inside of the
greenhouse, but so far very little damage to what I’m growing.
That’s it – so far I haven’t really had any problems at all with
insects, disease, or vermin in my greenhouse. I’m probably jinxing it
by saying so.
Now that I have a little bit of experience under my belt using my
small greenhouse I see that this is a tool that I enjoy using and that
can extend the productivity of my garden throughout the entire year. I
wish I had built it sooner.
Posts
It
is time that we all became a little more self reliant? I think so. When
we look at the fact that the mainstream idea of food production is
becoming more and more out of touch with nature, it becomes clear that
we need to begin thinking about growing our own food.
